Videos by Birgit Englert
Ali Cheikh Mohamed and Abdoulwahab Chaharani, both born in the Indian Ocean archipelago Comoros, ... more Ali Cheikh Mohamed and Abdoulwahab Chaharani, both born in the Indian Ocean archipelago Comoros, have been playing music all their lives. A couple of years ago they met in Marseille, France, where they now live and decided to work together. As AFROPA, they play Afro-Folk which is based on Comorian rhythms and inspired by their youth icons such as Santana, Dire Straits or Pink Floyd. They sing about politics, violence, racism and the challenges of life more generally- mostly in Comorian but also in French.
Their biggest aim is to show the heterogeneity of Comorian music, especially to the younger generation of Franco-Comorians who grew up in France. However, they also aim at a general public which usually reduces Franco-Comorian music to its most popular style, Twarab.
The music, messages and strategies of AFROPA are at the center of this documentary – as well as their encounters with other Franco-Comorian artists. 62 views
Articles & Book Chapters by Birgit Englert
Erinnerungsverbot? Die Ausstellung "Al Nakba" im Visier der Gegenaufklärung, 2023
Full quote: Englert Birgit. Schwarz-Palästinensische Solidaritätsreisen im Kontext deutschsprachi... more Full quote: Englert Birgit. Schwarz-Palästinensische Solidaritätsreisen im Kontext deutschsprachiger Debatten. In Benz Wolfgang, Hrsg., Erinnerungsverbot? Die Ausstellung "Al Nakba" im Visier der Gegenaufklärung. Berlin: Metropol Verlag. 2023. S. 114-127.
Anfang der Einleitung:
"Sowohl die Vertreibungen der Palästinenser:innen im Jahr 1948 als auch die anhaltenden Menschenrechtsverletzungen unter der seit 1967 bestehenden israelischen Besatzung werden im deutschsprachigen Raum kaum wahrgenommen – nicht zuletzt deshalb, weil deren Thematisierung regelmäßig als antisemitisch diffamiert wird. Das hat zur Folge, dass palästinensische Geschichte und Gegenwart weitgehend aus dem Blick geraten und die Bemühungen von Aktivist:innen und Forscher:innen, diese ins Bild zu rücken, zermürbend sind. Bei jedem Versuch zu beweisen, dass ein Eintreten für Rechte von Palästinenser:innen nicht mit Antisemitismus gleichzusetzen ist, geht Energie verloren, die für das Sichtbarmachen palästinensischer Geschichte, Kultur und politischer Forderungen fehlt. Wie Toni Morrison es in ihrer viel zitierten Rede an der Portland State University 1975 formulierte, ist Ablenkung eine ganz wesentliche Funktion von Rassismus: „It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. […] None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.“
Auch die Debatte um Erinnerungskulturen, die im Frühjahr 2020 als sogenannte Mbembe-Debatte begonnen hatte und seither, wenn auch mit etwas nachlassender Intensität, die deutschen Feuilletons beschäftigt, hat bisher zu überraschend wenig Auseinandersetzung mit palästinensischen Lebensrealitäten – im Land selbst wie auch in der Diaspora – geführt. [...]"
Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, 2023
In this article, I reflect on approaches to African Studies and to Mobility Studies with the inte... more In this article, I reflect on approaches to African Studies and to Mobility Studies with the intention of elaborating on possible ways to bridge these two transdisciplinary fields. Thereby, I draw on published research in both fields as well as on my own research projects located at the junction of African Studies and Mobility Studies. An earlier version of this text has originally served as part of the introduction to my cumulative habilitation thesis (Englert 2022a). It does not aim at a comprehensive overview of those two fields but rather highlights how subjective trajectories shape the way in which research fields are being approached. 1 Several earlier issues of Stichproben, have engaged with notions of mobility and contributed to the increasing literature on Africa-related mobilities research. 2 This essay aims at raising some more general questions concerning the way these two fields take note of each other. In doing so, I touch upon debates on positionality, knowledge production, representation as well as the possibilities and limits of transdisciplinarity and argue for an approach that centres mobilities in, from and to Africa without separating them from ongoing debates.
Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, 2022
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. (2022). How Black–Palestinian Solidarity Challenges Discourses ... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. (2022). How Black–Palestinian Solidarity Challenges Discourses on Decolonisation and Why This Should Matter in Anti-racism Debates in Austria. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 43, 93-127.
"Black-Palestinian solidarity has a long history, and its intensity and importance have grown over the past decade. While the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been particularly successful in drawing the world's attention to the structural racism faced by Black people in the United States and beyond, Palestinians continue to struggle not only against the Israeli occupation but also against widespread ignorance and defamation-even among people who are otherwise engaged in anti-racism and decolonisation work. By focusing on mutual expressions of solidarity, I examine analyses provided by BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) activists, artists and scholars in texts from different genres. Many of these were produced following a visit to Palestine on a solidarity delegation. These expressions of Black-Palestinian solidarity have rarely been acknowledged in scholarly contexts, even when other texts by the very same people have been discussed. It is argued that the overwhelming silence on Palestine is an expression of incomplete decolonisation in academic and activist circles. Solidarity practices are slowly broadening the conversations, however, and thus there is hope that anti-Palestinian racism will eventually be recognised and widely acknowledged by all who position themselves as antiracists."
