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Education:

Social anthropology, sociology, Arab studies (1973-1978), and doctorate (1987) at the Free University Berlin; habilitation (1999) at Viadrina University, Frankfurt/Oder (habilitation is the German qualification for full professorship)

Main completed research fields:

The intermediate space between Africa and Europe

Between 1991

and 1997 I examined how criteria of objectivity and rationality are negotiated in trans-local arenas in the context of development cooperation. I carried out my research in The Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania and Europe. Main Publication:

Rottenburg, Richard. 2002. Weit hergeholte Fakten. Eine Parabel der Entwicklungshilfe. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius.
Europe

Between 1987

and 1999 I studied aspects of formal organisation in companies and bureaucracies, in urban management, and in the context of the post-socialist transformation of East Germany, Poland and Russia. Main Publications:

Rottenburg, Richard. 1994. From Socialist Realism to Postmodern Ambiguity. East German Companies in Transition. Industrial & Environmental Crisis Quarterly 8: 71-91.

Rottenburg, Richard, Herbert Kalthoff, and Hans-Jürgen Wagener. 2000. In search of a new bed. Economic representations and practices. In Facts and figures. Economic practices and representations. Jahrbuch Ökonomie und Gesellschaft 16. Edited by Kalthoff, Herbert, Richard Rottenburg, and Hans-Jürgen Wagener. Marburg: Metropolis, 9-34.
Africa

Between 1979

and 1983 I spent over three years living and carrying out research at Mount Lebu (Sudan, South Kordofan, Nuba Mountains). My interest focused on the integration of money into the local subsistence economy; the emergence of hybrid cultural forms; the link between the living and the dead; and the relationship between nature and culture. Main Publication:

Rottenburg, Richard. 1991. Ndemwareng. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in den Morobergen. München: Trickster.

From 1984

to 1987, I lived in South Africa, where I lectured in social anthropology at the University of Transkei. Under the influence of students, my attention shifted to the relationship between cultural relativism and ghettoisation, and the unavoidability of modernisation.