People

PD Dr. Katharina Lange

Head of Research Unit "Environment and Justice"

Phone: +49-(0)30-80307-222
Regional focus: Middle East, especially Syria and Kurdistan-Iraq
PD Dr. Katharina Lange
PD Dr. Katharina Lange

Positions

Since 01/2020
Head of Research Unit, Environment and Justice: Debates, Practices and Knowledge Production, ZMO, Berlin
Since 03/2018
Head of Project, Normality and Crisis – Memories of Everyday Life in Syria and a New Start in Germany. BMBF-Project at ZMO, Berlin
01/2014 - 12/2019
Head of Research Unit, The Politics of Resources, ZMO, Berlin
01/2008 - 12/2013
Head of Research Unit, Microcosms and Practices of the Local, ZMO, Berlin
09/2010 - 03/2011
Maternal Leave
03/2009 - 02/2010
Maternal Leave
07/2004 - 12/2008
Research Fellow, ZMO, Berlin
WS 2007/8
Visiting Professor of Anthropology and History, Jacobs University Bremen
07/2001 - 06/2004
Research Fellow, Collaborative Research Center 586 “Difference and Integration”, Universities of Halle and Leipzig; Project “Life worlds of a Bedouin Tribe, 1900 – 2000” (Head of Project: PD Dr. A. Nippa)
09/2002 - 01/2004
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Aleppo, Syria

Education

07/2018
Habilitation (Venia Legendi for Social/Cultural Anthropology), University of Leipzig
07/2002
PhD (Summa cum Laude) in Social/Cultural Anthropology, University of Leipzig
11/1997
Magistra Artium (1,4) in Social/Cultural Anthropology, University of Leipzig
1990 - 1997
Studies of Cultural Anthropology, Islamic Studies and History in Tübingen, Portland/USA (Reed College) and Leipzig
07/1990
School Leaving Certificate Abitur, Gymnasium Christianeum, Hamburg

Publications

Monographs

2005, „Zurückholen, was uns gehört.“ Indigenisierungstendenzen in der arabischen Ethnologie. Bielefeld: transcript.

Edited Volumes

2018, (with Heike Liebau, Katrin Bromber, Anorthe Wetzel), The long end of the First World War: Ruptures, Continuities and Memories. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Verlag.

2016, (with Andrea Fischer-Tahir), Ethnographien des Wandels im Vorderen Orient und Nordafrika. Leipzig: Universitätsverlag.

2014, (with Katrin Bromber and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix), Special Issue “The temporal politics of Big Dams in Africa, the Middle East and Asia”, The Journal of Water History 6 (4).

2010, (with Heike Liebau, Katrin Bromber, Dyala Hamzah, Ravi Ahuja), The World in World Wars. Perspectives, Experiences and Perceptions from Asia and Africa. Leiden u.a.: Brill.

2005, (with Katja Geisenhainer), Bewegliche Horizonte. Festschrift für Bernhard Streck. Leipzig: Universitätsverlag.

Journal Articles

*2022, "The value of the homeland: Land in Duhok, Kurdistan-Iraq, as territory, resource, and landscape", Economic Anthropology, OnlineFirst 14.02.2022. Open Access.

*2022, "Normality and Crisis - Encounters, Memories, and New Beginnings between Syria and Germany", ZMO Working Papers.

*2021, (with Lisa Jöris), "Being ”Here”, Researching ”There”: On Spatial and Temporal Remoteness in Ethnographic Research", Orient Bulletin
(39) pp. 1-2. 

*2019, “Submerged memories: Memory, history, and displacement around Lake Asad, Syria“, Memory Studies 12,3.

*2015, “‘Bedouin’ and ‘Shawaya’: The Performative Constitution of Tribal Identities in Syria during the French Mandate and Today”, Journal for the Economic and Social History of the Orient 58, 1-2: 200–235.

*2014, (with Katrin Bromber, Jeanne Féaux de la Croix), “The temporal politics of Big Dams in Africa, the Middle East and Asia: by way of an introduction”, The Journal of Water History 6 (4): 289–296.

*2014, “Producing (Tribal) History: Gendered Representations of Genealogy and Warfare in Northern Syria”, Nomadic Peoples 18: 34–52.

2014, “Grenzen auf dem Reißbrett. Der Erste Weltkrieg und seine Folgen im Nahen Osten”,  Sonderheft Hundert Jahre Erster Weltkrieg - Der globale Süden zwischen den Fronten, Südlink 168.

2013, “Syrien: Ein historischer Überblick”Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, APuZ 8.

2001, “Indigenization tendencies in Arabic anthropology”, in: Istanbuler Almanach 5: 59–67.

