Curriculum Vitae
Academic Qualifications
2015
Habilitation in Social Anthropology [second PhD in German speaking countries qualifying for full professorship], Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland, based on 8 peer-reviewed publications (Mentor: Prof. Dr. Julia Eckert).
2008
PhD in Social Anthropology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg & Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Germany. PhD thesis: “Irish/ness is all around us: the Irish language and Irish identity in Catholic West Belfast”. (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Schlee and Prof. Dr. Rottenburg).
2002
MA in German Linguistics and Literature and Social Anthropology, University of Hamburg, Germany. MA thesis: „Techniken zur kommunikativen Herstellung von Gruppenzugehörigkeit: Eine Gesprächsanalyse über Imagearbeit bei Obdachlosen“ [“Communicative strategies for constructing group membership: a discourse analysis on face-work among homeless people”].
1999
MSc in Social Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. MSc thesis: “Bewitchedful thinking: witchcraft and political instrumentalism in the Northern Province of South Africa”.
Academic Career
Since 2019
Professor and Chair at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
2017 - 2019
Full Professor of Social Anthropology at the Departement of Social Sciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
2015 - 2017
Junior Professor (W1) at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin, Germany.
2015 - 2017
Programme Director of the BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin, Germany.
Since 2014
Member of the Consultative Committee and Associate, Department III “Law & Anthropology”, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Germany.
2012 – 2014
Ambizione Research Fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland.
2014
Visiting Full Professorship (W3) at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Cologne, Germany.
2011 – 2014
Visiting Fellow at the Department of Anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
2013
Five-week Visiting Fellowship at the Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University, USA, in the course of the Ambizione Research Fellowship. [Sponsor: John L. Comaroff].
2012
Six-week Visiting Fellowship at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology / Division of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom [Sponsor: Harri Englund] & Visiting Scholar at St. Edmund’s College in the course of the Ambizione Research Fellowship.
2009 – 2011
Assistant Professor [Wissenschaftlicher Assistent], Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland.
2010
Visiting Fellow at the Sawyer Seminar “Property, Race and Poverty: Paradoxes of the Law and the Possibility of Justice in Contemporary South Africa”, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, & at the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria.
Since 2009
Ambassador of the Minority Research Network, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
2003 – 2008
PhD Candidate at Department I „Integration & Conflict“ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany.
2006 – 2007
Lecturer at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
2003 – 2004
Visiting Research Associate at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, while conducting 14 months of fieldwork in Catholic West Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Scholarships, Awards & Third-Party Funding
2015 – 2019
4-year Research Project (extendable to up to 12 years) within the Collaborative Research Centre [Sonderforschungsbereich] „Affective Societies“ of The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
2015 - 2017
Honorary Student Tutor [Vertrauensdozent] of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation [Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes] at the Free University of Berlin.
2012 – 2017
Five-year Visiting Scholarship at St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
2012 – 2014
Ambizione Research Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for individual career development (responsible applicant and main investigator) [see http://p3.snf.ch/project-137094].
2010, 2011
Three grants by the Berne University Research Foundation, supporting three blocks of fieldwork for the project “Land restitution and the moral modernity of the new South African state”.
2008 – 2009
Postdoctoral fellowship with the project group “Law, Organisation, Science and Technology in Africa (LOST)”, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Germany.
2003 – 2005
PhD scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Germany.
2001
Stipend by the Karl H. Ditze-Stiftung for the participation in the Summer School of the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University Belfast, on the Northern Irish conflict.
1994 – 2000
Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation [Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes].
1998 – 1999
Scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service [DAAD] for the participation in the MSc course at LSE.