Personenprofil

Professional career

• since 12/2015
  Series Editor, "African Social Studies", Brill
• since 01/2015
  Editorial board, Sociologus
• since 09/2012
  Full Professor for Society, Politics and Economy in Africa, Leipzig University
• 01/2012 - 07/2012
  Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Universität Uppsala, Schweden
• 09/2010 - 07/2011
  Guest Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich, Switzerland
• 04/2010 - 09/2010
  Visiting Professor, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
• 03/2009 - 12/2011
  Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, German
• since 06/2004
  Executive Board and Advisory Committee, Association for African Studies in Germany (VAD e.V.)
• 01/2004
  Habilitation in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
• 01/2004 - 12/2015
  Editorial board, Africa Spectrum
• 10/2003 - 09/2004
  Visiting Professor, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
• 04/2002 - 02/2009
  Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
• 01/2000 - 12/2007
  Coordinator, Working Group Africa, German Anthropological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Voelkerkunde dgv)
• 01/1997 - 12/2001
  Postdoc, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Education

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

My research interests focus on social and economic processes in rural and urban, anglophone and francophone West Africa. For my dissertation I did fieldwork about the everyday lives of Muslim women in the Nigerian city of Kano. At the university of Frankfurt/Main, I worked on the effects of an agricultural development project and about artisanal gold mining in southwestern Burkina Faso. At the university of Mainz I did research about Islamization in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso and the surrounding areas. Industrial gold mining in Burkina Faso was the topic of a research project I directed at the university of Leipzig. Currently, I am principal investigator of two research projects on urban socio-spatial navigation and on vigilantes in Burkina Faso.

Publications

2014 „Sind Städte in Afrika ‚unkennbar‘? Ethnologische Stadtforschung in Afrika“. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 139, 2, 159-178.

2014 „Local Religion or Cult-Shopping? A Sacrificial Site in Burkina Faso“. Anthropos 109, 399-409.

2012 „Transformations d’une élite musulmane en Afrique de l’Ouest: le cas des Jula au Darsalamy (Burkina Faso)“. Cahiers d’Études africaines, LII (4), 208, 845-876.

2003 „The President of the Gold Diggers: Sources of Power in a Gold Mine in Burkina Faso“. Ethnos 68(1): 95-111.

2002 „Matan Bariki, ‘Women of the Barracks’. Muslim Hausa Women in an Urban Neighbourhood in Northern Nigeria“. Africa 72(1): 112-130.

• 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
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• 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

more projects

• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.; Grätz, T. (Eds.)

  Mining frontiers in Africa : anthropological and historical perspectives

  Köln: Köppe. 2012

  ISBN: 978-3-89645-832-2
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• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.

  Introduction : identités urbaines à Bobo-Dioulasso

  In: Werthmann, K.; Sanogo, M. L. (Eds.)

  La ville de Bobo-Dioulasso au Burkina Faso : urbanité et appartenances en Afrique de l'Ouest. Paris: Karthala. 2013. pp. 7-41
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• Castryck, G.; Strickrodt, S.; Werthmann-Kirscht, K. (Eds.)

  Sources and Methods for African History and Culture: Essays in Honour of Adam Jones

  Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag. 2016

  ISBN: 978-3-86583-926-8
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• 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
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• Werthmann-Kirscht, K.; Ayeh, D.

  Processes of Enclaving under the Global Condition: The Case of Burkina Faso

  SFB 1199. 2017
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more publications

Katja Werthmann teaches courses on undergraduate and graduate levels. In the BA African Studies, courses introduce into various social and economic aspects. The courses in the MA African Studies look at livelihoods and life-styles and at the issue of „development“.

• 03-AFR-1502 "Local Economic Development"

  The lecture which I co-organize with Dmitri van den Bersselaar discusses forms and actors of local economic development using historical and current examples from Africa.

• 03-AFR-1300 Development Policy and Development Cooperation

  This course introduces to German and European institutions and forms of development policy and development cooperation with Africa, and the criticsm of these approaches.

• 03-AFR-1506 Crises in the Sahel

  The West African states of the Sahel zone, especially Mali and Burkina Faso, become increasingly weaker. In spite of a UN mission in Mali supported by the German army and other military initiatives, it seems impossible to bring the mixture of economic crisis, Islamist terrorism, social unrest and criminal networks under control. In this course we look at factors that are considered as causes of the current crises.

• 03-AFR-1702 Society in Africa

  The seminar discusses anthropological and sociological theories about social organization and sociocultural belonging in Africa. We look at various forms of social structures and relations such as for instance family, neighborhood, ethnicity, middle class, corruption or civil society.