Jenia Gorbanenko is a PhD candidate (ABD) in anthropology at the University College London, specialising in the study of religion and outer space. She is a PhD researcher on the ETHNO-ISS team - a project funded by the European Research Council to undertake a multi-sited ethnography of terrestrial communities that shape the life of the International Space Station (ISS). Her ongoing doctoral research interrogates the Russian Orthodox Christian perspective on space exploration and their role on the ISS. Having worked in commercial and applied anthropology since 2015, Jenia is also a freelance ethnographic consultant/researcher.
Forthcoming events
* An introduction to the anthropology of religion in outer space, University of Zadar, Croatia, 28/03/2025
Forthcoming publications
* Gorbanenko J. 2024. A working typology of transcendence in anthropology, Religion and Society: Advances in Research
Publications in preparation
* Gorbanenko J. Anthropology of religion and science in outer space, in Jeevendrampillai D. & Parkhurst A. eds. Extra-terrestrial Anthropology, London: Routledge
* Gorbanenko J. Saints and cosmonauts, in Buchli V., Jeevendrampillai D., Mercier D., Petrou P. & Praet I. eds. Off-Earth Atlas
* Gorbanenko J. Praying with cosmonauts: Russian Orthodox in the space age, Analogia
Books
* Gorbanenko J., Jeevendrampillai D. & Kozel A. eds. 2025. Exploring Ethnography of Outer Space: Methods and Perspectives. New York: Routledge [open access]
Peer reviewed articles
* Carroll T., Lackenby N. & Gorbanenko J. 2022. Apophatic love, contagion, and surveillance: Orthodox Christian responses to the global pandemic, Anthropology & Medicine [open access]
Chapters
* Jeevendrampillai D., Buchli V., Parkhurst A., Kozel A., Bunch G. & Gorbanenko J. 2023. An Ethnography of an Extra-terrestrial Society: The International Space Station,
in Salazar J. F. & Gorman A. eds. The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space
Articles in Russian
* Gorbanenko, E., (2023). Krestnyǐ khod in orbit: enchurching science and the planet, Neprikosnovennij Zapas, 150, 4/2023 [open access]
Podcasts and event recordings
* Why do we build temple in space?, SOAS Japan Research Centre, event organiser, virtual, 25/05/2023
* COSS Catalyst: Space Temples, UCL Institute of Advances Studies, event organiser and host, virtual, 09/03/2023
* Orthodox Christian Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic, SciPod, podcast, 09/2022
* Anthropology of religion in space: Russian Orthodoxy and the ISS, University of the Underground, lecture, virtual, 05/2021