Jenseits von Mbembe - Geschichte, Erinnerung, Solidarität, 2022
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. (2022). Zurück zum Ausgangspunkt: verdrängte Solidaritäten zwisc... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. (2022). Zurück zum Ausgangspunkt: verdrängte Solidaritäten zwischen afrikanischen und palästinensischen Akteuren. In M. Böckmann, M. Gockel, R. Kößler, & H. Melber (Eds.), Jenseits von Mbembe – Geschichte, Erinnerung, Solidarität (pp. 225-243). Metropol Verlag.
The Politics of Biography in Africa. Borders, Margins and Alternative Histories of Power, 2021
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. (2021). Exploring borderlines of power in and through the auto/b... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. (2021). Exploring borderlines of power in and through the auto/biographies by Ronnie Kasrils. In A. Angelo (Ed.), The Politics of Biography in Africa. Borders, Margins and Alternative Histories of Power (pp. 118-135). Routledge.
Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean, 2021
Full reference:
Thomsen, Sigrid; Gföllner, Barbara; Englert, Birgit. 2021. Introduction - Cultur... more Full reference:
Thomsen, Sigrid; Gföllner, Barbara; Englert, Birgit. 2021. Introduction - Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. In: Englert, Birgit; Gföllner, Barbara; Thomsen, Sigrid. Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. Milton Park (UK) and New York (USA): Routledge; 1-13.
This chapter specifically focuses on expressions of human and cultural mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. It explores the processes by which ideas, texts, images, sounds, and beliefs move between Africa and the Caribbean from an interdisciplinary perspective. This volume is situated both at the intersection of the humanities and the social sciences and at the intersection of African, Caribbean, and Mobility Studies, thus widening the scope of Mobility Studies while contributing to the interdisciplinary aim that lies at the field's centre. The authors contribute to a decentering of the Global North by highlighting South-South mobilities and by drawing on the knowledges and practices of writers and scholars from the Caribbean and Africa. Scholarship on the Triangle Trade more widely, including the Middle Passage and the circulation of commodities, which has focused on the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, itself has a long history without which the studies in this volume could not be written.
Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal, 2020
Full reference: Englert, Birgit; Vlasta, Sandra. (2020). Introduction Travel writing – on the int... more Full reference: Englert, Birgit; Vlasta, Sandra. (2020). Introduction Travel writing – on the interplay between text and the visual. Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 7-20.
Open access: https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
'To travel is to see', writes Bernard McGrane (1989: 116), and writing about travelling is thus an attempt to grasp what has been seen-in words and/or visually. Accordingly, travel literature deals not only with written texts but with visual elements, whether maps, pictures, drawings, photographs, sketches, (out)looks, viewpoints, or other media, regardless of whether they are displayed visually or drawn with words. An arbitrary list of travelogue (and travel blog) titles reveals the intrinsic relationship between text and image: Pictures from Italy; Italienisches Bilderbuch; Sketches of Spain; Impressions de voyage; Reiseaufnahmen; Blickgewinkelt (cf. Alù and Hill 2018: 6). Illustrations produced on the road, as well as visual material added later, have long been an integral part of travel writing. Visual material can convey information that cannot be verbalized. The visual can also lend authenticity to what was experienced and narrated , underscoring the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the reader's perspective and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do. Nevertheless, visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù and Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: '[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality' (2018: 1). Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other, and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés. This special issue of Mobile Culture Studies-The Journal is dedicated to this complex relation between text and the visual in travel writing. It grew out of two transdisciplinary workshops held at the University of Vienna within the framework of the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie project European Travel Writing in Context. 1 The workshops were dedicated, first, to the intersection of travel writing (studies) and mobility (studies) more generally , and second, to the present focus on the relation between text and images in travel writing.
Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 2020
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit; Vlasta, Sandra. (2020). Introduction Travel writing – on the i... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit; Vlasta, Sandra. (2020). Introduction Travel writing – on the interplay between text and the visual. Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 7-20.
'To travel is to see', writes Bernard McGrane (1989: 116), and writing about travelling is thus an attempt to grasp what has been seen-in words and/or visually. Accordingly, travel literature deals not only with written texts but with visual elements, whether maps, pictures, drawings, photographs, sketches, (out)looks, viewpoints, or other media, regardless of whether they are displayed visually or drawn with words. An arbitrary list of travelogue (and travel blog) titles reveals the intrinsic relationship between text and image: Pictures from Italy; Italienisches Bilderbuch; Sketches of Spain; Impressions de voyage; Reiseaufnahmen; Blickgewinkelt (cf. Alù and Hill 2018: 6). Illustrations produced on the road, as well as visual material added later, have long been an integral part of travel writing. Visual material can convey information that cannot be verbalized. The visual can also lend authenticity to what was experienced and narrated , underscoring the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the reader's perspective and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do. Nevertheless, visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù and Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: '[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality' (2018: 1). Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other, and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés. This special issue of Mobile Culture Studies-The Journal is dedicated to this complex relation between text and the visual in travel writing. It grew out of two transdisciplinary workshops held at the University of Vienna within the framework of the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie project European Travel Writing in Context. The workshops were dedicated, first, to the intersection of travel writing (studies) and mobility (studies) more generally , and second, to the present focus on the relation between text and images in travel writing.
Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 2020
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit (2020). On the (Im)possibility of Writing a Travelogue; : or, d... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit (2020). On the (Im)possibility of Writing a Travelogue; : or, dimensions of polygraphy in Manuel João Ramoss Of Hairy Kings and Saintly Slaves: An Ethiopian Travelogue (2018). Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 137-154..
On his first journey to Ethiopia in 1999, the Portuguese anthropologist, essayist, and illustrator Manuel João Ramos resorted to drawing in order to capture his impressions of the rural and urban landscapes and people he encountered. Drawings carry the subjectivity of their creator within them; they cannot be mistaken for objective representations, as is often the case with photography. Ramos thus considers his sketches a less imperialist form of representation, one that allows him to overcome (at least partly) the limitations he experiences when trying to convey his travel experiences to others in words. Rather than functioning as mere illustrations of the written travelogue, his sketches can be understood
as ‘texts’ of their own. In this contribution, I analyse the dimensions of polygraphy — a concept that refers to the re-writing of a formative travel experience in different formats — that can be found in Ramos’s Ethiopian Travelogue, which was published in English in 2018 as the revised translation of a book published in Portuguese in 2010, which itself was a
revision of the first publication, also in Portuguese, from 2000. As I argue, the polyphonic dimension of Ramos’s work consists not only in his re-publishing sketches and texts based on his very first journey to Ethiopia, but in the lack of relation between the sketches and
the text, an example of what we might call ‘internal polygraphy’.
In 2020, around 453 million people roughly a third of the entire population on the African contin... more In 2020, around 453 million people roughly a third of the entire population on the African continent were reported to be using the internet and about 217 million African users were active on social media. In this paper we suggest to understand social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and community forums as a kind of archives for writing African histories of everyday life. We argue that these platforms provide user-generated archives in the sense that they are built by users who document their everyday life by uploading items (photographs, videos, graphics, texts) which they either created themselves or which they accessed somewhere and made available by uploading them. By engaging with literature on archival science as well as on social media platforms, we discuss the opportunities which come along with the emergence of these new archives but also the ethical challenges that need to be faced when using sources from these online platforms. The article als...
Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, 2020
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit & Harisch, Immanuel. (2020). On the Relevance of Using Social Me... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit & Harisch, Immanuel. (2020). On the Relevance of Using Social Media Platforms as Archives for the Writing of African History. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 39, 31-53. https://doi.org/10.25365/phaidra.240_02
In 2020, around 453 million people-roughly a third of the entire population on the African continent-were reported to be using the internet and about 217 million African users were active on social media. In this paper we suggest to understand social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and community forums as a kind of archives for writing African histories of everyday life. We argue that these platforms provide user-generated archives in the sense that they are built by users who document their everyday life by uploading items (photographs, videos, graphics, texts) which they either created themselves or which they accessed somewhere and made available by uploading them. By engaging with literature on archival science as well as on social media platforms, we discuss the opportunities which come along with the emergence of these new archives but also the ethical challenges that need to be faced when using sources from these online platforms. The article also engages with practical considerations on how to access, store and cite these sources. While many of the issues raised apply to African Studies more generally, we discuss the topic with a focus on African contemporary history.
Edited Collection: Mobile Kulturen und Gesellschaften – Mobile Cultures and Societies, 2020
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2020. Moving beyond HipHop: Tracing Mobilities in the work of F... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2020. Moving beyond HipHop: Tracing Mobilities in the work of Franco-Comorian artists Soprano and Ahamada Smis. In: A. Ganser-Blumenau, & A. Pelz (Hrsg.), Mobile Kulturen und Gesellschaften – Mobile Cultures and Societies (S. 127-143). V&R unipress, Vienna University Press.
Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, 2019
Beginning of the text:
"The topic of this special issue “translocal popular culture” can refer t... more Beginning of the text:
"The topic of this special issue “translocal popular culture” can refer to quite different phenomena: to popular culture that emerges first as the result of translocal flows, as well as to popular culture that is practiced and consumed in translocal spaces and thereby becomes subject to various transformation processes. The contributions that are gathered here refer to translocal popular culture in both senses and in some cases a neat distinction is not possible in any case.
The concept of translocality closely relates to that of transnationalism which from the 1990s on aimed to overcome the limitations of methodological nationalism inherent to many migration studies (Wimmer/ Glick Schiller 2002, de Jong/ Dannecker 2018). Translocality on its part emerged somewhat later with the intention to overcome the limitations of transnationalism which were closely tied to its presupposed relevance of the “nation” (Greiner/ Sakdapolrak 2013: 3). The concept of translocality serves to capture the sense of local-local connections across national boundaries (Brickell/ Datta 2011: 10) or within nation states, as Ogone (2015) argued with regard to the internal Kenyan Luo diaspora. Further, translocality is also usefully employed in historical contexts that precede the existence of nation states. Freitag and von Oppen (2010: 12) stipulated that - viewed from a historian’s perspective - transnationalism appears to be merely a special case of translocalism. (cf. Englert 2018: 544). Translocality is thus the overarching concept that provides - together with the notion of popular culture1 - the common ground for the contributions to this special issue. Nevertheless, some authors chose to refer to transnationality where this concept proved the better option."
