Majda Hrženjak, dr.
Researcher
Neoliberalism sees economic growth and technological innovations as the only means of social progress. It overlooks that in last century important social innovations were inspired by civil society movements for equality like feminism, antiracism, fight for human rights, movements for the rights of gays and lesbians and people with disabilities.
– Majda Hrženjak on the progressiveness of equality
Majda Hrženjak holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Ljubljana (2001) and is a senior researcher at the Peace Institute. Over nearly three decades, she has developed an interdisciplinary research profile spanning sociology, gender studies and social policy, with a focus on transformations of care, labor and gender regimes, social inequalities and social reproduction. She has led several research projects funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency and coordinated international collaborative research initiatives involving academic institutions, and civil society organizations across Europe. Since 2024, she has chaired the Peace Institute’s Ethics Committee.
Her research has been published in leading international journals, including Social Politics, Journal of European Social Policy, Men and Masculinities, International Journal of Care and Caring, Journalism and New Solutions. Her publications include the monographs Symbolic: Selected Chapters from French Structuralism (2001) and Invisible Work (2007), and several edited volumes, most recently Dimensions of Care (2018), and Transformations of Labour through the Lens of Sex Work (2026, co-edited with Iztok Šori). Her scholarly contributions have been recognized with research excellence awards from the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (2012, 2022) and the Slovenian Sociological Association’s award for contributions to sociological research (2024).
Featured project
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Transnationalisation of eldercare – diversities, recruitments, inequalities (TE-DRI)
The research will provide empirical evidence and develop theoretical interpretation of diverse care mobilities that have intensified in eldercare in Slovenia in last decade.
Projects
- Affective Media: Transformations of Public Communication
- Research network FRANET
- Everyday life and life course of old people living in poverty
- Caring Masculinities in Action (Carmia)
- Transnationalisation of eldercare – diversities, recruitments, inequalities (TE-DRI)
- Early Care and the Role of Men (ECAROM)
- Occupational risks in sex work at the intersections of policy framework and social stigma (ORIS)
- Action Dad
- Equality and human rights in times of global governance
- Men in Care. Workplace support for caring masculinities (MiC)
- Boys in Care – Strengthening boys to pursue care occupations (BiC)
- Masculinities, equality, care practices – MESP
- Gender differentiation in media industry
- Care Work Between Individualization, Globalization and Socialization
- Promote Equal Pay to Diminish Pension Gap, Poverty and Social Exclusion
- Digital Citizenship (DIG-CIT)
- Prospects for Desegmentation of Labour market
- Study on the Role of Men in Gender Equality
- SIAPREM – Support for Intersectional Approach in Antidiscrimination Programs for Roma, Migrants and Elderly
- Changing Social Organization of Care and its Implications for Social Politics
- IGIV-Implementation Guidelines for Intersectional Violence Preventive Work
- STAMINA – Formation of Non-Violent Behaviour in School and Leisure Time Among Young Adults from Violent Families
- Informal Reproductive Work: Trends in Slovenia and EU
- Policies and Practice of (Non)Inclusion of Roma in Urban Areas
- PeerThink – Promotion of Intersectional Approach in Education Against Peer Violence
- Roma People in Ljubljana: Diversity of Perspectives
- FOCUS – Fostering Caring Masculinities
- Domestic Service and Social Economy in the Eastern European Region (International workshop)
- National Focal Point of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
- Development Partnership SIPA – System of Domestic Help (EQUAL)
- How Gender Meets Reality?
- Gender Meets Reality: Exchange of Experiences, Methods and Strategies for Gender Mainstreaming and Gender Trainings in Different Policy Fields
- Economy of Culture
- MAGEEQ: Policy Frames and Implementation Problems: the Case of Gender Mainstreaming
- Cultural Education Through Children’s Literature
- The Profiles of Women’s Magazines
Featured publication
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Aricle / Feeling the crisis, building the alternative: Women journalists in nonprofit digital media through the lens of feminist epistemology and the affective turn
Majda Hrženjak’s article, published in Journalism, focuses on three analytically selected cases of women journalists who co-founded nonprofit digital media outlets.
Publications
- Aricle / Feeling the crisis, building the alternative: Women journalists in nonprofit digital media through the lens of feminist epistemology and the affective turn
- Article / Affective Sex Work in a Post-Socialist Context
- Book / (In)Equality and human rights in times of global governance
- Book / (In)Equality and human rights in times of global governance
- Chapter / Multiple interacting migration patterns in senior care on Europe’s semi-periphery
- Chapter / Care Migration in Care Homes for Older People in the European Semi-Periphery Between Slovenia and Former Yugoslav Countries
- Chapter / Changing and challenging work–life negotiations for men and organizations
- Article The Intertwining of the Covid-19 Pandemic with Democracy Backlash: Making Sense of Journalism in Crisis
- Book chapter Trapped in the Institution: Governing the Covid-19 Epidemic in Slovenian Eldercare Homes from the Perspective of Care Micro-Mobilities
- Engendering media work: Institutionalizing the norms of entrepreneurial subjectivity
- Teorija in praksa: Special thematic cluster Masculinities and care
- Article Multi-local and cross-border care loops: Comparison of childcare and eldercare policies in Slovenia
- Dimensions of Care Work
- The First Gender: Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities, thematic cluster in ČKZ
- Book / Transformations of Fatherhood: Men between Parenthood and Work
- Politics of Care
- The Door is not Completely Open (They Need to be Pushed in Order to Open)
- Invisible Work
- Culture Ltd. Material Conditions of Cultural Production
- Cultural Education
- Making Her Up. Women’s Magazines in Slovenia
- Changes in the Role of NGOs
