2023-present | Director of the international research cluster 'Conflict-Induced Displacement and Socio-Economic Resilience: Learning From Neglected Conflicts in Cameroon and Myanmar’ |
2022-present | Principal Investigator in the DFG research unit 5183 'Transborder Mobility and Institutional Dynamics' |
2020-present | Speaker and Coordinator of the international research unit 'The production and reproduction of social inequalities: Global contexts and concepts of labour exploitation' |
2019-present | Elected Senator for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Cologne |
2018-present | Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne |
2015-present | Principal Investigator of the Global South Studies Center Cologne (GSSC) |
2013-2017 | Director of the University of Cologne Forum 'Ethnicity as a Political Resource: Perspectives from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe' |
2012-2018 | Junior Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne |
2006-2012 | Lecturer, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich |
2000-2006 | Doctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale |
2021-2022 | Research project ‘Communication during and after COVID-19: (re)producing social inequalities and/or opportunities among African migrants in the United Arab Emirates and China’, with Prof. Dr. Tu Huynh and Dr. Jonathan Ngeh, Volkswagen Foundation |
2020-2021 | Cooperation visit grant for Ousmanou Adama, German Research Foundation (DFG) |
2020-2024 | Research unit 'The Production and Reproduction of Social Inequalities: Global contexts and concepts of labour exploitation', Volkswagen Foundation |
2019 | Cooperation visit grant for Prof. Dr. Meron Zeleke Eresso, German Research Foundation |
2019 | Workshop grant for 'The (re)production of social inequalities: Global contexts and concepts of exploitative labor', Volkswagen Foundation |
2019 | DGSKA funding for workshop of the Regional Group Africa 'Towards an independent anthropology at African Universities: possibilities, challenges, trajectories', co-organized with Michael Bollig |
2018 | Morphomata Fellow, Morphomata International Center for Advanced Studies, University of Cologne |
2015-2019 | Research grant for 'Chinese Immigration Law and Policy: Perspectives of lawmakers, administrators and immigrants', in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Björn Ahl, German Research Foundation (DFG) |
2014-2015 | International collaboration grant, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou |
2013-2016 | Research grant for the University of Cologne Forum, 'Ethnicity as a political resource: Perspectives from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe', in collaboration with Dr. Albert Manke, University of Cologne |
2013-2014 | Research grant for the Participatory Social Action and Research Project 'Kahina', Instituto de las Culturas de Melilla, Spain |
2013 | EASA network funding for the international workshop 'Mobility within and to the Global South', co-organized with Prof. Dr. Heike Drotbohm |
2011 | ASAFAS fellow, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, University of Kyoto |
2008-2010 | Post-doctoral research grant, University of Zurich |
2007/2008 | Individual exchange visit, Swiss National Science Foundation |
2003 | Marie Curie fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Kent |