Prof. Dr. Matthias Krings

I am leading the sub-project ‘Intertwined Human Differentiation: European-African Constructions of the Human Category “Pygmy”’ (together with Nico Nassenstein). As a cultural and social anthropologist specialising in research in Africa (Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, DR Congo), I am interested in postcolonial mutual perceptions and relations of exchange between Africa and Europe.

As part of the second phase of the CRC, I am focusing on distinctions based on body height. Essentially, I am investigating the history of so-called ‘Pygmy research’ (W. Schmidt 1910), with the aim of reconstructing the invention of the human category ‘Pygmy’ by European biological anthropologists and ethnologist. During the first phase of the CRC, I led the sub-project ‘Melanin Matters’, which focused on practices of human differentiation based on skin colour, including those that exist in African societies in relation to people with albinism, as well as Europeans and other light-skinned foreigners beyond racilization.

Outside the CRC, I have worked on the ritual embodiment of European-ness in African cults of spirit possession. Furthermore, I conduct research into media and popular culture in Africa, as well as cultural entrepreneurship before and after the digital revolution.
 

Photo: Stephanie Füssenich