Profile
Abstract
Sina Emde is a lecturer and research associate at the Institute of Anthropology. She currently also coordinates the institute's MA programme. Her interests are gender, political anthropology and post/de/colonial theories. Her special focus is on intersectionality, nation and state, collective memory in post-conflict societies, and peace and conflict studies. Recently, she also engaged with environmental issues in Oceania and questions of decoloniality. She studied anthropology and sociology in Berlin and Suva, and subsequently completed a PhD in Social Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Since her return to Germany, she has worked at universities in Göttingen, Berlin and Heidelberg.
Professional career
- since 11/2021
Senior Lecturer and MA programme coordinator Institut for Social and Cultural Anthropology Leipzig University - since 02/2024
Honorary Senior Lecturer (Level C)College of Asia & the PacificThe Australian National University - 04/2021 - 10/2021
Project manager Mauergeschichten revisited (Wall histories revisited) Berlin Wall Foundation - 10/2013 - 01/2020
Lecturer and research fellow Institute for Ethnology Heidelberg University - 10/2009 - 10/2012
Postdoc Postdoctoral Research fellow Emotion, Memory and Violence in Cambodia Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropolgy Research Cluster ‘Languages of Emotion’ Free University Berlin, Germany - 07/2008 - 01/2009
Research fellow DFG (German Research Council) Research Group on Cultural Property, University of Göttingen, Germany
Education
- 07/1999 - 07/2008
PhD Department of Anthropology Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University - 10/1987 - 03/1997
BA and Master in Social Anthropology, Sociology and Pre-Columbian Studies, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University Berlin - 03/1992 - 05/1993
Visiting StudentUniversity of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
Panel Memberships
- 01/2017 - 06/2022
Board MemberEuropean Society for Oceanists (ESfO) - since 05/2021
European Association for Social Anthropology (EASA) - since 01/2020
Australian Association for Pacific Studies (AAPS)
As a political anthropologist, my research focuses on questions of peace and conflict, post-conflict and processes of collective and individual remembering. All my research is based on a gender-sensitive perspective. What connects all my work is the question of local negotiations of global influences and dynamics in fields as diverse as education and professionalization, (post)colonial states and nation-building, and dealing with the past and transitional justice in post-conflict societies.
My master's thesis focused on women in the tertiary education system of Oceania between Western professionalization and local social expectations
My PhD examined articulations and imaginaries of the multicultural nation and nation-state of different communities, social groupings and political actors that accompanied the Fiji 2000 coup and its aftermath.
In recent years, I have been conducting research in Cambodia on emotional memoryscapes and processes of remembering Khmer Rouge violence in the wider context of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). I am interested in the different levels of memory (national, local, individual) and the role of civil society vis-à-vis the state in these processes. I am currently interested in the legacy of the ECCC in Cambodia, whose work has recently come to an end.
- show detailsSchieder, D.; Emde, S.; Geir Henning Presterudstuen, G.(Vaka)Vanua as Weakness, (Vaka)Vanua as Strength: Reflections on Fijian Sociality in Urban and Migrant EnvironmentsAnthropological Forum. 2023.
- show detailsDürr, E.; Schorch, P.; Emde, S. (Eds.)Experiencing Pacific Environments: Pasts, Presents, FuturesThe Contemporary Pacific. 2020. 32 (1).
- show detailsEmde, S.Violent Ruptures, Collective Memory and the Temporal Borders of the ECCC in a Cambodian VillageIn: Biddulph , R.; Kent, A. (Eds.)Cambodia’s Trials. Contrasting Visions of Truth, Transitional Justice and National Recovery.. Copenhagen: NIAS. 2023. pp. 213–237.
- show detailsEmde, S.; Dürr, E.; Schorch, P.Experiencing Pacific Environments: Pasts, Presents, FuturesThe Contemporary Pacific. 2020. 32 (1). pp. 1–20.
- show detailsEmde, S.Between Vulnerability, Resilience and Resistance ; Fiji Islander Women Activists and the Ethno-Nationalist Political Crises in 2000In: Dousset, L.; Nayral, M. (Eds.)Pacific Realities - Changing Perspectives on Resilience and Resistance. Berghahn. 2018. pp. 65–88.
Political anthropology; (post)colonial entanglements of the discipline; gender; peace and conflict, memory, research positionalities, representation and post/decolonialism; methods; Islanding; Oceania; Southeast Asia.
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Introduction to regional anthropology
In this lecture we critically engage with the construction of regional knowledge as a Western spatial division of the world from early travel writings to contemporary ethnographies. How is the construction of regions related to colonialism, what is the history and political situatedness of area studies? This includes questions about politics of representation, epistemic power and influences of (de)globalization as well as calls for the decolonization of the discipline.
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Current debates in anthropology (MA)
We read classical and contemporary ethnographies as anthropological debates across time. We specifically ask: How do current debates in anthropology relate to the history of the discipline? How does ethnography write anthropological theory? We also open a dialogue between Western anthropological theories and engagement with these by scholars from the global South. A particular emphasis is given on questions of ethnographic positionalities and the construction of situated knowledge.
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Regional Ethnography: Southeast Asia
This module introduces selected theoretical and ethnographic themes of Southeast Asia, e.g. power, the state, gender, patronage. We develop an understanding of the region's historical entanglements with European colonialisms and the impact of the Cold War on local socio-political dynamics, and learn to understand and interpret Southeast Asia as a culturally and socio-politically heterogeneous region.
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Research methods in anthropology (MA)
The seminar introduces classical research methods in anthropology such as participant observation, interviews, digital research, situational analysis. Students have weekly exercises in research methods and in addition read theoretical texts on a wide range of topics such as decolonizing methodologies, the writing culture debate, reflexive anthropology and its methodological implications, multi-sited ethnography, gendered fields, situated knowledge construction and research ethics.
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Research methods (BA)
The lecture with tutorial introduces anthropological research methods, their theorization, and questions of epistemologies/knowledge. Students will learn classical methods of field research. These methods are discussed against the background of the positioning of the anthropologist, the construction of situated and partial knowledge as well as ethical questions in the research process.