Academic Education

Jan 2020
Issue of the doctoral certificate

2012 - 2017

PhD studies (scholarship holder) at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne and at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne; Title of the PhD thesis: Fear the Spirits, Love Each Other. Kinship and Sociality Among the Khmu Yuan of Northern Laos

2005 - 2012

Studies of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Philosophy and Botany at the University of Cologne; MA-thesis (with distinction): Die Klimaethnologie. Kernfragen eines Forschungsbereiches

Academic Positions

Since 10/2022

Guest Professor (replacement of the vacant W3-professorship) at Freie Universität Berlin

04/2019 – 05/2022
Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Anthropology, Heidelberg University (third-party funded; paused for the period of the guest lectureship)

10/2020- 09/2021
Substitution of the chair of Prof. Dr. Birgitt Röttger-Rössler at the Freie Universität Berlin in teaching (guest lectureship)

2017 – 2019
Lectureships at the Anthropology Departments of the Universities Cologne and Münster

2012 – 2013
Lectureships at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne

2012 – 2014
Research assistant at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne

2008 – 2010
Student assistant at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne        

Research Themes

Socioeconomic change, Aspirations, Future-Making, Houses and Architectural Transformations, Materiality, Kinship, Sociality, Exchange, Human-Environment Relations, Methodology

Regional Expertise

Upland Laos, Southeast Asia

Summer term 2021

Methoden der Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie

Desiring the State? Ethnographien zu Staat und Gesellschaft in Südostasien

Winter term 20/21

Einführung in die Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie

New Animism.A classic anthropological topic revisited

Von Geistern zur ontologischen Wende. Gegenwärtige Forschungsfragen zum Animismus

Summer term 2020

Introduction to the Anthropology of the House

Winter term 2018/2019

Reis, Kautschuk und Kosmetik. Rezente Ethnologie des sozio-ökonomischen Wandels in Südostasien

Neue Perspektiven auf Verwandtschaft und Sozialität

Summer term 2018

Forschungskolloquium

Von Mandala zu Mobile Phone Monk: Konzepte von Person und Gesellschaft in Südostasien

Summer term 2017

Ethnographie Lesen: Catherine Allertons Potent Landscapes

Winter term 2012/2013

Neue Perspektiven der Verwandtschaftsethnologie

Research projects

Making Aspirations Concrete: The Rise of Concrete Houses and Current Socio-Economic Change in Upland Southeast Asia (2019-2022)

What can we learn from the wide-spread transformations of houses in Southeast Asia and beyond? By taking the house and its transformations as a starting point or “prism”, hitherto unexplored facets and repercussion of socio-economic change can be illuminated, for the house manifests aspirations for development and prosperity in particular intimate ways and is a vital site of future- and world-making projects.

Amidst the dynamic societies of Southeast Asia, lives in Laos are changing particularly rapidly. While the current processes of socio-economic change in Laos have received increasing attention by social scientists, the role of local aspirations and their manifestation in ʻmodernʼ houses is hitherto unexplored. The proposed research aims to take modern houses and the aspirations they encapsulate as a prism through which upland initiatives of socio-economic change can be illuminated. Which aspirations and images of desirable futures are tied to the image of modern houses? In how far reinforce or transform the new materiality of houses, the changes of the construction process, and the social and cosmological dimensions of houses one another?

Das Projekt wurde finanziert durch ein Postdoc Stipendium der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

Concepts and Practices of Kinship and Sociality Among the Khmu Yuan of Northwestern Laos (2013-2017)

In this project local notions and practices of kinship and sociality were studied in 14 months of fieldwork (2013, 2014-15) in a Khmu Yuan village in northern Laos. The dynamics of kinship in this upland area have, with few exceptions, not been given ethnographic attention to since the 1970s. As this study shows, the processes involved in this seemingly rigidly structured kinship setting, characterised by features which were of major interest to classical kinship studies such as the institution of houses, patrilineal kin groups and matrilateral cross-cousin marriage, in fact, present us with new avenues of thought in contemporary kinship studies: the reflection of this particular setting allows us, for instance, to illuminate how "given" kin ties are made into actual ties of mutual commitment.

