12 February 2022

Geno Goletiani
Tbilisi, Georgia
geno.goletiani@gmail.com

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Concerning: Ph.D. position in “Humanities and Communication”.

To whom it may concern

After getting a bachelor’s degree, I decided to pursue my academic career, which resulted in my
master’s diploma, which I received less than a year ago. Writing my master’s thesis about
“Symbolic Violence among Georgian Internally Displaced Women” revealed the importance of
studying events through the lens of masculinity and femininity. Since it was an unintended result,
I decided to elaborate on it while working on my Ph.D. Writing my thesis about women made
me invested in femininity and masculinity. Moreover, being employed at various music festivals
deepened my interests, and I became curious about new masculinities created at music festivals.
Furthermore, working at music festivals made it possible to do participant observation which
created a hypothesis that the fixed boundary between masculinity and femininity is vanishing.

There are several reasons why I am willing to conduct this research. Firstly, I would like to test
my hypothesis that music festivals play a significant role in creating new masculinities. Being
occupied at various music festivals showed me Georgian masculine men’s transformation. They
would wear dark clothes and act in a very masculine way outside of clubs/festivals, but they
were more open, feminine, and colorful during the events. Observing this process stirred my
interest. Secondly, I am willing to create comparative data between West and East, specifically
comparing two major music festivals in Barcelona (Sonar) and Tbilisi (Tbilisi Open Air). The
reason why I think it is going to be contributing to the field is that the Georgian dancefloor
evolves every single day, and there is a high chance that this comparison will make it possible to
envision the predictable path Georgia has to go through. I reckon that this envision will even
help some queer people get rid of difficulties connected to coming out, expressing themselves
freely, and being their true selves. Thirdly, since the music festivals are new to Georgia, the
academic data related to them does not exist. Therefore, the findings will be novel for social
scientists working in the field. Lastly, I would like to contribute to general knowledge in critical
event studies by incorporating gender studies into research.

The reason why I would like to do a Ph.D. is twofold. Firstly, the only profession I envision
myself in is being a professor. My ultimate goal in life is to teach others once I feel that I have
accumulated enough knowledge. Secondly, doing research under the supervision of an
experienced person working in the same field will help me effectively achieve my goals. In this
regard, the prospective supervisor with whom I will be working has diverse experience in music
festivals; she was an employee herself at various music festivals in Barcelona and is currently
involved in different research related to it. Since I aim to generate comparative data between
Georgia and Spain and have worked at music festivals in Georgia myself, I truly believe that the
cooperation between my future supervisor and me will be productive.

I believe my affinity to the topic and knowledge of different research methods make me a
suitable candidate for the program. I am willing to dedicate myself to research next years and
contribute to the field with my findings.

Yours sincerely,
Geno Goletiani