My main research interests are Visual and Multimodal Anthropology, Participatory Filmmaking and Collaborative Research, Public Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Multi-Species Anthropology and Bees. My geographical focus includes West Africa, southern Africa, Japan and the urban space.

I perceive my filmmaking first and foremost as a method of ethnographic enquiry. The process of filmmaking generates new forms of anthropological knowledge which can be conveyed through the resulting films. In addition to visual methods, I have thorough experience with other qualitative and quantitative research methods.

During my PhD I forged an aproach of Collaborative Ethnographic Filmmaking together with rural dwellers in southern Africa. The films about the villagers' perception of their natural environment and their use of natural resources give a voice to local actors - within the project and beyond. I have been enhancing this approach by experimenting with new forms of participatory and collaborative media productions in differnt contexts.

My recent research at the intersection of natural and cultural sciences, highlights the multiple entanglements between humans and honeybees. I want to find out about different BeeCultures constituted by the interactions between humans and honeybees. I am especially interested in the practices and perspectives of beekeepers, scientists, artists, politicians and other groups dealing with bees and beekeeping.

 

 

Publications

2023 Film Review. Swarm Season. Directed by Sarah Christman. Grasshopper Film. 2019. 86 minutes,color. Visual Anthropology Review. DOI:  10.1111/var.12305.

2022 Sharing the Camera. A Guide to Collaborative Ethnographic Filmmaking. Canon Pyon: Sean Kingston Publishing.

2022 The ecology and evolution of human-wildlife cooperation. People and Nature. DOI:  10.1002/pan3.10369  (with Dom Cram et al.)

2022 Safeguarding human-wildlife cooperation. Conservation Letters.  2022; e12886. DOI:  10.1111/conl.12886  (with Jessica van der Wal et al.)

2021 Mehr als ein süßes Hobby: Stadtimkerei. Soziale und kulturelle Dimensionen urbaner Bienenhaltung. Universität Bremen. DOI:  10.26092/elib/1158

2021 Precious/Precarious Images: Cameroonian Studio Photography in the Digital Age, Visual Anthropology 34(3): 214-233. DOI:  10.1080/08949468.2021.1908112

2020   Walking, Memory, Storytelling, Decolonisation. Werkstattbericht: Zwei kollaborative Workshops zur Erprobung von Methoden der Dekolonisierung, Windhoek 2019. Ethnoscripts 22(1): 168-183. open access (link) (with Cordula Weißköppel)

2019 Heroes and Heroines. Online Publication.  access here

2019 Les Ruches Coniques d'Adamoua au Caméroun. in Abeilles: Une Histoire Intime avec l'Humanité Regert Martine, ed. Pp 90-91.Paris: Cherche Midi

2019 Honey Hunting and Beekeeping in Adamaoua (Cameroon). Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Köln. (mit Mazi Sanda) access here.

2018 Hunters and Guides: Multispecies Encounters between Humans, Honeyguide Birds and Honeybees. African Study Monographs 39 (4): 169-187. DOI:  10.14989/236670

2018 Film Review: I am the People (Je suis le Pauple) by Anna Roussillon. American Anthropologist 120 (2). 359-360. DOI: 10.1111/aman.13038

2017 Between Islam and the Sacred Forest. Journal of Anthropological Films 1 (1). DOI: 10.15845/jaf.v1i1.1348

2016 Participatory Ethnographic Filmmaking: Transcultural Collaboration in Research and Filmmaking. Visual Ethnography 5(1). access

2015 Liparu Lyetu – Our Life. Participatory Ethnographic Filmmaking in Applied Contexts. Bremen: Universität Bremen.

2013 Transdisciplinary research and stakeholder involvement. A review of the TFO approach. In: Oldeland, J., Erb, C., Finckh, M., Jürgens, N. [Eds.]: Environmental Assessments in the Okavango Region. Biodiversity & Ecology 5: 195-212. DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00275. (mit Schmidt, L., Domptail, S., Klintenberg, P., Schmiedel, U., Zimmermann, I., Falk, T.)

2012 Henley, Paul: The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the Craft of Ethnographic Cinema. In: Ethnoscripts 14(1): 197-199.

2010 Film making as an instrument of research communication and capacity development. In: Schmiedel, U., Jürgens, N. [Eds.]: Biodiversity in Southern Africa. Volume 2: Patterns and Processes at Regional Scale. Göttingen & Windhoek: Klaus Hess Publishers: 326-331.

2008 Aufklärungsfilme als Beispiel angewandter Ethnologie? Ethnoscripts 10(2): 184-190.

2007 Platzverweis. Obdachlose in der Hamburger Innenstadt. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag.

2007 Betroffene von Räumungsklagen und Verbleib von Zwangsgeräumten: Eine ethnologische Untersuchung zu Lebenssituation und Verbleibsalternativen. Münster: LIT Verlag. (mit Waltraud Kokot). 

2007 Wald, Fluss, Schlange: Neues Museum für außereuropäische Kunst. Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. Ethnoscripts 9(1): 207-213.

2006 Street Magazine, Social Welfare, Soup Kitchen: The Income Strategies of Urban Homeless People in Hamburg/Germany. Ethnoscripts 8(1): 79-92.

2002 Parallelwelten. Eine Feldforschung über Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt. Ethnoscripts 4(1): 61-81.

2002 Gruber, Martin: Cinéma Vérité. Vokus 12(3): 23-31.

2001 Innenansichten. Kultur der Obdachlosigkeit in der Hamburger Innenstadt. Hamburg: Institut für Ethnologie. (mit Waltraud Kokot & Felix Axster).