Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and The Ethnographic Collection

Curriculum Vitae


  • Since 2015: Study program coordinator the Centre for Modern Indian Studies and the Department for East Asian Studies, University of Göttingen; teaching on topics of the cultural anthropology of morality at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Göttingen, as private lecturer (Privatdozent).

  • 2011 - 2015: Senior Researcher in the network "Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia" (DORISEA) at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Georg-August-University Göttingen (funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and research (01UC1102A)).
    Research project: The social placing of religion and spirituality in Vietnam in the context of Asian modernity.
  • June 2010: Habilitation at the Georg-August-University Göttingen; Habilitation thesis: Schau nur, und also wirst du dich wandeln! Eine Studie zur Kulturanthropologie der Moralität unter den Qaqet-Baining von Raunsepna, Neubritannien, Gazellehalbinsel, Papua-Neuguinea (Look, and you will change yourself! A study on the cultural anthro-polgy of morality among the Qaqet-Baining of Raunsepna, New Britain, Papua New Guinea; to be published soon).
  • April 2010 - March 2011: Deputy professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin.
  • April 2003 - Sept. 2007: 22 months of research and fieldwork in Papua New Guinea (mainly among the Qaqet-Baining of East New Britain) funded by Gerda Henkel Stiftung (AZ 47/F/03).
  • Okt. 2001- Sept. 2009: Assistant Professor at Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, Göttingen.
    Research in the field of a cultural anthropology of morality.
  • April 2001: Publication: Das Räumliche des Kulturellen. Entwurf zu einer kulturanthropologischen Raumtheorie am Beispiel Fiji (Göttinger Studien zur Ethnologie, Bd. 7). Münster u.a. (LIT).
  • Feb 2000: PhD. Doctoral thesis: “Das Räumliche des Kulturellen” (The spatial dimension of culture) (Mark: summa cum laude).
  • Feb. 1997- Sep. 2000: Junior Researcher in the research project "Spatial organization, behavior and cognition in intercultural comparison" funded by the German Research Council (DFG). Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin, Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, Göttingen.
  • 1995 - 1996: 15 months of fieldwork in Fiji (funded by the German Academic Ex-change Service (DAAD)). Associated researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Suva.
  • 1994 - 1997: Research grant of the state of Lower Saxonia (Graduiertenförderung des Landes Niedersachsen).
  • 1992 - 2000: Research on cultural space in Fiji and writing of the doctoral thesis “Das Räumliche des Kulturellen” (The spatial dimension of culture)
  • 1992: Master degree (with distinction) (Master thesis: „Räumliche Strukturierung und strukturierte Räumlichkeit von Kultur“ (Spatial structuration and structured spatiality of culture).
  • 1988 - 1992: Studies in Cultural Anthropology and European Archaeology and Educational Sciences at the Georg-August-University Göttingen.
  • 1986 - 1988: Studies in Cultural Anthropology and European Archaeology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt a. M.