Dr. Ursula Probst (she/her) is a social and cultural anthropologist whose work critically examines the gendered, sexualised and racialised dimensions of labour migration and migrant health care in Europe, with a particular focus on European East-West inequalities. Drawing on queerfeminist materialist and postcolonial approaches, her research centres the body and embodied experiences as a vantage point for analysing the material and affective effects of structural inequalities in contemporary Europe.

She has conducted extensive ethnographic research with migrant sex workers in Berlin, which resulted in multiple publications, including the monograph Prekäre Freizügigkeiten [Precarious Freedoms] (transcript 2023, open access, in German). Since 2022, she has been examining the intersections of gender, migration, and labor exploitation in the construction and transportation industries. She has also researched the long-term sociopolitical effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among mobile essential workers in Germany.

Dr. Ursula Probst is currently a member of the Executive Board of the European Network for Queer Anthropology (ENQA) of the European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA) and serves on the Editorial Board of AnthroDesires, the blog of the Working Group  Gender and Sexualities | Queer Anthropology of the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology.

From 2023 to 2025, she served as a speaker of the Working Group Medical Anthropology of the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology, as well as a member of the Executive Board of the Medical Anthropology Europe (MAE) network of EASA. From 2018 to 2019, she was a coordinator of the Medical Anthropology Young Scholars (MAYS) network. As part of her networking activities, she has (co-)organised numerous workshops and conferences, most recently the Medical Anthropology Conference “Redefinitions of Health and Well-Being” at the University of Vienna in September 2025.

Her research on sex work, migration and labour exploitation has also been featured in public and media debates in Germany and can be read, watched or heard here, among other places:

• O[s]tklick Podcast “Arbeit, Migration und Ausbeutung” mit Dominique John (Faire Mobilität) und Dr. Ursula Probst, moderiert von Daniel Heinz (IMIS Osnabrück) (in German)

• Video recording of the presentation “Sex Work and the Embodiment of Eastern Europeanness” at the public conference “Anti Eastern European racism. Do we need an ‘Eastern enlargement’ of the racism debate?”, organised by Jure Leko, Aleksandra Lewicki, Jannis Panagiotidis and Hans-Christian Petersen (in English)

• “Sexkauf verbieten? – Der Streit um Prostitution in Deutschland”. Radiofeature von SWR2 – Wissen von Bartholomäus Laffert, Eva Hoffman und Nick Jaussi (in German)

(Global) Health and Mobility (MA), 2025, FU Berlin
Introduction to Medical Anthropology (MA), 2022, FU Berlin
Anthropologies of Neoliberalism (BA), 2021, FU Berlin
Methods of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2020, 2021, FU Berlin
Sexual Economies (BA), 2020, FU Berlin

Monographs

Probst, Ursula (2023): Prekäre Freizügigkeiten. Sexarbeit im Kontext von mobilen Lebenswelten osteuropäischer Migrant*innen in Berlin. Transcript. https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6600-7 (open access)

Probst, Ursula (2015): Von käuflichem Sex, Opfern und Moral – Perspektiven von Sexarbeiterinnen auf Rechte, Sexualität und Professionalisierung im Arbeitsalltag in Berlin. Weißensee Verlag.

Journal Articles (peer-reviewed)

Lewicki, Aleksandra and U. Probst (2025): Sex, care and the working body: Ambiguities of the gendered racialisation as ‘Eastern European’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2462779

Dilger, Hansjörg, J. Geeraert, T. Goronga, L. Mair, N. Mehran, U. Probst, R. Frankfurter, V.-L. Greiwe, M. Jaeger, U. Kluge, J. Pape, J. Plummer, H. Strohmeier, L. Vonk and S. M. Holmes (2025): Grounding global health in care: connecting decoloniality and migration through racialization. Global Public Health, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2025.2480646

Probst, Ursula (2023): Health insurance for the good European citizen? Migrant sex workers‘ quests for health insurance and the moral economy of health care. Social Science and Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115190

Probst, Ursula and M. Schnepf (2022): Moral Exposures, Public Appearances: Contested Presences of Non-Normative Sex in Pandemic Berlin. European Journal of Women’s Studies. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13505068221076386

Holmes, Seth, E. Castañeda, J. Geeraert, H. Castañeda, U. Probst, N. Zeldes, S. S. Willen, Y. Dibba, R. Frankfurter, A. Kveim Lie, J. F. Askjer and H. Fjeld (2021): Deservingness: migration and health in social context. BMJ Global Health 6(Suppl 1):e005107. https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/Suppl_1/e005107

Probst, Ursula (2020): Vielschichtige Lebenswelten, komplexe Vulnerabilitäten. Zur Lebens- und Arbeitssituation der Frauen am Straßenstrich im Berliner Kurfürstenkiez. Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung 33(04): 193-203. https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/a-1284-8806

Special Issues

Cancelliere, Francesca and U. Probst (2021): Being There: Early Career Medical Anthrppologists’ Perspectives on Contemporary Challenges in the Field. Anthropology in Action 28(2). https://doi.org/10.3167/aia.2021.280201

Book Chapters

Probst, Ursula (forthcoming): Memories of being forgotten: Pandemic experiences of mobile essential workers in Germany. In: Brunner, Pauline, H. Dilger, J. Häußler, J. Hornberger, J. Kalubi, T. Lagondy, S. Lee, M. E. Lubula, N. Morisho, P. Nichols, P., Z. Niu, S. Nyuke, S. Park, U. Probst, P. A. Senge Milemba, B. K. Seo: Pandemic Lingerings: Im/Mobility, Togetherness, and Contestations in a Global Crisis. London, New York. Palgrave Macmillan.

Probst, Ursula (2023): Gewalt in der Sexarbeit: Zur Notwendigkeit intersektionaler Perspektiven auf ein umkämpftes Themenfeld. In: von Auer, Katja, C. Micus-Loos, S. Schäfer und K. Schrader (Hg.): Intersektionalität und Gewalt. Verwundbarkeiten von marginalisierten Gruppen und Personen sichtbar machen. Unrast.

Essays and Multimodal Work

Probst, Ursula (2025): Moving through the Pandemic. Reflections of Mobile Essential Workers in Germany. Multimedia Collection for the Viral Atmospheres Online Archive.

Probst, Ursula (2023): Sich (nicht) kaputt machen. Blog Post im Rahmen der Produktion Happy Nights am Theater Bremen.

Probst, Ursula (2022): Sexarbeit und Krankenversicherung: Zugangshürden und strukturelle Probleme. In: Sexarbeit. Realitäten, Identitäten und Empowerment. Deutsche Aidshilfe.

Schnepf, Max and U. Probst (2020): Thinking Sex in Times of Corona: A Conversation. Somatosphere.

Probst, Ursula (2015): Stigma, Moral und Zwangsmaßnahmen. Gesundheitsversorgung für Sexarbeiterinnen? Blog Medizinethnologie.

Probst, Ursula (2015): Support for Sex Workers as Occupational Support? Research For Sex Work 15, 19-22.

Reports

Probst, Ursula, K. Buchner and M. Schnepf (2018): Creative Methods and Participatory Arts Research in Medical Anthropology – Conference Report of the 9th MAYS Meeting. Blog Medizinethnologie.

Huschke, Susann, P. Shirlow, D. Schubotz, E. Ward, U. Probst and C. Ní Dhónaill (2014): Research into Prostitution in Northern Ireland. Research Report.