Our team members

 An applied social anthropologist and a researcher at PIL since 2019, Ksenija brings her passion for democracy and social justice, versatile interests ranging from resource management by indigenous communities to city development and tax compliance, and over a decade of hands-on experience in designing, implementing, managing and evaluating development projects and programmes across continents. Already in 2008-2010 she coordinated a democracy-in-action project that aimed at civil empowerment of young people, funded by the Ministry of Education of Lithuania. Later she designed projects and fundraised for an environmental organization in Belize, and supported community-run projects’ evaluation in Peru afterwards.  In 2016, she led two international teams of volunteers to deliver DFID’s funded entrepreneurship program for young people in rural Nepal. In 2018, she lived with the indigenous people in Panama, to study the social and cultural impact of highway construction in a previously inaccessible, densely forested indigenous area. Afterwards, she was supporting Argentina’s Federal Public Income Agency (aka National Tax Collector) to understand the taxpayer and especially tax evaders´ mentality and spent several years helping the city government of Buenos Aires to improve the cleanliness and safety of the city. Currently, Ksenija combines programme management work supporting civil society in countries that lack democracy, and research assignments at PIL. Methodologically, Ksenija brings expertise in qualitative studies, based on extensive literature review and carried out through ethnographic fieldwork (in person and/or digital) and specific methods such as participant observation, interviewing and focus groups.

In her earliest involvement with civil society empowerment, Ksenija supported 100 school students across the country to advocate for the improvement of mental health in primary and secondary schools, tackling bullying, and redesigning the process of national examination. While working in Peru, she evaluated three ongoing sustainable development projects - establishment and maintenance of a school garden, construction of bio-latrines, developing a rural tourism cooperative - making effective recommendations that saved the organization around a fourth of its budget, and ensuring sustainable continuation of the projects. In her role in Nepal, Ksenija successfully led two cycles of international volunteers (18-25 yo) to exceed development impact goals. She also designed and co-delivered seven waste management sessions to 250 local people in eight rural communities. Furthermore, Ksenija was the first anthropologist to assess the social and cultural impact of highway construction in a previously inaccessible, densely forested indigenous area in Panama. Her consultation around design and contents for the intervention for cleaner neighborhoods in Buenos Aires city (Argentina) resulted in a 40% decrease in incorrect waste disposal in the first month alone. Last, but not least, she supported over 50 human rights, gender and environmental initiatives to carry out activities empowering local people under a repressive authoritarian government.