Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends

Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends

Professor

Ethnologie
Institutsgebäude
Schillerstraße 6, Room 419
04109 Leipzig

Phone: +49 341 97 - 37221

Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends

Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends

Institute Head

Institute of Anthropology
Institutsgebäude
Schillerstraße 6, Room 419
04109 Leipzig

Phone: +49 341 97 - 37221

Abstract

Since October 2023, Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends has been leading the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology. Prior to this, she held a professorship in the Anthropology of Africa at the University of Bayreuth. She has also served as an assistant and visiting professor at the Universities of Berlin (FU), Vienna, Halle (Saale), and Hamburg.

Prof. Behrends' research primarily focuses on themes such as mobility, refugee movements, conflict, interventions, resources, transformation processes, and possible futures. Her work addresses key anthropological issues related to politics, economics, and gender.

Currently, she is conducting a colloquium titled "Lifeworld in Crisis," which also corresponds to her book published by Hurst (London) and Oxford University Press (USA) in early 2024.

In addition to her role as President of the Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD), Prof. Behrends is an active member of several specialized academic associations.

Professional career

  • since 10/2023
    Head of the Institute and Professor for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig
  • 01/2022 - 09/2023
    Vice-Dean for "Early Career and Equal Opportunity", Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence (DFG) at the University of Bayreuth
  • 04/2019 - 09/2023
    Professorship for Social and Cultural Anthropology with a focus on Africa at the University of Bayreuth
  • 10/2017 - 03/2019
    Visiting Professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin (FU)
  • 10/2016 - 07/2017
    Visiting Professor at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna
  • 10/2014 - 07/2015
    Replacement Professor at the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
  • 10/2013 - 03/2014
    Replacement Professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Hamburg University
  • 04/2012 - 10/2016
    Principle Investigator of the DFG funded research project "Oil and social change in Niger and Chad", PP 1448: Adaptation and Creativity in Africa - Technologies and Significations in the Production of Order and Disorder
  • 01/2008 - 07/2008
    Team leader of the research project "Origins of violence, conflict mediation and reparation: a social-anthropological study on Dar Sila". Along with Dr Christine Pawlitzky, Dr Babett Jànszky und Prof Stephen P. Reyna. Funded by the European Commission in Chad.
  • 10/2006 - 03/2011
    Scientific coordinator and researcher in a cooperative research project on "Travelling Models in Conflict Management". Funded by Volkswagen Foundation. Affiliated to the Department of Anthropology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg http://www.scm.uni-halle.de/forschung/ergebnisse/travelling_models/

Education

  • 07/2018
    Habilitation: 'Staying. Displacement, Emplacement and Aid in the Chad-Sudan borderlands' (in English)
  • 01/2000 - 01/2006
    Postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, (former) Department I: Conflict, violence, and integration.https://www.eth.mpg.de/3578595/project_behrends
  • 01/1995 - 01/2000
    PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (magna cum laude) with the title "Tightrope walking. Women from Northern Ghana between education, profession and social conventions", Freie Universität Berlin
  • 01/1987 - 01/1995
    Degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology (main subject),Developmental Sociology (secondary subject), and City- and Regional Planning (secondary subject) at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU) and Technische Universität Berlin (TU)

Panel Memberships

  • since 07/2022
    President of the African Studies Association Germany (VAD.e.V.)
  • since 01/2011
    Member of the LOST research grouphttps://lost-research-group.org/staff/andrea-behrends/

For more than 20 years Andrea Behrends has built up her research focus on mobility, belonging, conflict, intervention, and resources through research projects, publications, and teaching. One of her major interests is how people live through so-called crises by continuously and flexibly adapting knowledge and by acting on and reacting to new circumstances.

Using approaches of the anthropology of knowledge and feminist- and post-colonial studies, her work is about processes of transformation, growth, and development, especially concerning anticipations and visions of the future.

At the same time, her research is concerned with exploring the potential of diversity in coexistence, including in situations of violence and conflict. She investigates the temporal, relational, and spatial contingency of social categories and how their 'members' strive for belonging and distinction. In this respect, she incorporates the fields of gender studies feminist anthropology, and the social study of science and technology (STS) in her 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, she pursues ontological and epistemological questions concerning the 'global south'.

  • Behrends, A.
    Lifeworlds in crisis: making refugees in the Chad–Sudan borderlands
    London: Hurst & Company. 2024.
    show details
  • Behrends, A.
    Renegotiating humanitarian governance : challenging invisibility in the Chad–Sudan borderlands
    In: Bjarnesen, J.; Turner, S. (Eds.)
    Invisibility in African Displacements : From Structural Marginalization to Strategies of Avoidance. New York: Zed Book Press. 2020. pp. 19–35.
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  • Behrends, A.
    Die Verwandlung von sudanesischen Geflüchteten in tschadische Flüchtlingsbürger:innen : Eine bürokratische Statuspassage.
    In: Dizdar, D.; Hirschauer, S.; Paulmann , J.; Schabacher, G. (Eds.)
    Humandifferenzierung : Disziplinäre Perspektiven und empirische Sondierungen.. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. 2021. pp. 106–132.
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  • Behrends, A.; Hoinathy, R.
    The Devil's Money : A Multi-level Approach to Acceleration and Turbulence in Oil-Producing Southern Chad
    Social Analysis. 2017. 61 (3). pp. 56–72.
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  • Behrends, A.; Rottenburg, R.; Park, S.-J.
    Travelling Models : Introducing an Analytical Concept to Globalisation Studies
    In: Behrends, A.; Rottenburg, R.; Park, S.-J. (Eds.)
    Travelling Models in African Conflict Management. . Leiden: Brill. 2014. pp. 1–40.
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more publications

Andrea Behrends teaches introductory courses in both the Bachelor's and Master's programs. Her courses include "Introduction to Anthropology" (BA), "Systematic Anthropology" (BA), and "Anthropology and Communication" (MA). In an accompanying writing workshop for the Master's program, her students explore the integration of their empirically collected data sets with theoretical analysis.