Aleksandra Wojtaszek

Aleksandra Wojtaszek is a PhD student at the Graduate School for Social Research, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences. Through the lens of antifragility, her research examines how urban systems, informal processes, and institutional arrangements evolve through periods of disruption, focusing on how repeated disturbances generate new forms of knowledge, adaptation, and capacity for responding to future crises. She has held research visits at Marmara University in Istanbul and at the Center for Favela Studies at the Federal University of ABC in Brazil. Before her doctoral studies, Aleksandra worked in the NGO sector in the Middle East, contributing to projects such as the EU-funded MASAR on municipal planning and local development in Iraq. She holds a BA in Oriental Philology from the Jagiellonian University and an MA in Arabic Studies from the University of Warsaw. Her MA thesis analyzed urbanization processes in Jordan’s largest Syrian refugee camp, exploring the intersections of displacement and urban transformation.

Selected publications

Wojtaszek, A., Woroniecka-Krzyżanowska, D., & Al-Slik, G. (2025). Isolated Resilience: Urban Situation in Baghdad under International Sanctions (1990-2003). Journal of Urban History, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00961442251372939