I am an anthropologist who specializes in Irish studies, conflict and heroism studies, gender studies, and migration studies. I have a strong publication record in Irish Studies, having published on the topics of gender identities in Catholic-nationalist communities in Northern Ireland and in the republican movement, as well as on gendered heroism, gender in conflict and post-conflict situations, and on the role of biases in social science research.

I was the recipient of the 2014 Emerging Scholar Award by ACIS West for my paper “Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland. On ethnicity, politics, and class, and on the nature of imagined communities.”

My latest publications are:

2023: Bergia, E. “Seductive Capital and Gendered Heroism,” in Scott T. Allison, James K. Beggan, & George R. Goethals: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. New York: Springer;

2023: Maginess, T. Wilbur, A, and Bergia, E. “Images of Incoming: A Critical Account of a (Mostly) Postdigital Photovoice Project with Rural Migrant Women in Northern Ireland and Canada.” In P. Jandrić, A. MacKenzie, J. Knox (Eds), Constructing Postdigital Research. Method and Emancipation. Singapore: Springer;

2022. Bergia, E. “Storia di un successo simbolico: le lotte dei detenuti repubblicani nordirlandesi contro la stigmatizzazione carceraria. Questioni sociali, culturali e di genere.” Studi sulla Questione Criminale, 24(2), 51-74;

2021. Bergia, E. “Unexpected rewards of political violence: republican ex-prisoners, seductive capital, and the gendered nature of heroism.” Terrorism and Political Violence, 33(7), 1378-1398