Prof. Dr. Thomas Widlok

Professor of the cultural anthropology of Africa

E-mail: thomas.widlok[at]uni-koeln.de
Phone: +49 (0)221 470 4741
Secretary: +49 (0)221 470 3504
Fax: +49 (0)221 470 5158

Office hours: Tuesday 16:00-17:00 (after prior arrangement by email)

Most Relevant Publications

Widlok, T. 2020. "Zur Bedeutung der Sprache für die ethnologische Feldforschung" In: Bettina Beer and Anika König (eds) Methoden ethnologischer Feldforschung. Berlin: Reimer, pp. 77-90.
Widlok, T. 2019. “The situationality of human-animal relationships.” Bielefeld: transcript. [Edited with T. Breyer]
Widlok, T. 2017. “The anthropology of the economy of sharing.” London: Routledge
Widlok, T. 2014. “Agency, Time and Causality.” Frontiers in Psychology 5:1264.

Most Relevant Research Topics

Comparative ethnography of hunter-gatherers
Social practices of sharing and (re-)distribution
Anthropological approaches to time and place

Qualifications

1985–1989	Study of Ethnology/Anthropology, Philosophy, Cath. Theology at the Universities of Münster and Cologne
1989	M.Sc. (with distinction) in Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of London
1994	Ph.D. in Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of London
2004	Habilitation in Ethnology, University of Cologne

Academic positions

1992-1994	PhD student, Cognitive Anthropology Research Group, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
1994-1995	Lecturer, London School of Economics and Political Science
1995-2000	Postdoctoral Researcher in the project “Informal social institutions” (SPP „Humanity and global environmental change“, University of Cologne)
1998	Visiting Professor, Graduate School for Africa & Asian Studies, Kyoto University
2000-2002	Senior Researcher in the project „Property Relations“, MPI for Anthropological Research, Halle
2002-2006	Assistant Professor (Wissenschaftl. Assistent) Institut für Ethnologie, University of Heidelberg
2003-2006	Senior Researcher in the project „Documentation of endangered languages“, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
2006	Visiting Professor CRC “Ritual Dynamics”, University of Heidelberg
2006-2008	Lecturer, Dept. of Anthropology, Durham University, England
2008-2013	Professor for Anthropology, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Netherlands
seit 2013	Professor Anthropology of Africa, Institut für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie, University of Cologne

Additional evidence of qualification

2011-2012	Resident Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) in Bielfeld, Research Group “Cultural Constitution of Causal Cognition”
2016-2017	Resident Fellow at the International Kolleg Morphomata, Universität zu Köln
2021-2022	Visiting Fellow at the Department “Anthropology of Economic Experimentation" Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale
since 2013	Spokesperson of the Competence Area IV “Cultures and Societies in Transition”, Universität zu Köln
since 2021	Elected Member of the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste

Fields of Research

Publications

New forthcoming publications

(in press) “#African Time Making the Future legible” [co-authored with J. Knab and Ch. Van der Wulp] Submitted to African Studies
(in press) "Imaginierte Körper und verkörperte Imagination: Diskussionen in der Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie" In: J. Schick and N. Engelhardt Erfinden, Schöpfen, Machen: Körpertechniken und Imaginationstechniken. Bielefeld: transcript
(in press) “Economic thought, ritual and religion” In: P. Stewart and A. Strathern Palgrave Handbook of Anthropological Ritual Studies. Palgrave Macmillan
(in press) “Cultural Relativity of time concepts” In: Anthropological Linguistics: Perspectives from Africa (ed. by N. Nassenstein, A. Mitchell and A. Hollington)
(in press) "Original Power Pointing: Towards a Political Ethnography of the Deictic Field". Submitted to Ethnos
(in press) “Framing the future in national parks” [co-authored with Fenny Nakanyete] In: African Futures (ed. by C. Greiner and M. Bollig)
(in press) "Sharing" In: Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Open Access.
(in press) "Gegenwart und Distanz: Soziale Beziehungen im deiktischen Feld." In: Deixis – Zeigen – Pointing: Ansätze zu einer phänomenologischen Anthropologie (Hg. von Erik Norman Dzwiza-Ohlsen). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft
(in press) "Approaching foreign milieus: Experiences from a joint seminar with police and ethnography" In: Policing Differences: Perspectives from Europe (ed. by T. Bierschenk et al.) [co-authored with Gisela Caldas)

Publications

A more comprehensive list of publications is available at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4427-413X

PhD supervision

last 5 years:

Kira Eghbal-Azar · Affordances, Appropriation and Experience at Museum Exhibitions: From (Eye) Movement Patterns to Exhibition Visit Scripts · 2010-2016
Dörte Weig · Motility and Relational Mobility of the Baka in North-Eastern Gabon · 2010-2013
Willem Jacobus Smit · The Violent Revival of Ukuthwala: Understanding the Re-Emergence and Transformation of a Marriage Custom in post-1996 South Africa · 2012-2017
Fabienne Brauckmann · The Bayso and Haro of the Abbaya Lake in the Ethiopian Rift Valley · laufend
Charlie Goodwin · Loss of cultural knowledge among Namibian San · laufend
Enid Guene · An ethnohistorical study of Dorobo groups in Kenya · laufend
Martin Solich · Multi-Agent Simulation of Hunter-Gatherer Mobility · laufend
Joachim Knab · Clashes of temporalities in nature-conservation : The case of the Salambala Conservancy in Namibia · laufend
Tanja Theißen · Von Jagenden und Gejagten. Die Jagd in Deutschland als kulturelle Praxis · laufend
Stephan Henn · Agent-based modelling and anthropology · laufend
Sina Pfister · Relating to nature – Making sense of natural hazards and the environment in Constitución, Chile · laufend

Recent Third-Party Funding

2002-2008	DOBES Programme VW-Stiftung Project “=Akhoe Hai//om: A documentation of language and cultural practices“
2009-2021	SFB/CRC 806 “Our Way to Europe”, Project “Anthropological Models: A Recon-struction of the First African Frontier”
2013-2015	Cultural Models of Nature Across Cultures, National Science Foundation Grant BCS-1330637 (in conjunction with Northern Illinois University)
seit 2018	SFB/CRC 228 “Future Rural Africa” Project “Temporal Frames of Refernce in Land Conversions”

UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesAfrican Studies