Curriculum Vitae

Education

2009-2013
Doctorate in Social Anthropology at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia.
Dissertation: "Being-Here: Emplacement and Displacement in the Life Stories of Two Somali-Australians"

2002-2008
Master's (Magistra der Philosophie) in Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna. Thesis title: "Orte des Nicht-Rechts: somalische Flüchtlinge und die Produktion rechtsfreier Räume in italienischen Internierungslagern" (Places of Non-Law: Somali Refugees and the Production of Spaces outside of the Law in Italian Detention camps

Professional Activities

2019-ongoing
Head of independent Max Planck research group "Alpine Histories of Global Change: Time, Self and the Other in the German-Speaking Alpine Region"

2015-2018
Postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern

Courses taught at the BA and MA level
"The Politics and Poetics of Storytelling: Narratives as Key Tools in Anthropological Meaning-Making" (2015)
"What is Experience? Disentangling an Anthropological Buzzword" (2016)
Class on "Refugee Youth and Integration" as part of the Master of Advanced Studies in Children's Rights at the University of Geneva (Institut international des droits de l’enfant) (2016)
"From Blocherismus to Trumpism: Theoretical, Methodological and Ethical Conundrums in Studying Right-Wing Cultural Practices" (2017)
"Introduction to Refugee Studies" (2018)

2013-2014
Postdoctoral researcher, Swinburne Institute of Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology

2010-2011
Research assistant, Swinburne University of Technology

Grants/Scholarships

2015-2018
Research grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation for the research project "Transnational Biographies of Education: Young Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers and their Navigation through Shifting Social Realities in Switzerland and Turkey" (grant proposal developed in collaboration with Prof. Sabine Strasser and Prof. Kathrin Oester)

2016
Emerging scholars networking grant awarded by the University of Bern for the international workshop "Existential Perspectives on Im/mobility"

2015
Swiss academy of humanities and social sciences (SAGW) travel grant

2009-2013
Swinburne University Postgraduate Research Grant (SUPRA)

Fieldwork

2015-2016
Ethnographic research including collaborative storytelling approaches and participant observation with unaccompanied refugee youth in Switzerland for postdoctoral project

2010-2012
Ethnographic research with Somali refugees in Melbourne, Australia for dissertation project, including participant observation, life storytelling and visual methods

2007
Ethnographic research with Somali refugees in Lampedusa and Milan, Italy

2007
Ethnographic research in Tunisia and Italy with migrants who crossed the Mediterranean for documentary film "Harraga"

Organisation of Conferences and Workshops

23 September 2022
"The Limits of Dialogue? Representing Informants with Right-Wing, Extremist and Exclusionary World Views."
Annika Lems organizes an international workshop (together with Prof. Klaus Neumann) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany.

June 2017
Conference "Ethnographic perspectives on unaccompanied refugee youth", Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern and University of Teacher Education Bern (together with Sabine Strasser and Kathrin Oester)

May 2017
"Anthropology Talks" – 3 day workshop and lecture series with Veena Das, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern (organising committee)

December 2016
International publication workshop "Existential perspectives on im/mobility", Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern (together with Jelena Tosic)

May 2016
Conference "Young unaccompanied asylum seekers and their learning strategies in formal and informal educational settings", University of Teacher Education (PH) Bern (together with Kathrin Oester)

Presentations at Conferences and Workshops (Selection of most recent)

Presentation Online symposium organised by the RMIT University Cold Climate HUB: "Thinking about Social-Political Hyperthermia: A Cold Climate Symposium", Melbourne Australia, 29 October 2020 (online event)

Conference Presentation at the EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe: "Tracing the Socio-Cultural Genealogies of Europe’s Reactionary Backlash", 21 July 2020 (online event)

Conference Presentation at the 15th Biannual Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA): "On Doing Being 'Normal': Unaccompanied Refugee Youths' Attempts to Escape Exceptionalisation", Stockholm, 14-17 August 2018.

Conference Presentation at Exploring New Links Between Transnational Migration and Education: "Between Inclusion and Exclusion: The Educational Pathways of Unaccompanied Refugee Youth in Switzerland", Antwerp, 21-22 June 2018.

Conference Presentation at Beyond Crisis: Rethinking Refugee Studies: "'They Only Help Some of Us': The Slippery Slope Between Vulnerability and Vilification in the Treatment of Unaccompanied Refugee Youth in Switzerland", Oxford, 16-17 March 2017.

Conference Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Swiss Anthropological Association: "The Educational Pathways of Unaccompanied Minors in Switzerland: The Slippery Slope Between Inclusion and Exclusion in Times of Crisis Talk", Lausanne, 10-12 November 2016.

Conference Presentation at the 14th Biannual Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA): "Navigating the Movements, Halts, and Impasses of Everyday Life: Young Eritrean Refugees' Hopes of Movement-through-Education", Milan, 20-23 July 2016.

Conference Presentation at the 23rd International Conference of Europeanists: "Unaccompanied Refugee Youth in Switzerland and the 'Refugee Crisis': The Emergence of the Child Asylum Seeker", Philadelphia, 14-16 April 2016.

Conference Presentation at the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations: "Displaced Stories: The Interplay of Telling and Being in the Face of Displacement", Naxos-Giardini, Sicily, 23-26 September 2015.

Memberships in Professional Associations

Australian Anthropological Association (ASA)
European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)
German Anthropological Association (GAA)
Swiss Anthropological Association (SEG)

Languages

German and Dutch (mother tongues)
English (fluent)
Italian (intermediate)

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