Deborah Wockelmann M.A.

Deborah Wockelmann is a PhD student at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in African Studies from the University of Cologne with preliminary research in sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics with a regional focus on East Africa.

During her graduate studies, she conducted research on language and tourism, critically engaging with practices of othering, authenticity and power relations in tourism along the East African coasts of Kenya and Tanzania (Zanzibar). Since 2020, she has shifted her regional focus to Uganda and Rwanda, where she is researching multilingual practices in Uganda (mainly in Kampala).

As part of her participation in the CRC's sub-project B02, she is currently investigating how speakers' linguistic choices serve as practices to emphasise, counter or blur external categorisations by others. She also explores what speakers' linguistic choices reveal about existing language ideologies and attitudes in Uganda, and how speakers' linguistic practices and biographies are shaped by migration movements and mobility.

Other research interests include multilingualism, language policy, linguistic landscapes, epistemology and knowledge production in African studies.

Foto: Stephanie Füssenich