Cinzia Solari
Biography
Cinzia D. Solari (pronounce) is a feminist ethnographer whose work has focused on post-Soviet peoples making their way in a capitalist world paying special attention to the intersections of migration, modernity, and neoliberal capitalism. Her recent investigations into the use of pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric by nation-states on the international stage have led to her current research, which centers on nonbinary and transgender youth. She is a first-generation scholar.
Area of Expertise
Feminist intersectional theory; trans studies and education; migration; nationalism; neoliberal capitalism; global ethnography
Regional expertise: Ukraine and the former Soviet Union; Europe
Degrees
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
MA, University of California, Berkeley
BA, Brown University
Professional Publications & Contributions
Books:
Radhakrishnan, Smitha and Cinzia D. Solari (equal coauthors). 2023. The Gender Order of Neoliberalism/em>. Polity Press.
- Winner of the ASA section on the Political Economy of the World System’s Immanuel Wallerstein Book Award 2024
- Honorable Mention from the ASA section on Sex and Gender’s Distinguished Book Award 2025
- Honorable Mention from the ASA section on Marxist Sociology’s Paul Sweezy Outstanding Book Award 2025
Solari, Cinzia D. 2017. On the Shoulders of Grandmothers: Gender, Migration, and Post-Soviet Nation-state Building. Routledge.
- Winner, 2020 Mirra Komavrsky Book Award, Eastern Sociological Society (ESS
Peer-reviewed Articles and Essays (selected):
- Radhakrishnan. Smitha, and Cinzia D. Solari. 2025. "Beyond #Girlboss and #Tradwife: Reclaiming Joy by Expanding our Feminist Imagination." Contexts 24(1):28-33.
- Solari, Cinzia D. (first author) and Skylar Rathvon. 2024. Cedarwood Public High School Equity Report: Focus on Trans and Nonbinary Students. Conference papers – American Sociological Association, 1-40.
- Solari, Cinzia D. 2023. “Gender, Modernity, and Russia’s War on Ukraine.” Footnotes: A Magazine of the American Sociological Association 51(1).
- reprinted in Italian: “Geopolitica dell’omofobia.” InGenere.
- Solari, Cinzia D. 2019. “Transnational Moral Economies: The Value of Monetary and Social Remittances in Transnational Families.” Current Sociology 67(5):760–77.
- Solari, Cinzia D. 2016. “Theorizing the Ukrainian Case: Pushing the Boundaries of Migration Studies.” In Transformation of Ukrainian Migration to the European Union: Insights and Lessons, edited by F. Olena and K. Marta: Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, Pp. 215-227.
- Radhakrishnan, Smitha and Cinzia Solari (equal coauthors). 2015. "Empowered Women, Failed Patriarchs: Neoliberalism and Global Gender Anxieties." Sociology Compass 9(9):784-802.
- Solari, Cinzia. 2014. “Prostitutes” and “Defectors”: How the Ukrainian State Constructs Women Emigrants to Italy and the USA.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40:1817-1835.
- Solari, Cinzia. 2011. "Between ‘Europe’ and ‘Africa’: Building the New Ukraine on the Shoulders of Migrant Women." In Mapping Difference: The Many Faces of Women in Ukraine, edited by Rubchak, Marian J. Berghahn Books, P. 23-40.
- Solari, Cinzia. 2010. “Resource Drain vs. Constitutive Circularity: Comparing the Gendered Effects of Post-Soviet Migration Patterns in Ukraine.” Anthropology of East Europe Review 28: 215-238.
- Solari, Cinzia. 2006. "Transnational Politics and Settlement Practices: Post-Soviet Immigrant Churches in Rome." American Behavioral Scientist 49:1528-1553.
- Solari, Cinzia. 2006. "Professionals and Saints: How Immigrant Careworkers Negotiate Gendered Identities at Work." Gender & Society 20: 301-331.
Additional Information
Dr. Solari’s most recent book with Smitha Radhakrishnan, The Gender Order of Neoliberalism (Polity Press 2023), argues that our Western understandings of neoliberalism do not travel well because we have only acknowledged one of neoliberalism’s pre-histories: liberalism. The authors contend that we must also recover socialism and post-colonialism, which shaped the transnational networks that “cooked up” neoliberalism and our current world order. Placing three world regions in conversation—the US, the former Soviet Union, and South and Southeast Asia—reveals that gender is foundational to making the neoliberal global order work. The erasure of collective transnational organizing, and particularly the erasure of the Soviet Union from our collective knowledge, has made it seem there is nothing outside neoliberalism. The authors show that templates for feminist imaginings of an anti-capitalist, anti-racist world already exist and must be recovered to create a fairer future. This book has received the 2024 Immanuel Wallerstein Award from the ASA’s Political Economy of World Systems Section. It has also been recognized with Honorable Mentions from both the ASA Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender’s 2025 Distinguished Book Award and the ASA Section on Marxist Sociology’s 2025 Paul Sweezy Book Award.
Dr. Solari’s first book, On the Shoulders of Grandmothers: Gender, Migration, and Post-Soviet Nation-State Building, won the 2020 Mirra Komavrsky Book Award from the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS). Drawing on in-depth interviews and extensive ethnographic work with migrant grandmothers caring for the elderly in Italy and California and their adult children in Ukraine, this book investigates how migrant grandmothers helped build the “new” Ukraine from the outside in through transnational networks. By comparing two distinct migration patterns—one a post-Soviet “exile” of individual women to Italy, the other an “exodus” of families to the United States—Dr. Solari exposes the creation of new gendered capitalist economies and nationalisms that precariously position Ukraine between Europe and Russia, with broader implications for the global world order. This global ethnography offers critical context for understanding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.