(* = peer reviewed journals)

Book Chapters

2021, "Umwelt und Gerechtigkeit in Afrika und Asien". In: GW (ed.), 25 Jahre Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren Berlin.

2021, "Bildung und Disziplin - Erfahrungen mit Schule". In: Lange, Katharina et al. Anfänge und Erinnerungen: Verbindungen und Begegnungen zwischen Syrien und Deutschland, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

2021, "Disziplinierung und Vermeidung - Militärdienst". In: Lange, Katharina et al. Anfänge und Erinnerungen: Verbindungen und Begegnungen zwischen Syrien und Deutschland, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

2021, "Tiefe Wurzeln - Ländliche Räume als Heimat und Ressource". In: Lange, Katharina et al. Anfänge und Erinnerungen: Verbindungen und Begegnungen zwischen Syrien und Deutschland, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

2021. (with: Alkan, Hilal; Jurkiewicz, Sarah; Hussein, Jamshid) Nachbarschaft. In: Lange, Katharina et al. Anfänge und Erinnerungen: Verbindungen und Begegnungen zwischen Syrien und Deutschland, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin.

2018, “Between national borders and transnational nationalism – the Kurds of Syria”. In: Sebastian Maisel (ed.), The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio.

2017, (with Lina Eklund): “Crisis and Agricultural Change in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 1980s-2010s: An Interdisciplinary Approach”, in: Rachel-Anne Bahn, Eckart Woertz, Rami Zurayk (eds.), Crisis and Conflict in the Agrarian World: An Evolving Dialectic. Wallingford: Cabi Publishers.

2017, “Tribale Geschichtsschreibung in Syrien und die Behauptung historischer Authentizität im lokalen Kontext”, in: Barbara Christophe, Christoph Kohl, Heike Liebau (eds.), Geschichte als Ressource. Politische Dimensionen historischer Authentizität. ZMO-Studien 36. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz: 181–210.

2016, “Verlust/Geschäft. Repräsentationen sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Wandels im ländlichen Duhok (Kurdistan-Irak)”, in: Katharina Lange, Andrea Fischer-Tahir (eds.), Ethnographien des Wandels im Vorderen Orient und Nordafrika. Leipzig: Universitätsverlag, 203–220.

2016, “Die Herausbildung des nahostethnologischen Schwerpunkts an der Universität Leipzig nach 1969”, in: Katharina Lange, Andrea Fischer-Tahir (Hg.), Ethnographien des Wandels im Vorderen Orient und Nordafrika. Leipzig: Universitätsverlag, 5–25.

2015, “Sardiyāt al-tārīḫ al-šafawī wa-intāğ al-tārīḫ: muqāraba iṯnūġrāfīya”, in: Al-tārīḫ al-šafawī, Vol. 2. (Ed. Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies); Doha/Beirut, 25–42.

2012, “There used to be terrible disbelief. Mourning and Social Change in Northern Syria”, in: Baudouin Dupret et al. (eds.), Ethnographies of Islam: Ritual Performances and Everyday Practices, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Aga Khan University London, 31–39.

2011, “Beduinenkriege”, in: ABC des Nomadischen, Hamburg: Museum für Völkerkunde, 34–35.

2011, “Genealogie”, in: ABC des Nomadischen, Hamburg: Museum für Völkerkunde, 78.

2011, “Mündliche Überlieferungen”, in: ABC des Nomadischen, Hamburg: Museum für Völkerkunde, 230–231.

2011, “Zur Begegnung zweier Autoritäten”, in: ABC des Nomadischen, Hamburg: Museum für Völkerkunde, 90–92.

2011, “Ethnologie und Archäologie: Die Arbeiter am Tell Halaf”, in: Nadja Cholidis, Lutz Martin (eds.), Die geretteten Götter aus dem Palast vom Tell Halaf. Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 155–162.

2010, “Peripheral Experiences: Everyday Life in Kurd Dagh (Northern Syria) during the Allied Occupation in the Second World War”, in: Heike Liebau et al. (eds.), The World in World Wars. Perspectives, Experiences and Perceptions from Asia and Africa. Leiden: Brill, 401–428.

2010, “Proud Fighters, Blind Men: World War Experiences of Combatants from the Arab East”, in: Ulrike Freitag, Achim von Oppen (eds.), Translocality. The Study of Globalising Processes from a Southern Perspective. Leiden: Brill, 83–109.

2007, “Economic Change and Income-Generating Practices of Rural Youth in Northern Syria”, in: Sonja Hegasy, Elke Kaschl (eds.), Changing Values among Youth. Examples from the Arab World and Germany (ZMO-Studien, 22). Berlin: Klaus-Schwarz-Verlag.

