Team > Andrea Behrends

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Anthropology in Africa

Scientific career

• Apr. 2019 - Sep. 2023: Professorship for Anthropology in Africa at the University of Bayreuth
  
• Oct. 2017 - Mar. 2019: Visiting professorship at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin
• Habilitation: Book manuscript 'Staying. Practices of displacement and emplacement in an African borderland' (in English)
• Oct. 2016 - Jul. 2017: Visiting professorship at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna
• Oct. 2014 - Jul. 2015: Assistant Professor at the Institute for Anthropology and Philosophy, University of Halle-Wittenberg
• Oct. 2013 - Mar. 2014: Assistant Professor at the Institute for Anthropology and Philosophy, University of Hamburg
• Apr. 2012 - Oct. 2016: Project leader of a research project funded by the DFG on "Oil and social change in Niger and Chad"
• since 2011: Member of the LOST research group
• Jan. 2008 - 03 Jul. 2008: Team leader of a research project on "Origins of violence, conflict mediation and reparation: a social-anthropological study on Dar Sila"(with Dr. Christine Pawlitzky, Dr. Babett Jànszky and Prof. Stephen P. Reyna), funded by the European Commission in Chad
• 2007: Founding member of an anthropological research centre in Chad (Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie et Sciences Humaines, CRASH)
• Oct. 2006 - Mar. 2011: Scientific coordinator and researcher in a cooperative research project on "Travelling Models in Conflict Management", funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, affiliated to the Institute of Anthropology and Philosophy at the University of Halle-Wittenberg
• 2000-2006: Postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Research, Department I: Conflict and Integration
• 2000-2001: Research association with the University of N'Djamena, Chad
• 2000: PhD in social anthropology (magna cum laude): "Tightrope walking. Women from Northern Ghana between education, profession and social conventions"
• 1997-1998: Research association with the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon
• 1995: MA in Anthropology
• Oct. 1991 - Feb. 1992: Research association with the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon
• 1987-1995: Studies at the Free University of Berlin and Technische Universität Berlin in Anthropology (major subject), Development Sociology (minor subject), and Urban and Regional Planning (minor subject)

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Anthropology in Africa

Research areas

For 20 years, I have built up my research focus on mobility, belonging, conflict, intervention and resources through research projects, publications and teaching. One major interest lies in how people live through so-called crisis situations by continuously and flexibly adapting knowledge and by acting on and reacting to new circumstances. Linking with this ‘lifeworlds in crisis’ research, my new project is about digital lifeworlds in African contexts, analyzing how digitalization influences people’s everyday lives in relation to, for instance, innovation hubs, mobile phone applications, security regimes, biometric registering or devices like robots, drones or smart technologies. Using approaches of the anthropology of knowledge and of feminist- and post-colonial studies, my work is about processes of transformation, growth and development, especially with regard to anticipations and visions of the future.

At the same time, my research is concerned with exploring the potential of diversity in coexistence, including in situations of violence and conflict. I investigate the temporal, relational and spatial contingency of social categories and the ways in which their 'members' strive for belonging and distinction. In this respect, I incorporate the fields of gender studies and feminist anthropology and the social study of science and technology (STS) in my teaching, in research exercises and in the supervision of dissertations.

Inspired by the concepts developed in critical practice theory as well as the history of anthropological theory, I pursue ontological and epistemological questions concerning the 'global south'.

Research and support interests

Politics, lifeworlds, mobility(ies), belonging, crisis, economy, resources, digitalization, transformation processes, emplacement.

Current research projects

Digital states and markets. Africa and the world.

Piece and conflict research

Andrea Behrends is a member of the network of researchers who work within Peace and Conflict Research at the University of Bayreuth.

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Anthropology in Africa

Publications

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Anthropology in Africa

Andrea Behrends
Professor for Anthropology in Africa

Universitätsstraße 30
​D-95447 Bayreuth

E-mail: andrea.behrends@uni-bayreuth.de