Africa Every Day, 2019
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit ; Moreto, Nginjai Paul. / Retelling the World in Swahili – Rev... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit ; Moreto, Nginjai Paul. / Retelling the World in Swahili – Revisiting the Practice of Film Translation in Tanzania. Africa Every Day. Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent.. editor / Kemi Balogun ; Lisa Gilman ; Melissa Graboyes ; Habib Iddrisu. Ohio University Press, 2019. pp. 265-273
Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power, 2018
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2018. Looking through two lenses: reflections on transnational ... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2018. Looking through two lenses: reflections on transnational and translocal dimensions in Marseille-based popular music relating to the Comoros. In: Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power, 25: 5, 542-557. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2018.1507959
Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, 2015
Popular culture is an important domain in which postcolonial notions of diaspora are being negoti... more Popular culture is an important domain in which postcolonial notions of diaspora are being negotiated. In this article, we focus on Marseilles, France, and the Comorian diaspora that currently represents one of the city’s major migrant populations. More precisely, we focus on the talent show Étoiles Rasmi (2013) as well as the oeuvre by Franco-Comorian slam artist Ahamada Smis. While situated in different spheres of popular culture, Étoiles Rasmi as well as Ahamada Smis’ artistic work hinge on shared ‘diaspora spaces’. We will point out how both aim(ed) at inscribing notions of Comorian culture into a broader cultural market in Marseilles and argue that both contribute to a renegotiation of the postcolonial and intersectional power relations that have been shaping notions of Comorian diaspora in Marseilles. Two categories in particular come to be negotiated in this context: generation and ethnicity. In this article, we thus situate Étoiles Rasmi as well as Smis’ work within positionalities of ‘younger generations’ of a ‘Comorian diaspora’ in Marseilles. In this regard both
can be understood as reinventing or re-performing ‘Comorian culture’, affirming the role of notions of ‘ethnicity’ with respect to constructions of ‘diaspora’.
Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 2016
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Popular and Mobile: Reflections on using YouTube as an ... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Popular and Mobile: Reflections on using YouTube as an archive from an African Studies perspective. Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, Nr. 31, 27-56.
In this paper I reflect on the characteristics of YouTube as an archive, with a focus on its relevance for African Studies. I discuss the challenges of dealing with the audiovisual sources stored in this archive of popular culture and beyond, given the mobility that characterises the platform and its sources. I explore how to contextualise audiovisual sources found on YouTube and reflect on which ethical aspects need to be considered when using them for research purposes, and how to refer to them in citations.
Edited Collection: Africa Research in Austria: Approaches and Perspectives, 2016
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Reflections on the Role and Production of Research Films ... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Reflections on the Role and Production of Research Films in African Studies. In Exenberger, Andreas; Pallua, Ulrich (Hrsg.), Africa Research in Austria: Approaches and Perspectives. (S. 43-64). (Edited Volume Series). Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press.
Qualitative Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung, 2014
Full reference:
Englert, Birgit; Dannecker, Petra. 2014. Praktische und ethische Aspekte der Fel... more Full reference:
Englert, Birgit; Dannecker, Petra. 2014. Praktische und ethische Aspekte der Feldforschung. In: Dannecker, Petra; Englert, Birgit (Eds.). 2014. Qualitative Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung. GEP. Vienna: Mandelbaum, 233-265.
Uploads
Videos by Birgit Englert
Their biggest aim is to show the heterogeneity of Comorian music, especially to the younger generation of Franco-Comorians who grew up in France. However, they also aim at a general public which usually reduces Franco-Comorian music to its most popular style, Twarab.
The music, messages and strategies of AFROPA are at the center of this documentary – as well as their encounters with other Franco-Comorian artists.
Articles & Book Chapters by Birgit Englert
Anfang der Einleitung:
"Sowohl die Vertreibungen der Palästinenser:innen im Jahr 1948 als auch die anhaltenden Menschenrechtsverletzungen unter der seit 1967 bestehenden israelischen Besatzung werden im deutschsprachigen Raum kaum wahrgenommen – nicht zuletzt deshalb, weil deren Thematisierung regelmäßig als antisemitisch diffamiert wird. Das hat zur Folge, dass palästinensische Geschichte und Gegenwart weitgehend aus dem Blick geraten und die Bemühungen von Aktivist:innen und Forscher:innen, diese ins Bild zu rücken, zermürbend sind. Bei jedem Versuch zu beweisen, dass ein Eintreten für Rechte von Palästinenser:innen nicht mit Antisemitismus gleichzusetzen ist, geht Energie verloren, die für das Sichtbarmachen palästinensischer Geschichte, Kultur und politischer Forderungen fehlt. Wie Toni Morrison es in ihrer viel zitierten Rede an der Portland State University 1975 formulierte, ist Ablenkung eine ganz wesentliche Funktion von Rassismus: „It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. […] None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.“
Auch die Debatte um Erinnerungskulturen, die im Frühjahr 2020 als sogenannte Mbembe-Debatte begonnen hatte und seither, wenn auch mit etwas nachlassender Intensität, die deutschen Feuilletons beschäftigt, hat bisher zu überraschend wenig Auseinandersetzung mit palästinensischen Lebensrealitäten – im Land selbst wie auch in der Diaspora – geführt. [...]"
