News: Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

The Kiss Lab is a participatory art and encounter format that investigates bodily closeness, touch, and non‑verbal communication as social and cultural practices. We are looking for support for the publicity and awareness teams and students that are interested in producing a short anthropological film about the event. Your contribution can also be conducted as an internship, a media project, a term paper or a final thesis at our department.

If you are interested in supporting the project, please contact annika.strauss[at]uni-muenster.de. The first team meeting will take place on May 13, 6pm in the B-Side B-ratungsraum.

The first essay in our institute’s new Working Paper Series in Social and Cultural Anthropology has been published. The series opens with a paper by Martin Hoffmann, Achim Lichtenberger and Dorothea Schulz entitled “The temporalities of artefacts. Drafting a research agenda”.

The workshop on “Law, Education, and Interfaith Relations in Kenya” concluded on Friday, September 19, 2025, at Hekima Jesuit University. Two days of intense discussions between researchers, religious leaders, and social actors led to the identification of ways to better articulate traditions, law, and religious pluralism in the service of peaceful coexistence. The second day focused on matrimonial law, divorce, and inheritance law.

In the IT consultation at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, we are happy to help you with topics such as setting up the university VPN, Wifi, perMail or Microsoft Entra. For all these areas and other questions we offer student advice every monday 10am-2pm in person at our secretariat (Studtstraße 21) or per e-mail (ethnoedv[at]uni-muenster.de).

We look forward to hearing from you!

Intimacy, eroticism, and sex on stage, in films, in literature...
And what happens in our minds and with our own intimacy, eroticism, and sexuality when we consume all of this?
The 6-part workshop attempts a joint, biographical and topical search for clues on the subject of the media representation of intimacy, eroticism, and sexuality. What do our own emotional worlds, ideas, and desires have to do with the society in which we live?

We are delighted to announce that the ENPA Conference 2025 will be held from June 10 to June 13, 2025!
The event will kick off with a pre-conference workshop for PhD students on June 10, followed by the main conference over the next three days.
We look forward to welcoming you to our venue at the Schloss in Münster, nestled amidst expansive parks and beautiful botanical gardens. You might even want to take a dip in the canal that runs through the city, so don’t forget to pack your swimming gear!

We are excited to welcome you to ENPA 2025 in Münster!

‘Mind the Culture’ is a series of four podcasts sponsored by the European Network for Psychological Anthropology (ENPA). In this series, ENPA members discuss how our cultural backgrounds shape the way we think, feel, and navigate the world. Ever wondered why people from different cultures handle emotions, relationships, or stresses in unique ways? Or why a set of self-help tips can work for some people but not for others? This podcast series dives deep into how our minds and cultures are intertwined, allowing us to better understand ourselves and others in a diverse and changing world.

Youcan find the series here on Spotify.

The Africa Globally Connected research project is part of the Religion and Politics Cluster of Excellence Network at the University of Münster. It is a transcontinental and comparative research collaboration on the role of social identities in mediating Muslim-Christian-ATR relations in contemporary Africa and it is premised on the fact that religion is an engine of political and social change across the world. Drawing on this research partnership, the central question, which the workshop seeks to address, is: How do social identities inform the ways in which Christians, Muslims and practitioners of African Traditional Religion assert, bridge and accommodate religious differences in Nigeria's plural religious settings?

You can find the book of abstracts of the workshop here.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Ethnography Met, a comprehensive online repository designed specifically for students and faculty at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Ethnography Met offers a wealth of resources on ethnographic methods, providing invaluable support for research and academic endeavors.

Discover detailed guides, case studies, and multimedia resources that cover the full spectrum of ethnographic techniques. Whether you're just beginning your journey or looking to deepen your expertise, Ethnography Met is here to support your learning and teaching.
To access the platform, simply log in to your Learnweb account. Please note that enrollment in Learnweb is exclusively available to students and faculty at the University of Münster.

2022-2024 | DFG with Florin Cristea, M.A. and Prof. Dr. Thomas Stodulka

This project contributes to current debates on illness experience, care and therapeutic landscapes in Bali and Java, Indonesia. The island has established itself as a hub for international cooperation on mental health and illness. Based on the collaboration with professional networks already initiated during previous fieldwork, this project is well connected to local and international institutions It investigates the illness experience associated with severe psychiatric disorders as intertwined moral, cognitive, and emotional processes. This analytic link has not been studied so far and promises to provide an in-depth description of how global knowledge flows influence personal and social illness trajectories and outcomes outside of the Global North, by methodologically particularlizing the diverse Balinese and Javanese therapeutic landscapes.
Cooperation partner: Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogykarta, Indonesia