Profile
Abstract
Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends is head of the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology. Her research focuses on the connection between lifeworlds and crises. Within this framework, she conducts research on mobility, flight, conflict and intervention, the environment and resources, transformation processes, and future perspectives. She researches, publishes, and teaches on general topics in social and cultural anthropology, particularly in the BA modules “Politics and Global Networks” and “Body, Kinship, Gender.”
She leads the research colloquium “Lifeworlds in Crisis” for doctoral students and postdocs. The book of the same name was published in early 2024 by Hurst (London) and Oxford University Press (USA).
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 10/2025
Member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA)https://miasa.ug.edu.gh/ - 07/2022 - 10/2024
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'.
- show detailsPlants and PoliticsMüllner-Riehl, Alexandra Nora; Ille, Enrico; Behrends, AndreaDuration: 03/2024 – 03/2026Funded by: Haushaltsmittel (TG51, Overhead)Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Ethnologie
- show detailsBehrends, A.Lifeworlds in crisis: making refugees in the Chad–Sudan borderlandsLondon: Hurst & Company. 2024.ISBN: 9781805261599
- show detailsBehrends, A.Renegotiating humanitarian governance : challenging invisibility in the Chad–Sudan borderlandsIn: 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.ISBN: 9781786999207
- show detailsBehrends, 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.ISBN: 978-3-95832-242-4
- show detailsBehrends, A.; Hoinathy, R.The Devil's Money : A Multi-level Approach to Acceleration and Turbulence in Oil-Producing Southern ChadSocial Analysis. 2017. 61 (3). pp. 56–72.
- show detailsBehrends, A.; Rottenburg, R.; Park, S.-J.Travelling Models : Introducing an Analytical Concept to Globalisation StudiesIn: Behrends, A.; Rottenburg, R.; Park, S.-J. (Eds.)Travelling Models in African Conflict Management. . Leiden: Brill. 2014. pp. 1–40.
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.