Junior Research Groups
General information
Creating new pathways to academic careers is one of the structural objectives of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence. To pursue this goal has established four independent Junior Research Groups (JRG), which will stand as one of the pillars of the Cluster’s early career support strategy.
Each of the Cluster’s JRGs will consist of three members: one postdoctoral scholar, as group leader, and two doctoral students, recruited and supervised by the postdoctoral group leader, to work on a joint project for a four-year funding period. At the end of the funding period they will be given the opportunity to attain tenured professor positions at the University of Bayreuth. The Cluster proposal stated that out of the four JRGs, two would come with a predefined denomination: Intersectionality and International Relations.
Sexualities, Political Orders and Revolutions in Africa: into the heart of Tunisia, Ethiopia and Sudan
(Start date: 01.01.2021)
The JRG led by Dr. Serawit Debele will investigate histories and politics of sexuality in three African countries. The research aims to shed light on glocal and historical forms of unequal relations in Tunisia, Ethiopia, Sudan, which have all undergone political transformations in the last decade. ...more
Politics of the Unknown. Conspiracism and Conflict
(Start date: 01.03.2021)
How do we make sense of politics that are too inaccessible to be known and too significant to be ignored or left uncertain? The JRG Politics of the Unknown. Conspiracism and Conflict led by Joschka Philipps revolves around this question to analyse how political conflicts shape and are shaped by different perceptions of truth and reality. ... more
African Knowledges and the History Publication since the 1970s
(Start date: 01.07.2021)
Heightened turmoil in the realm of global knowledge production has recently stimulated questions leading to research on inequalities and relationalities within the university; between universities in the “Global South” and “Global North”; as well as between experts and non-experts in a given society. The Junior Research Group “African Knowledges and the History Publication since the 1970s” suggests that the discipline of (African) History, with its multiple sustained contestations over what qualifies as a “proper” primary source; the linearity of time; and the politics of the archive, to name some examples, presents a particularly rich foundation for exploring this landscape ...more
The political economy of monetary and economic sovereignty in West Africa compared
(Start date: 01.07.2021)
The JRG led by Dr. habil. Kai Koddenbrock, investigates historically and in comparative fashion how West African societies have attempted to increase their political and economic sovereignty with a particular focus on the interaction between governments, finance and labor. The group will attempt to find out historically how most West African countries became exporters of only one or two commodities with the help of foreign capital and military force. ...more
- Leader of the Junior Research Group in International Relations "The political economy of monetary and economic sovereignty in West Africa compared" Kai Koddenbrock has moved to Bard College Berlin as a Professor of Political Economy and can be reached at: https://berlin.bard.edu/people/profiles/kai-koddenbrock
- His research at the cluster in the Junior Research Group with Carla Coburger and Isaac Abotebuno Akolgo will conclude in 2025.