Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology

• (R) Theories and Approaches to Ethnography

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  • 29710 Basic Course
    (GK) Essentials of Ethnography (Rosa Cordillera Castillo)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-15)
    Location: Ihnestr.22/UG 2 Seminarraum (Ihnestr. 22)
    

    Comments

    This seminar provides students with an introduction to the methodological and epistemological underpinnings and contributions of ethnography. We will situate this within a critical and expansive overview of anthropology, including tackling crucial issues raised by feminist, postmodern, indigenous, and decolonial scholars on methods, representation, power, and ethics and how these have shaped the ethnographic practice. To further develop participants' understanding of ethnography, guest speakers will share their ethnographies, be it in the form of monograph or film, to open a deeper conversation and reflection on ethnographic strategies, the methodological, ethical, affective,and theoretical challenges they faced, and the potentials and limits of ethnography in understanding, navigating, and addressing pressing issues such as racism, sexism, coloniality, and violence.

  • 29711 Proseminar
    (PS) Reading Ethnographies (Rosa Cordillera Castillo)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-15)
    Location: K 23/21 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    

    Comments

    Reading ethnographies is a vital part of anthropological training, alongside learning-by-doing. It develops researchers' anthropological and ethnographic imagination as well as inspires research design, analysis, writing, and other modes of representation. In this seminar, we will collectively read two to three ethnographies not only to gain insights into the diversity of cultures and human experience and challenge assumptions, but also to critically examine how ethnographies are constructed. We will reflect on research methods, voice, (co)authorship and collaboration, ethics, reflexivity, techniques of representation, and the relationship between data, theory, and analysis.

• (R) Methods and Ethical Questions

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  • 29720 Seminar
    (S) Methods of Ethnographic Research (Anika König)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-14)
    Location: Landoltweg 9-11 - 014 Seminarraum (Landoltweg 9 / 11)
    

    Comments

    Empirische Forschung ist ein essentieller Bestandteil der Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie. In diesem Seminar werden wir uns daher den wichtigsten Forschungsmethoden der Disziplin widmen und diese in praktischen Übungen anwenden, die sowohl die Datenerhebung, als auch deren Auswertung beinhalten. Empirical research is an essential component of social and cultural anthropology. In this seminar we will therefore focus on the most important research methods of the discipline and apply them in practical exercises that include both data collection and analysis.

  • 29721 Seminar
    (S) Ethical Encounters: Exploring ethics in Anthropology (Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-15)
    Location: Ihnestr.22/UG 1 Seminarraum (Ihnestr. 22)
    

    Comments

    Ethical Encounters: Exploring ethics in anthropological research This seminar critically reflects on the ethical challenges of doing anthropological research. It explores a range of topics, including the institutionalization of research ethics, conducting research on sensitive topics in contexts of vulnerability, navigating the complexities of silence, engaging in struggles for recognition, grappling with the politics of un/naming and in/visibility, and balancing loyalties and legalities. By delving into these themes, the seminar aims to encourage an exploration of how to establish an ethical research environment that reconciles often divergent ethical imaginations and expectations.

• (R) Current Research Topics

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  • 29730 Seminar
    (S) Queer Anthropology (Henrike Kraul)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2026-01-09)
    Location: JK 31/125 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    
  • 29731 Seminar
    (S) Museum Anthropology (Maria-Antonie Ellendorff)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-11-04)
    Location: JK 24/122d (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    

    Comments

    This course introduces students to the field of museum anthropology, which critically examines museums as cultural, political, and affective spaces. We will explore what it means to think anthropologically about museums: as institutions shaped by histories of colonialism, as spaces of (re)presentation and knowledge production and as sites of political, scientific, public and activist negotiation and dispute. Through a combination of seminar discussions and practical engagements, students will develop both theoretical and applied understandings of contemporary museum practice. About half of our sessions will take place in Berlin’s museums and “collections” or with museum professionals, allowing students to encounter the everyday museum work such as curation, exhibition-making, “collection” care, and community collaboration. These encounters will complement readings and discussions that trace key debates in museum anthropology.

• (R) Subject-Related Skills

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  • 15613a Seminar
    Queer-Feminist Theories and Politics of Time (Friederike Beier)
    Schedule: Di 14-16 (Class starts on: 2025-10-14)
    Location: Ihnestr.21/B Hörsaal (Ihnestr. 21)
    

    Comments

    Feminist and queer theoretical perspectives on time question and deconstruct hegemonic conceptions of time. They illustrate the extent to which time is structured in an androcentric and chrononormative way. Linear and monochronic concepts of time are critically examined by (queer) feminist theories, revealing gender inequalities in the experience and access to time. The temporality of care in particular highlights cyclical and polychronic aspects of time. Queer theories on time show how dominant heteronormative ideas of life events shape temporality and problematize these as ‘chrononormativity’. Theories from disability studies have critically questioned ableist time constraints and norms through the concept of crip time. In this seminar, we will examine various theories of time from feminist, queer, and decolonial perspectives, as well as disability and migration studies, to explore the connection between time, gendered, and intersectional systems of oppression. The politics of time aims to transform political and social temporal structures. Feminist time politics or chronopolitics aim, for instance, to reduce the hours of paid work to enable more time for care and the possibility for a more equal political participation. We will discuss the potential of queerfeminist time politics in overcoming chrononormativity and the acceleration of an authoritarian neoliberalism. The active participation includes a book review on theories or politics of time.

  • 29740 Seminar
    (S) Transitional Justice Through an Anthropological and Ecocentric Lens (Rosa Cordillera Castillo)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-16)
    Location: Ihnestr.22/UG 1 Seminarraum (Ihnestr. 22)
    

    Comments

    How do societies come to terms with the aftermath of mass violence and redress historical injustices in expansive and inclusive ways? We approach this quesion in two parts. First, we examine the contributions of anthropology to the field of transitional justice, particularly its attention to the social, cultural, legal, and political contexts that shape transitional justice concepts, processes, mechanisms, and dynamics at local and international levels. Second, we explore the ecocentric approach to transitional justice, which challenges the anthropocentric bias of dominant transitional justice frameworks that separate human concerns from those of the more-than-human. This approach foregrounds, instead, the interconnectedness of the human and more-than-human worlds, emphasizing how both are affected by conflict and why environmental concerns must be integral to reconciliation, reparation, and justice. By integrating both anthropological and ecocentric perspectives to transitional justice, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how to respond to the full spectrum of harms in conflict-affected societies.

• (R) Critical Thinking in and about Anthropology

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  • 29701 Colloquium
    (K) Thesis Writing (Dominik Mattes)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-14)
    Location: Landoltweg 9-11 - 014 Seminarraum (Landoltweg 9 / 11)
    

• (R) Research Project

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  • 29761 Project Course
    Research Project (winter term 25/26) (Prof. Mattes)
    Schedule: individuelle Termine
    Location: keine Angabe
    

• (R) Evaluating Research Results

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  • 29762 Project Course
    Research Evaluation (winter term 25/26) (Dominik Mattes)
    Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-10-13)
    Location: KL 29/139 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    

• Modules w/o courses in this semester

  5 Modules
  • (R) Public Anthropology 0338cA1.5
  • (R) Research Planning 0338cA2.1
  • (RE) Im/Material Cultures 0338cA3.1
  • (RE) Medical Anthropology | Global Health 0338cA3.2
  • (RE) Psychological Anthropology 0338cA3.3