About the Author:

Dr Kelly Hignett is a researcher in Central and East European history, focusing primarily on communist and post-communist Eastern Europe. Kelly is currently a lecturer in twentieth century history at Hull University and has previously also lectured in history at Keele University, UK and Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Kelly’s previous research has primarily focused on the historical analysis of law, crime and deviance in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, particularly on studying more organised forms of criminality. Her PhD research, which she is currently revising for publication, explored the  evolution of criminal networks in  East Central Europe from the 1970s to the immediate post-communist years. Kelly has previously published articles in peer-review journals and edited collections, contributed a series of short analyses of  contemporary East European crime issues to Jane’s Intelligence Digest and presented several papers about  crime in Central and Eastern Europe at conferences in the UK, Poland, Slovakia and Germany. She is also a principal research fellow in the Russian and Eurasian Crime Research Unit, based at Keele University.

In addition to continuing to develop her research into crime and deviance, more recently Kelly has also begun research into the borderlands of Eastern Europe. From an initial interest in the historical development of crime and attempts to control crime in border regions,  she has become increasingly fascinated with broader historical, political and socio-economic aspects of life among communities who have historically existed on the margins of state control. She is currently working on several papers related to this area and plans to develop her initial research into a broader comparative study of this area.

Contact Details:

You can contact me @ thevieweast@googlemail.com 

Recent Publications:

K Hignett,  ‘Co-option or Criminalisation? The State, Border Communities and Organised Crime’, in M Galeotti (ed), Organised Crime in History (Routledge, 2008 )

Major  Research Projects (current/forthcoming):

‘The Guardians of Bohemia: A History of the Chodove People’
‘The Historical Evolution of Organised Crime in East Central Europe: The Making of Modern Day ‘Mafias’ in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia’
‘Eurasian Borderlands: Change, Conflict and Continuity’

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