Englert, Birgit. (2022). How Black–Palestinian Solidarity Challenges Discourses on Decolonisation and Why This Should Matter in Anti-racism Debates in Austria. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 43, 93-127.
"Black-Palestinian solidarity has a long history, and its intensity and importance have grown over the past decade. While the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been particularly successful in drawing the world's attention to the structural racism faced by Black people in the United States and beyond, Palestinians continue to struggle not only against the Israeli occupation but also against widespread ignorance and defamation-even among people who are otherwise engaged in anti-racism and decolonisation work. By focusing on mutual expressions of solidarity, I examine analyses provided by BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) activists, artists and scholars in texts from different genres. Many of these were produced following a visit to Palestine on a solidarity delegation. These expressions of Black-Palestinian solidarity have rarely been acknowledged in scholarly contexts, even when other texts by the very same people have been discussed. It is argued that the overwhelming silence on Palestine is an expression of incomplete decolonisation in academic and activist circles. Solidarity practices are slowly broadening the conversations, however, and thus there is hope that anti-Palestinian racism will eventually be recognised and widely acknowledged by all who position themselves as antiracists."
Englert, Birgit. (2022). Zurück zum Ausgangspunkt: verdrängte Solidaritäten zwischen afrikanischen und palästinensischen Akteuren. In M. Böckmann, M. Gockel, R. Kößler, & H. Melber (Eds.), Jenseits von Mbembe – Geschichte, Erinnerung, Solidarität (pp. 225-243). Metropol Verlag.
Englert, Birgit. (2021). Exploring borderlines of power in and through the auto/biographies by Ronnie Kasrils. In A. Angelo (Ed.), The Politics of Biography in Africa. Borders, Margins and Alternative Histories of Power (pp. 118-135). Routledge.
Thomsen, Sigrid; Gföllner, Barbara; Englert, Birgit. 2021. Introduction - Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. In: Englert, Birgit; Gföllner, Barbara; Thomsen, Sigrid. Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. Milton Park (UK) and New York (USA): Routledge; 1-13.
This chapter specifically focuses on expressions of human and cultural mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. It explores the processes by which ideas, texts, images, sounds, and beliefs move between Africa and the Caribbean from an interdisciplinary perspective. This volume is situated both at the intersection of the humanities and the social sciences and at the intersection of African, Caribbean, and Mobility Studies, thus widening the scope of Mobility Studies while contributing to the interdisciplinary aim that lies at the field's centre. The authors contribute to a decentering of the Global North by highlighting South-South mobilities and by drawing on the knowledges and practices of writers and scholars from the Caribbean and Africa. Scholarship on the Triangle Trade more widely, including the Middle Passage and the circulation of commodities, which has focused on the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, itself has a long history without which the studies in this volume could not be written.
Open access: https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
'To travel is to see', writes Bernard McGrane (1989: 116), and writing about travelling is thus an attempt to grasp what has been seen-in words and/or visually. Accordingly, travel literature deals not only with written texts but with visual elements, whether maps, pictures, drawings, photographs, sketches, (out)looks, viewpoints, or other media, regardless of whether they are displayed visually or drawn with words. An arbitrary list of travelogue (and travel blog) titles reveals the intrinsic relationship between text and image: Pictures from Italy; Italienisches Bilderbuch; Sketches of Spain; Impressions de voyage; Reiseaufnahmen; Blickgewinkelt (cf. Alù and Hill 2018: 6). Illustrations produced on the road, as well as visual material added later, have long been an integral part of travel writing. Visual material can convey information that cannot be verbalized. The visual can also lend authenticity to what was experienced and narrated , underscoring the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the reader's perspective and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do. Nevertheless, visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù and Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: '[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality' (2018: 1). Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other, and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés. This special issue of Mobile Culture Studies-The Journal is dedicated to this complex relation between text and the visual in travel writing. It grew out of two transdisciplinary workshops held at the University of Vienna within the framework of the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie project European Travel Writing in Context. 1 The workshops were dedicated, first, to the intersection of travel writing (studies) and mobility (studies) more generally , and second, to the present focus on the relation between text and images in travel writing.
Englert, Birgit; Vlasta, Sandra. (2020). Introduction Travel writing – on the interplay between text and the visual. Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 7-20.
