Galina Yarmanova is a researcher and educator from Kyiv. They hold MA in Gender Studies and have over a decade of experience in feminist education, political organizing, and human rights work with marginalized communities.

Galina teaches queer and feminist theory at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and participates in several online educational projects for activists. Together with colleagues Maria Mayerchyk and Olga Plakhotnik, Galina co-edited a textbook on gender theory based on the Ukrainian context, “Gender for Media” (“Гендер для медій: підручник із гендерної теорії для журналістики та інших соціогуманітарних спеціальностей”) published in three editions: 2013, 2014 and 2017.

Galina’s research and educational work are a part of the newly emergent body of critical thought about gender, sexuality, and race in Eastern Europe. One of their recent collaborations included a project on the history of sexuality in late Soviet Ukraine with the filmmaker and feminist researcher Svitlana Shymko. Their short film “The Wonderful Years” (2018) received numerous awards and has been screened across Europe. Galina’s current work focuses on activist translations and self-archiving of queer feminist communities from Ukraine.

“I am excited to join the Civil Society Fellowship programme this year. I am thrilled to work with fantastic educators and activists from Georgia and Ukraine. I hope my project will help make critical theory and feminist legal analysis more accessible for marginalized communities working on reproductive justice, disability rights, and other urgent feminist issues”. – Galina YARMANOVA