Curriculum Vitae
Academic Appointments
2026
Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Palermo, teaching in the Summer School “Human Rights Between Legal Pluralism and Post-Liberal Policies”.
2026
Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, Universität Zürich, teaching the course “Transformative Constitutionalism in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Potentials and Pitfalls of Law-Driven Change“.
2024 – 2026 & 2019 – 2021
Head of Department for Anthropology and Philosophy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
Since 2019
Full Professor (W3) and Chair at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
2017 – 2019
Associate Professor (tenured) of Social Anthropology at the Department of Social Sciences, University of Fribourg.
2015 – 2017
Junior Professor (W1) at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin.
2015 – 2017
Programme Director of the BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin.
2014
Visiting Full Professor (W3) at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Cologne.
Research Interests
Justice and contested normativities; legal and political anthropology; normative pluralism; postliberal transformations; transformative constitutionalism; land reform and redistributive justice; public anthropology; justice in the Anthropocene.
Academic Education
2015
Cumulative Habilitation in Social Anthropology, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland, based on 8 peer-reviewed publications.
2008
PhD in Social Anthropology, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg & Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle. PhD thesis: “Irish/ness is all around us: the Irish language and Irish identity in Catholic West Belfast”.
2002
MA in German Linguistics and Literature, University of Hamburg. 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”.
Principal Investigator Positions & Research Fellowships
04.-09.2026 & 04.-09.2027 (scheduled)
Visiting Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Legal Unity & Pluralism”, Münster, on “Postliberal Affordances: Liberal Legalism, Normative Pluralism and Populist Critique in South Africa.”
2023 – 2029
PI of the International Max Planck Research School “Global Multiplicity – A Social Anthropology for the Now” (IMPRS-GM).
2024 – 2028
PI of the Scientific Network "Recht im Anthropozän (RiA) / Law in the Anthropocene (LA)” of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
04.-09.2024 & 04.-09.2023
Visiting Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Legal Unity & Pluralism”, Münster.
2021 – 2025
PI of the Scientific Network "Public Anthropology” of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
2019 – 2023
PI of the 4-year Research Project on “Sentiments of bureaucracies: affective dynamics in the digital transformation of German immigration management” within the Collaborative Research Centre „Affective Societies“ of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), co-led with Larissa Vetters.
2019 – 2022
Longterm Fellow and Group Project Leader of “Compensation Through Expropriation without Compensation? Land Reform and the Future of Redistributive Justice in South Africa” at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Stellenbosch, South Africa.
2018
Visiting Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Stellenbosch, South Africa.
2016 – 2017
Visiting Fellow at the Law and Society Institute Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin.
2015 – 2019
PI of the 4-year Research Project on “Sentiments of justice and transitional justice: the International Criminal Court in Africa” within the Collaborative Research Centre „Affective Societies“ of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
2012 – 2015
PI (own position) in Ambizione Research Fellowship “Land Restitution and the Moral Modernity of the New South African State” of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
2013
Visiting Fellow at the Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University, USA.
2012
Visiting Fellow at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology / Division of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
& Visiting Scholar at St. Edmund’s College.
2010 & 2011
Three Travel Grants by the Berne University Research Foundation, supporting fieldwork for the project “Land Restitution and the Moral Modernity of the New South African state”.
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.
2008 – 2009
Postdoc Fellowship with the project group “Law, Organisation, Science and Technology in Africa (LOST)”, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Germany.
Additional Leadership Positions
Since 2025
Advisory Board Member of the Centre for Legal Integration in Africa (CLIA), University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa.
Since 2025
President of the Rector’s Commission “Anton Wilhelm Amo” at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
Since 2025
Evaluation Committee Member of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for “Project Funding Social Sciences”.
Since 2024
Commission Member, Leopoldina - German National Academy of Sciences.
Since 2023
Programme Committee Representative and Teaching Faculty of the International Max Planck Research School “Global Multiplicity – A Social Anthropology for the Now” (IMPRS-GM).
Since 2021
Founder & Spokesperson of the Working Group "Politik- und Rechtsanthropologie – Political and Legal Anthropology“ of the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, DGSKA).
Since 2020
Convenor of the ANTON WILHELM AMO LECTURES, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
Since 2020
Honorary Student Tutor [Vertrauensdozent] of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation [Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes], Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
Since 2018
Member of various Editorial Boards: Public Anthropologist (PUAN); Zeitschrift für Ethnologie | Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ZfE | JSCA); Journal of Southern African Studies (JSAS); Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR).
2017 – 2025
Evaluation Committee Member of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for the career funding scheme “Ambizione”.
Awards
2015
Nomination for the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2016 by the President of the Free University of Berlin, awarded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) to young researchers as a distinction for outstanding achievement.
2014
Finalist of the Theodor Kocher Award 2014 of the University of Bern.
2003 – 2005
PhD fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Germany.
2003
PhD scholarship by the University of Hamburg (declined in favour of the Max Planck PhD scholarship).
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 Academic Scholarship Foundation [Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes].
1998 – 1999
Scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service [DAAD] for the participation in the MSc course at LSE.
1993
Valedictorian Highschool Award.
Ethnographic Fieldwork
Since 2010
Extensive multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa on land reform, redistributive justice and transformative constitutionalism.
2003 – 2004
Ethnographic fieldwork in Catholic West Belfast/Northern Ireland for the PhD project „Irish/ness is all around us: the Irish language and Irish identity in Catholic West Belfast“.
2000
Ethnographic fieldwork in Hamburg/Germany on ethnicity and political activism among ethnic German repatriates from Russia.