Journal articles (peer-review)

2021. Listening through houses in northern Laos. ANUAC: Rivista Della Società Italiana Di Antropologia Culturale 10 (2): 155-176. DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-4560

2021. Upland Pioneers – An Introduction. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 29(3): 635-650. DOI: 10.1111/1469-8676.13089

2021. ‘Before others’: Construction pioneers in the uplands of northwestern Laos. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 29(3): 718-732. DOI: 10.1111/1469-8676.13091

2021. ‘The disease will come!’ Contingency, Irony and Challenging Closures in Ethnographic Writing. Ethnoscripts 23(1). , https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/ethnoscripts/article/view/1667

2020. Emerging Public Spaces in Rural Laos. Civilisations. Revue internationale d’anthropologie et de sciences humaines 69: 171-193. DOI : 10.4000/civilisations.5948

2020. By Means of Squirrels and Eggs. Kinship and mutual recognition among the Khmu Yuan of Northern Laos. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 10 (2): 548–560. DOI: 10.1086/709506

2019. Making aspirations concrete? ‘Good houses’ and mockery in upland Laos. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology. DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2019.1696864

2018. 'Spirits Follow the Words.' Stories as Spirit Traces among the Khmu of Northern Laos. Social Analysis 62 (3): 109-127. DOI: 10.3167/sa.2018.62030

Monographs and Thesis

2021. Living Kinship, Fearing Spirits. Sociality among the Khmu of Northern Laos. Kopenhagen: NIAS Press. Nominiert für den EuroSEAS Social Science Book Prize 2022.

2017. Fear the Spirits, Love Each Other. Kinship and Sociality Among the Khmu Yuan of Northern Laos. Universität zu Köln: Unveröffentlichte Dissertation.

2011. Die Klimaethnologie. Kernfragen eines Forschungsbereiches. Universität zu Köln: Unveröffentlichte Magisterarbeit.

Edited Volumes

2022. Ethnographic Encounters. Köln: Köppe. Herausgegeben zusammen mit Michaela Haug.

2021. Upland Pioneers: Aspiration, Future-Making and Emerging Elites in Upland Southeast Asia. Sonderausgabe veröffentlicht in Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale; in Zusammenarbeit mit Oliver Tappe.

2020. Being a Parent in the Field. Implications and Challenges of Accompanied Fieldwork. Bielefeld: Transcript. Herausgegeben zusammen mit Fabienne Braukmann, Michaela Haug and Katja Metzmacher.

Chapters

2022. Not a Forest. In Ethnographic Encounters edited by Michaela Haug und Rosalie Stolz, Köln: Köppe.

2022. (zusammen mit Michaela Haug) Vorwort. In Ethnographic Encounters edited by Michaela Haug und Rosalie Stolz, Köln: Köppe.

2020a. (zusammen mit Katja Metzmacher, Michaela Haug und Fabienne Braukmann). Introduction: On Being a Parent in the Field. Theoretical and Methodological Implications of Accompanied Fieldwork with the Family. In Being a Parent in the Field. Implications and Challenges of Accompanied Fieldwork edited by Fabienne Braukmann, Michaela Haug, Katja Metzmacher and Rosalie Stolz, Bielefeld: Transcript. Pp. 7-34.

2020b. Falling in and out of sync. Relative immersive processes and immersive processes with relatives in a Khmu village. In Being a Parent in the Field. Implications and Challenges of Accompanied Fieldwork edited by Fabienne Braukmann, Michaela Haug, Katja Metzmacher and Rosalie Stolz, Bielefeld: Transcript. Pp. 143-161.

2015.  A Few Impressions of Doing Fieldwork on Kinship and Sociality Among the Khmu Yuan in Northern Laos. In a.r.t.e.s. Jahrbuch 2014/2015, pp. 106-113.

Outreach

Podcast „Living Kinship, Fearing Spirits in Laos with Rosalie Stolz“, The Nordic Asia Podcast, 05.03.2021, https://nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast/podcasts/living-kinship/

„Forschen mit Familie“ (zusammen mit Fabienne Braukmann, Michaela Haug und Katja Metzmacher), in Mituns,Zeitschrift für die Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter der Universität zu Köln, September 2018, pp. 4-5.

Podcast “Laos. Familie gibt es nicht“, Deutschlandfunk Nova, 30.04.2016, https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/laos-ein-jahr-lang-leben-mit-den-khmu

Dossier „Ein Jahr in einem laotischen Bergdorf“, Kölner Universitätsmagazin, No. 5, Feb 2016, pp. 31-33.