Profile

Professional career

• 01/1997 - 12/2001
  Postdoc, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• 04/2002 - 02/2009
  Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
• 10/2003 - 09/2004
  Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
• 01/2004
  Habilitation in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
• 03/2009 - 12/2011
  Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, German
• 04/2010 - 09/2010
  Visiting Professor, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
• 09/2010 - 07/2011
  Guest Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• 01/2012 - 07/2012
  Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Universität Uppsala, Schweden
• since 09/2012
  Full Professor for Society, Politics and Economy in Africa, Leipzig University
• since 01/2015
  Editorial board, Sociologus
• 12/2015 - 12/2023
  Series Editor, "African Social Studies", Brill

Education

• 11/1990
  Magister Artium in European Cultural Anthropology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/Main
• 01/1992 - 01/1993
  DAAD scholarship for dissertation fieldwork in Nigeria
• 01/1993 - 01/1996
  Dissertation writing scholarship, Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst e.V.
• 01/1996
  Doctorate (Dr. phil.) in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Free University Berlin

Panel Memberships

• since 06/2004
  Executive Board and Advisory Committee, Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD e.V.)
• since 04/2024
  Member of DFG review board 1.16-03 Africa-, America- and Oceania-related sciences
• since 01/2015
  Member of the supporting association of the Frobenius Institute for Cultural Anthropological Research

My research interests focus on social and economic processes in rural and urban West Africa. For my dissertation, I studied the everyday lives of Muslim women in the Nigerian city of Kano. At University Frankfurt/Main, I worked on the impact of an agricultural development project and artisanal gold mining in southwestern Burkina Faso. At the University of Mainz, I researched Islamization in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso and its surrounding area. Industrial gold mining in Burkina Faso and Tanzania was the subject of a subproject I led in SFB 1199 at the University of Leipzig. I also directed two research projects on urban socio-spatial navigation and on vigilantes in Burkina Faso.

Recent publications:

City Life in Africa. Anthropological Insights. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022.

"Beyond the Rhodes Livingstone-Institute. Anthropological Research in Urban Africa from the 1930s to the 2000s". In: Pellow, Deborah & Scheld, Suzanne (eds.), Africa and Urban Anthropology. Theoretical and Methodological Contributions from Contemporary Fieldwork. New York, NY: Routledge, 2023, 30-57.

"Women and the City: Observations on Muslim Women’s lives in Kano (Nigeria) and Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso)". In: Ramzi Ben Amara, Katja Föllmer, Lisa Franke, Laura Stauth (eds.), Re-thinking the Anthropology of Muslim Societies. Leiden: Brill, 2023, 341-361.

• Local Self-Governance for the Provision of Security: Vigilantes in Burkina Faso

  Werthmann-Kirscht, Katja

  Duration: 03/2019 – 03/2022

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Gesellschaft, Politik und Wirtschaft in Afrika
  show details
• Doing the City: Socio-Spatial Navigation in Urban Africa

  Werthmann-Kirscht, Katja

  Duration: 10/2017 – 09/2020

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Gesellschaft, Politik und Wirtschaft in Afrika
  show details
• SFB 1199/B06: Gold Mining and New Regulations of (Sub)National Spaces in Africa

  Werthmann-Kirscht, Katja

  Duration: 01/2016 – 12/2019

  Funded by: DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Centre for Area Studies; Gesellschaft, Politik und Wirtschaft in Afrika; SFB 1199: Verräumlichungsprozesse unter Globalisierungsbedingungen
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more projects

• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.

  City Life in Africa. Anthropological Insights.

  New York: Routledge. 2022.
  show details
• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.

  The drawbacks of privatization: Artisanal gold mining in Burkina Faso 1986-2016

  Resources Policy. 2017. pp. 418–426.

  DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2017.04.007
  show details
• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.

  Women and the City: Observations on Muslim Women’s lives in Kano (Nigeria) and Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso)

  In: Ben Amara, R.; Föllmer, K.; Franke, L.; Stauth, L. (Eds.)

  Re-thinking the Anthropology of Muslim Societies. Leiden: Brill. 2023. pp. 341–361.
  show details
• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.

  Urban Anthropology: Sub-Saharan Africa (2023)

  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2466
  show details
• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.; Sanogo, M. L. (Eds.)

  La ville de Bobo-Dioulasso au Burkina Faso. Urbanité et appartenances en Afrique de l’ouest

  Paris: Karthala. 2013.

  ISBN: 9782811107987
  show details

more publications

In the BA African Studies, the courses introduce various social and economic aspects. The seminars in the MA African Studies deal with forms of livelihood and lifestyle and with questions of "development".

• 03-AFR-1200 Society and Economy in Africa

  The lecture introduces aspects of social and economic action in contemporary Africa. It outlines answers to questions such as "Do women in Africa work for their husbands?", "How reliable are figures on the economy in Africa?", "Is 'civil society' in Africa conducive to democracy?" or "How corrupt are African countries?".

• 03-AFR-1200 Society in Africa

  The course "Society in Africa" deepens the topics of the lecture by means of selected texts from anthropology, sociology of development, social geography and economic history.

• 03-AFR-1300 Development Policy and Development Cooperation

  In this course we deal with German and European institutions and forms of development policy and development cooperation with Africa as well as the criticism of them.

• 03-AFR-1502 Local Economic Development in Africa

  The seminar deals with forms and actors of local economic development in Africa in the context of global interdependencies. Using historical and current examples, topics such as pre-colonial trade networks, colonial agricultural policy, industrialization, export of raw materials, cash crops, gender and entrepreneurship will be discussed. This also involves problematizing the term "development" and its use in academic and political debates.

• 03-AFR-1506 Current Issues

  The course "Current Issues" deals with current events in Western and Central Africa, e.g. by means of an evaluation of media reports.

• 03-AFR-1606 Current Issues

  The course "Current Issues" deals with current events in Eastern and Southern Africa, e.g. by means of an evaluation of media reports.

• 03-AFR-1702 Society in Africa

  In this seminar we discuss ethnological and sociological theories of social organization and sociocultural belonging in Africa. We look at different forms of social structures and relationships, such as family, neighborhood, ethnicity, middle class, corruption or civil society.

• 03-AFR-2113 Debates about Development

  In this seminar, we engage with humanities and social science debates on development in Africa. After an introduction to the history of the concept of development, we analyze critical perspectives from anthropology, history, political science and sociology of development. We discuss various topics such as development and (post-)colonialism, development and gender, African socialism and capitalism, entrepreneurship and informal economy.

• 03-AFR-2115 Ways of Life and Livelihoods in Africa

  This seminar explores the diversity of lifestyles and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa, using trade diasporas, the "informal" sector, resource extraction, and gendered forms of entrepreneurship as examples. Students will read and discuss theoretical, methodological, and applied approaches to the study of income generation and lifestyles and milleus in rural and urban Africa in the context of global economic and social processes.