2006, “Heroic Faces, Disruptive Deeds. Remembering the tribal sheikh on the Syrian Euphrates”, in: Dawn Chatty (ed.), Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century. Leiden: Brill, 940–965.

2005, “Shawāyā: Economic mélange, pure origins? Outsiders’ and insiders’ accounts of tribal identity in northern Syria”, in: Stefan Leder, Bernhard Streck (eds.), Shifts and Drifts in Nomadic-Sedentary Relations. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 99–122.

2005, “Verlorene Kriege. Niederlagen und die Geschichte der Welde (Nordsyrien)”, in: Katja Geisenhainer, Katharina Lange (eds.), Bewegliche Horizonte. Leipzig: Universitätsverlag, 407–424.

2005, “Biographische Methoden als Zugang zur Geschichte ehemaliger Nomaden in Syrien”, in: Jörg Gertel (ed.), Methoden als Aspekte der Wissenskonstruktion. Fallstudien zur Nomadismusforschung. (Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte 17 – Mitteilungen des SFB "Differenz und Integration" 8): 43–54.

Other Publications

2021, (with Lisa Jöris), "Being ”Here”, Researching ”There”: On Spatial and Temporal Remoteness in Ethnographic Research", Orient Bulletin

2021, (with Lisa Jöris), "Being ”Here”, Researching ”There”: On Spatial and Temporal Remoteness in Ethnographic Research", Orient Bulletin
(39) pp. 1-2.

2016, (with Ali Nobil Ahmad, Jeanine Dagyeli, Erdem Evren, Juliane Schumacher, Patrick Schukalla, Steven Serels), (Re)valuing natural resources in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. (ZMO Programmatic Texts, 11.

2016, (with Katrin Bromber) “‘Research With’: How to Implement a Methodological Approach and an Ethical Claim. Experiences from an Institutional Perspective.” Das Forschungsjahr 2015. Berlin: Geisteswissenschaftliche Zentren, 92–107.

2013, (with Sebastian R. Prange and Nitin Sinha): Reflecting on “Muslim Worlds – World of Islam?” from a Spatial Perspective, ZMO Programmatic Texts, 7.

Teaching

Undergraduate
Summer Term 2019
Anthropologie des Wassers. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology
Winter Term 2018/19
“Matter Out of Place”: Dreck, Müll und Verschmutzung aus ethnologischer Sicht. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology
Summer Term 2018
Wüste oder Garten Eden? Umweltethnologische Perspektiven auf den Nahen/Mittleren Osten und Nordafrika. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology
Summer Term 2018
Ethnologie und Geschichte: Eine Einführung. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology
Winter Term 2007-8
Introduction to the Modern Middle East (c. 1800-2000): Political, Cultural and Social Perspectives. Lecture, Jacobs University Bremen
Winter Term 2007-8
Islam, Nationalism and Ethnicity: historical and political dimensions of the Kurdistan conflict. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology
Winter Term 2000-1
Ethnologische Forschungen zu Beduinen. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology
Summer Term 1998
Einführung in das wissenschaftliche Arbeiten. Foundation course, University of Leipzig, Institute of Anthropology (with Dr. Katja Geisenhainer)
Postgraduate
Winter Term 2017-18
Navigating field and archive: Methodological issues and approaches along the History/Anthropology divide. FU Berlin, Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies. Workshop for Doctoral Students
Summer Term 2017
Oil, Water, Sand? Approaching the Muslim World Through the Anthropology of Resources. FU Berlin, Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies. Workshop for Doctoral Students
Summer Schools
2016
Annual doctoral students’ conference, Trajectories of Change, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius
10/2016
Rencontre euro-arabe des jeunes chercheurs en sciences sociales, Manama, Bahrein
07/2016
The Middle East and North Africa Today: Crises, Mobilities, and Paths to the Future. Summer School, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Lisbon, Portugal/SOAS/ZMO
03/2015
Dîroka Devkî, Guest Seminars, University Duhok, Kurdistan-Iraq

Awards

08/2002
Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation, Scholarship for European and American Young Scholars' Summer Institute Public Spheres and Muslim Identities, Dartmouth College, Hanover/New Hampshire (USA)
09/1998 - 12/1998
Scholarship, ASA-Programme of the Carl-Duisberg-Foundation, Project: “Vergleich von Siedlungsstrukturen in Aleppo und Karlsruhe”
04/1998 - 06/2001
Dissertation Grant, Landesgraduiertenförderung Sachsen

Memberships

  • German Association for Social and Cultural Anthropology
  • American Anthropological Association
  • Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient

Languages

  • English
  • French
  • Arabic
  • Kurdish (Kurmancî)