Profile of the Institute
The Institute for Social Anthropology at the Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg
The Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) focuses on contemporary developments related to new forms of globalisation and localisation and hence on the emergence and the contestations of a world society with transnational networks and all-embracing mediatisations. These developments raise new questions about old anthropological issues like universalism and difference. The challenge of revealing the blind-spots of Euro-American cultures by learning about other cultures is part of this contemporary process. From a methodological point of view, anthropology as practised at this Institute belongs to the category of qualitative and interpretive social and cultural sciences. Within this group of disciplines it sets itself apart above all via its central theoretical question: How is it possible to translate inaccessible alienity into intelligible alterity (from alius to alter) without losing the ontological difference in the process of doing so? The two chairs of the Institute have the denomination “General Social Anthropology”. Richard Rottenburg specialises on “Law, Organisation, Science and Technology” and Burkhard Schnepel on “Diaspora, Migration, Trans“. A third professorship is currently vacant.
The Institute currently offers Bachelor and Master programmes in Social and Cultural Anthropology and supervises around twenty PhD students. The Bachelor 60/90 ECTS and the MA 45/75 ECTS are combined study programmes where students can choose an additional subject from a wide variety of programmes offered at the MLU.
The Master 120 ECTS is a single study programme with a focus on building up research capacities, which are acquiered in the course of an empirical project carried out by students as part of their studies.
Both, BA and MA programmes are bilingual (German/English). Several instructors come from the adjacent Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.
Links to anthropological associations: German Anthropological Association , Deutsche Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft , European Association of Social Anthropologists , American Anthropological Association , World Council of Anthropological Associations