Received Sylff fellowship in 2025
Academic Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Lenka Jakoubková Budilová, Ph.D.
Current affiliation: Charles University
Robert Malík is a doctoral researcher in General Anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, where he has also taught since 2024. His dissertation investigates how Slovak Romani families negotiate identity and mobilize different forms of capital in the transnational space linking Roma settlements in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia with the city of Sheffield. He has been conducting return fieldwork among Roma in eastern Slovakia since 2014, and for the past two years in Sheffield, most recently during a research placement at the School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield. Using a multi-sited ethnographic design, his methods combine participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. His broader interests include migration and transnationalism, the role of religion in mobility processes, the dynamics of Roma settlements, and questions of ethnicity and identity.
He holds a master's degree in Ethnology and Sociocultural Anthropology from the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. He is a member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists and the Czech Association for Social Anthropology.
Outside the university, Robert is a project manager and field researcher at Giľora, z.s., an association that records and archives living Romani songs and supports Romani music, language and culture, and he is involved in educational work with Romani children.
Academic Achievements,Social Engagement Initiative
Conferences: WRDTP 15th Annual Conference "New Forms of Power and Resistance", Sheffield 2026; EASA "Anthropology: Possibilities in a Polarised World", Poznań 2026; Annual Meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society, Sofia 2024.
Publications: Co-editor and contributing author of Kaj som khere? (2025, ISBN 978-80-7656-130-4); chapter in Czech Villages in Serbian Banat (2022); review in Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift (2022).
Full list: orcid.org/0009-0001-0885-7506
Memberships: European Association of Social Anthropologists; Czech Association for Social Anthropology.
Social engagement: Project manager and field researcher at Giľora, z.s., recording and archiving living Romani songs and making them accessible as a resource for Romani music and language; educational work with Romani children.
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0885-7506
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-mal%C3%ADk-81b8b7104/