'To travel is to see', writes Bernard McGrane (1989: 116), and writing about travelling is thus an attempt to grasp what has been seen-in words and/or visually. Accordingly, travel literature deals not only with written texts but with visual elements, whether maps, pictures, drawings, photographs, sketches, (out)looks, viewpoints, or other media, regardless of whether they are displayed visually or drawn with words. An arbitrary list of travelogue (and travel blog) titles reveals the intrinsic relationship between text and image: Pictures from Italy; Italienisches Bilderbuch; Sketches of Spain; Impressions de voyage; Reiseaufnahmen; Blickgewinkelt (cf. Alù and Hill 2018: 6). Illustrations produced on the road, as well as visual material added later, have long been an integral part of travel writing. Visual material can convey information that cannot be verbalized. The visual can also lend authenticity to what was experienced and narrated , underscoring the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the reader's perspective and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do. Nevertheless, visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù and Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: '[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality' (2018: 1). Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other, and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés. This special issue of Mobile Culture Studies-The Journal is dedicated to this complex relation between text and the visual in travel writing. It grew out of two transdisciplinary workshops held at the University of Vienna within the framework of the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie project European Travel Writing in Context. The workshops were dedicated, first, to the intersection of travel writing (studies) and mobility (studies) more generally , and second, to the present focus on the relation between text and images in travel writing.
Englert, Birgit (2020). On the (Im)possibility of Writing a Travelogue; : or, dimensions of polygraphy in Manuel João Ramoss Of Hairy Kings and Saintly Slaves: An Ethiopian Travelogue (2018). Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 137-154..
On his first journey to Ethiopia in 1999, the Portuguese anthropologist, essayist, and illustrator Manuel João Ramos resorted to drawing in order to capture his impressions of the rural and urban landscapes and people he encountered. Drawings carry the subjectivity of their creator within them; they cannot be mistaken for objective representations, as is often the case with photography. Ramos thus considers his sketches a less imperialist form of representation, one that allows him to overcome (at least partly) the limitations he experiences when trying to convey his travel experiences to others in words. Rather than functioning as mere illustrations of the written travelogue, his sketches can be understood
as ‘texts’ of their own. In this contribution, I analyse the dimensions of polygraphy — a concept that refers to the re-writing of a formative travel experience in different formats — that can be found in Ramos’s Ethiopian Travelogue, which was published in English in 2018 as the revised translation of a book published in Portuguese in 2010, which itself was a
revision of the first publication, also in Portuguese, from 2000. As I argue, the polyphonic dimension of Ramos’s work consists not only in his re-publishing sketches and texts based on his very first journey to Ethiopia, but in the lack of relation between the sketches and
the text, an example of what we might call ‘internal polygraphy’.
Englert, Birgit & Harisch, Immanuel. (2020). On the Relevance of Using Social Media Platforms as Archives for the Writing of African History. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 39, 31-53. https://doi.org/10.25365/phaidra.240_02
In 2020, around 453 million people-roughly a third of the entire population on the African continent-were reported to be using the internet and about 217 million African users were active on social media. In this paper we suggest to understand social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and community forums as a kind of archives for writing African histories of everyday life. We argue that these platforms provide user-generated archives in the sense that they are built by users who document their everyday life by uploading items (photographs, videos, graphics, texts) which they either created themselves or which they accessed somewhere and made available by uploading them. By engaging with literature on archival science as well as on social media platforms, we discuss the opportunities which come along with the emergence of these new archives but also the ethical challenges that need to be faced when using sources from these online platforms. The article also engages with practical considerations on how to access, store and cite these sources. While many of the issues raised apply to African Studies more generally, we discuss the topic with a focus on African contemporary history.
Englert, Birgit. 2020. Moving beyond HipHop: Tracing Mobilities in the work of Franco-Comorian artists Soprano and Ahamada Smis. In: A. Ganser-Blumenau, & A. Pelz (Hrsg.), Mobile Kulturen und Gesellschaften – Mobile Cultures and Societies (S. 127-143). V&R unipress, Vienna University Press.
"The topic of this special issue “translocal popular culture” can refer to quite different phenomena: to popular culture that emerges first as the result of translocal flows, as well as to popular culture that is practiced and consumed in translocal spaces and thereby becomes subject to various transformation processes. The contributions that are gathered here refer to translocal popular culture in both senses and in some cases a neat distinction is not possible in any case.
The concept of translocality closely relates to that of transnationalism which from the 1990s on aimed to overcome the limitations of methodological nationalism inherent to many migration studies (Wimmer/ Glick Schiller 2002, de Jong/ Dannecker 2018). Translocality on its part emerged somewhat later with the intention to overcome the limitations of transnationalism which were closely tied to its presupposed relevance of the “nation” (Greiner/ Sakdapolrak 2013: 3). The concept of translocality serves to capture the sense of local-local connections across national boundaries (Brickell/ Datta 2011: 10) or within nation states, as Ogone (2015) argued with regard to the internal Kenyan Luo diaspora. Further, translocality is also usefully employed in historical contexts that precede the existence of nation states. Freitag and von Oppen (2010: 12) stipulated that - viewed from a historian’s perspective - transnationalism appears to be merely a special case of translocalism. (cf. Englert 2018: 544). Translocality is thus the overarching concept that provides - together with the notion of popular culture1 - the common ground for the contributions to this special issue. Nevertheless, some authors chose to refer to transnationality where this concept proved the better option."
