I work as an Associate Professor in the field of African History and Society at the Department of African Studies, University of Vienna, Austria.
In the last 20 years, I have published mainly on land right issues (ranging from land reforms to women’s land rights to land grabbing), as well as on popular culture and youth culture. My regional focus is/was on Eastern Africa (especially Tanzania) and Southern Africa as well as on France where I worked on topics related to a Comorian diasporic context.
Further, I also published on qualitative research methodologies, most recently with a focus on audiovisual methods and on social media platforms as archives.
In the last decade, my involvement in the establishment (since 2012) and co-leadership (2016-21) of the research platform “Mobile Cultures and Societies” at the University of Vienna, strengthened my interest in mobility practices and their effects.
Currently, my research focuses on the following research topics which are all situated at the crossroads of African Studies and Mobility Studies:

1) Mobilities in the context of solidarity practices, more specifically focusing on, a) entangled solidarities between Black and/or African actors and Palestinians b) the role of international recruits travelling to South Africa to help fight Apartheid (1960s-90s)

2) Contemporary German language travel writing with regard to African contexts

3) Directing the third-party-funded project titled “Rastafari reasonings on Africa in historical perspective” (funded by the Austrian Science Fund, P 35987, 2022-2027) which was conceptualised and is being carried out together with Dominik Frühwirth.

I supervise students who write their MA and PhD-theses on various topics related to African Studies.

Photograph © Birgit Englert