Norbert Pötzsch
Biogrphy
Norbert Pötzsch has been a Ph.D. student of ethnology since April 2025 at the Seminar as well as from September 2021 onwards he is also research and teaching assistant of Prof. Dr. Anita von Poser. On the one hand, he is interested in the development of agency, negotiation processes within religious communities, and, on the other hand, in the in the application of methodological and theoretical approaches of the Manchester School of Anthropology. In particular. His current research is titled 'Environmental Change and Agency: Interactions Between Persons, Material Entities and Energies in the Pacific State of Tonga' which focusses on climate change and the growth of motor vehicles.
Norbert Pötzsch holds a Bachelor’s Degree awarded by the University of Bayreuth with a major in ethnology and a minor in religious and Islamic studies as well as African history. From 2014 on he was engaged in several field studies in Tonga, and he spent one semester at the University of the South Pacific. Since 2017 he holds his Master’s Degree in ethnology awarded by the Georg-August-University Göttingen. His master thesis 'It’s me – but this is Tonga: The Agency of young Tongans' investigates negotiation processes of young Tongans within their present socio-cultural and religious contexts.
Since 2023 he is the speaker of the regional group for Oceania of the GASCA.
Research Areas
Agency, human-environment relations, environmental and climate change, religious influence on the self and society, Manchester School of Anthropology
Regional Areas
Kingdom of Tonga and Oceania
Teaching
SoSe 2023: “Ethnologische Feldforschung (Übung)" mit Lehrforschungsprojekt zu 'Wissmann in Bad Lauterberg' (2 SWS)
SoSe 2022: “Polynesien: Gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen und Diskurse" (4 SWS)
WS 2021/2022: “Eine Einführung in die Ethnographie Ozeaniens: De-/Koloniale Perspektiven und Macht" (2 SWS)
SoSe 2021: “Feldforschung und Ethnographie (Übung)" (2 SWS)