Englert, Birgit ; Moreto, Nginjai Paul. / Retelling the World in Swahili – Revisiting the Practice of Film Translation in Tanzania. Africa Every Day. Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent.. editor / Kemi Balogun ; Lisa Gilman ; Melissa Graboyes ; Habib Iddrisu. Ohio University Press, 2019. pp. 265-273
Englert, Birgit. 2018. Looking through two lenses: reflections on transnational and translocal dimensions in Marseille-based popular music relating to the Comoros. In: Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power, 25: 5, 542-557. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2018.1507959
can be understood as reinventing or re-performing ‘Comorian culture’, affirming the role of notions of ‘ethnicity’ with respect to constructions of ‘diaspora’.
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Popular and Mobile: Reflections on using YouTube as an archive from an African Studies perspective. Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, Nr. 31, 27-56.
In this paper I reflect on the characteristics of YouTube as an archive, with a focus on its relevance for African Studies. I discuss the challenges of dealing with the audiovisual sources stored in this archive of popular culture and beyond, given the mobility that characterises the platform and its sources. I explore how to contextualise audiovisual sources found on YouTube and reflect on which ethical aspects need to be considered when using them for research purposes, and how to refer to them in citations.
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Reflections on the Role and Production of Research Films in African Studies. In Exenberger, Andreas; Pallua, Ulrich (Hrsg.), Africa Research in Austria: Approaches and Perspectives. (S. 43-64). (Edited Volume Series). Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press.
Englert, Birgit; Dannecker, Petra. 2014. Praktische und ethische Aspekte der Feldforschung. In: Dannecker, Petra; Englert, Birgit (Eds.). 2014. Qualitative Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung. GEP. Vienna: Mandelbaum, 233-265.
Their biggest aim is to show the heterogeneity of Comorian music, especially to the younger generation of Franco-Comorians who grew up in France. However, they also aim at a general public which usually reduces Franco-Comorian music to its most popular style, Twarab.
The music, messages and strategies of AFROPA are at the center of this documentary – as well as their encounters with other Franco-Comorian artists.
Anfang der Einleitung:
"Sowohl die Vertreibungen der Palästinenser:innen im Jahr 1948 als auch die anhaltenden Menschenrechtsverletzungen unter der seit 1967 bestehenden israelischen Besatzung werden im deutschsprachigen Raum kaum wahrgenommen – nicht zuletzt deshalb, weil deren Thematisierung regelmäßig als antisemitisch diffamiert wird. Das hat zur Folge, dass palästinensische Geschichte und Gegenwart weitgehend aus dem Blick geraten und die Bemühungen von Aktivist:innen und Forscher:innen, diese ins Bild zu rücken, zermürbend sind. Bei jedem Versuch zu beweisen, dass ein Eintreten für Rechte von Palästinenser:innen nicht mit Antisemitismus gleichzusetzen ist, geht Energie verloren, die für das Sichtbarmachen palästinensischer Geschichte, Kultur und politischer Forderungen fehlt. Wie Toni Morrison es in ihrer viel zitierten Rede an der Portland State University 1975 formulierte, ist Ablenkung eine ganz wesentliche Funktion von Rassismus: „It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. […] None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.“
Auch die Debatte um Erinnerungskulturen, die im Frühjahr 2020 als sogenannte Mbembe-Debatte begonnen hatte und seither, wenn auch mit etwas nachlassender Intensität, die deutschen Feuilletons beschäftigt, hat bisher zu überraschend wenig Auseinandersetzung mit palästinensischen Lebensrealitäten – im Land selbst wie auch in der Diaspora – geführt. [...]"
Englert, Birgit. (2022). How Black–Palestinian Solidarity Challenges Discourses on Decolonisation and Why This Should Matter in Anti-racism Debates in Austria. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 43, 93-127.
"Black-Palestinian solidarity has a long history, and its intensity and importance have grown over the past decade. While the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been particularly successful in drawing the world's attention to the structural racism faced by Black people in the United States and beyond, Palestinians continue to struggle not only against the Israeli occupation but also against widespread ignorance and defamation-even among people who are otherwise engaged in anti-racism and decolonisation work. By focusing on mutual expressions of solidarity, I examine analyses provided by BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) activists, artists and scholars in texts from different genres. Many of these were produced following a visit to Palestine on a solidarity delegation. These expressions of Black-Palestinian solidarity have rarely been acknowledged in scholarly contexts, even when other texts by the very same people have been discussed. It is argued that the overwhelming silence on Palestine is an expression of incomplete decolonisation in academic and activist circles. Solidarity practices are slowly broadening the conversations, however, and thus there is hope that anti-Palestinian racism will eventually be recognised and widely acknowledged by all who position themselves as antiracists."
Englert, Birgit. (2022). Zurück zum Ausgangspunkt: verdrängte Solidaritäten zwischen afrikanischen und palästinensischen Akteuren. In M. Böckmann, M. Gockel, R. Kößler, & H. Melber (Eds.), Jenseits von Mbembe – Geschichte, Erinnerung, Solidarität (pp. 225-243). Metropol Verlag.
