Prof. Dr. Erdmute Alber

Scientific career

• 3.2026-6.2026: Research grant at the MIASA in Ghana
• 3.2023-6.2023: Research grant at the MIASA in Ghana
• 2016-2017: Research fellowship at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University, head of a research group on “Kinship and Politics”
• 2011-2012: Research fellow at the "Work and Human Life-Cycle" research group at Humboldt University Berlin
• since 2010: Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth
• 2008-2009: Heisenberg Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth
• 2007: German Research Foundation (DFG) award for outstanding scientific achievement (funding via a Heisenberg Professorship)
• 2002-2007: Junior Professor of Ethno-Sociology at the University of Bayreuth
• 2001-2002: Research associate in the DFG-funded research project “Social Parenthood in West Africa” at Freie Universität Berlin
• 1998-1999: Research fellow at the Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt/Main
• 1998: Dissertation honoured with a Frobenius Society research prize
• 1997: Doctorate in social anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
• 1995-2000: Research associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of Freie Universität Berlin
• 1993-1995: Researcher in the DFG-funded research project “Traditional Rulers, New Elites and the State in a Peasants Society: On the Struggle for Power and Influence among the Baatombu in North-Eastern Benin” at Freie Universität Berlin
• 1992-1993: Doctoral scholarship awarded by Evangelisches Studienwerk
• 1990: “Magister” examination, Freie Universität Berlin
• 1983-1990: Studied social anthropology, literature, Spanish, and history at the universities of Tübingen and Berlin, sponsored by Evangelisches Studienwerk

Current offices and functions

• Member of the board of trustees (Hochschulrat) of the University of Bayreuth (since 2023)
• Member of the Sponsorship Committee of the KfW Young Talent Award (since November 2022)
• Member of the Advisoy Board of the publications series “Vigilanzkulturen” Publisher DeGruyter (since 2021)
• Member of the board of trustees of Evangelisches Studienwerk (since 2017)
• Liaison lecturer of Evangelisches Studienwerk in Bayreuth (since 2010)
• Founding member and principal investigator of the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies / BIGSAS (since 2007)
• Scientific advisory board of the journal africa spectrum (since 2005)
• Liaison lecturer for the Study Agency of the Heinrich Böll Foundation at the University of Bayreuth (since 2004)
• Member of the central committee, Vereinigung für Afrikastudien in Deutschland (VAD) (since 2002)
• Member of the editorial board of the journal Lateinamerika Analysen (since 2002)
• Member of the editorial board of the journal Peripherie (since 2001)

Research interests

Erdmute Alber investigates processes of social change with regard to the interdependencies and mutual accretion of politics and kinship, primarily in West Africa. To this end, a relational perspective towards concepts such as "family", "state", "learning", or "work" is the guiding principle. It is based on many years of historically informed field research and empirical surveys.
 
Current concrete research topics are generational relations, ageing, kinship constructs, the emergence and dynamics of new middle classes, and the global production of illiterality. The work is based on many years of field research in the Republic of Benin, on field research in the Andean region, and on the supervision and support of field research in Togo, Ghana, and Kenya.

Current research projects

• Forging and Belonging: Researching children's socialrelations and imagined futures through Crafting in rural West Africa (FABRIC)
• Pathways for vodational training and informal learning in West Africa (PAVTIL)