Englert, Birgit. (2021). Exploring borderlines of power in and through the auto/biographies by Ronnie Kasrils. In A. Angelo (Ed.), The Politics of Biography in Africa. Borders, Margins and Alternative Histories of Power (pp. 118-135). Routledge.
Thomsen, Sigrid; Gföllner, Barbara; Englert, Birgit. 2021. Introduction - Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. In: Englert, Birgit; Gföllner, Barbara; Thomsen, Sigrid. Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. Milton Park (UK) and New York (USA): Routledge; 1-13.
This chapter specifically focuses on expressions of human and cultural mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. It explores the processes by which ideas, texts, images, sounds, and beliefs move between Africa and the Caribbean from an interdisciplinary perspective. This volume is situated both at the intersection of the humanities and the social sciences and at the intersection of African, Caribbean, and Mobility Studies, thus widening the scope of Mobility Studies while contributing to the interdisciplinary aim that lies at the field's centre. The authors contribute to a decentering of the Global North by highlighting South-South mobilities and by drawing on the knowledges and practices of writers and scholars from the Caribbean and Africa. Scholarship on the Triangle Trade more widely, including the Middle Passage and the circulation of commodities, which has focused on the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean, itself has a long history without which the studies in this volume could not be written.
Open access: https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
'To travel is to see', writes Bernard McGrane (1989: 116), and writing about travelling is thus an attempt to grasp what has been seen-in words and/or visually. Accordingly, travel literature deals not only with written texts but with visual elements, whether maps, pictures, drawings, photographs, sketches, (out)looks, viewpoints, or other media, regardless of whether they are displayed visually or drawn with words. An arbitrary list of travelogue (and travel blog) titles reveals the intrinsic relationship between text and image: Pictures from Italy; Italienisches Bilderbuch; Sketches of Spain; Impressions de voyage; Reiseaufnahmen; Blickgewinkelt (cf. Alù and Hill 2018: 6). Illustrations produced on the road, as well as visual material added later, have long been an integral part of travel writing. Visual material can convey information that cannot be verbalized. The visual can also lend authenticity to what was experienced and narrated , underscoring the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the reader's perspective and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do. Nevertheless, visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù and Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: '[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality' (2018: 1). Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other, and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés. This special issue of Mobile Culture Studies-The Journal is dedicated to this complex relation between text and the visual in travel writing. It grew out of two transdisciplinary workshops held at the University of Vienna within the framework of the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie project European Travel Writing in Context. 1 The workshops were dedicated, first, to the intersection of travel writing (studies) and mobility (studies) more generally , and second, to the present focus on the relation between text and images in travel writing.
Englert, Birgit; Vlasta, Sandra. (2020). Introduction Travel writing – on the interplay between text and the visual. Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 7-20.
'To travel is to see', writes Bernard McGrane (1989: 116), and writing about travelling is thus an attempt to grasp what has been seen-in words and/or visually. Accordingly, travel literature deals not only with written texts but with visual elements, whether maps, pictures, drawings, photographs, sketches, (out)looks, viewpoints, or other media, regardless of whether they are displayed visually or drawn with words. An arbitrary list of travelogue (and travel blog) titles reveals the intrinsic relationship between text and image: Pictures from Italy; Italienisches Bilderbuch; Sketches of Spain; Impressions de voyage; Reiseaufnahmen; Blickgewinkelt (cf. Alù and Hill 2018: 6). Illustrations produced on the road, as well as visual material added later, have long been an integral part of travel writing. Visual material can convey information that cannot be verbalized. The visual can also lend authenticity to what was experienced and narrated , underscoring the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the reader's perspective and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do. Nevertheless, visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù and Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: '[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality' (2018: 1). Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other, and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés. This special issue of Mobile Culture Studies-The Journal is dedicated to this complex relation between text and the visual in travel writing. It grew out of two transdisciplinary workshops held at the University of Vienna within the framework of the research platform Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie project European Travel Writing in Context. The workshops were dedicated, first, to the intersection of travel writing (studies) and mobility (studies) more generally , and second, to the present focus on the relation between text and images in travel writing.
Englert, Birgit (2020). On the (Im)possibility of Writing a Travelogue; : or, dimensions of polygraphy in Manuel João Ramoss Of Hairy Kings and Saintly Slaves: An Ethiopian Travelogue (2018). Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, 6, 137-154..
On his first journey to Ethiopia in 1999, the Portuguese anthropologist, essayist, and illustrator Manuel João Ramos resorted to drawing in order to capture his impressions of the rural and urban landscapes and people he encountered. Drawings carry the subjectivity of their creator within them; they cannot be mistaken for objective representations, as is often the case with photography. Ramos thus considers his sketches a less imperialist form of representation, one that allows him to overcome (at least partly) the limitations he experiences when trying to convey his travel experiences to others in words. Rather than functioning as mere illustrations of the written travelogue, his sketches can be understood
as ‘texts’ of their own. In this contribution, I analyse the dimensions of polygraphy — a concept that refers to the re-writing of a formative travel experience in different formats — that can be found in Ramos’s Ethiopian Travelogue, which was published in English in 2018 as the revised translation of a book published in Portuguese in 2010, which itself was a
revision of the first publication, also in Portuguese, from 2000. As I argue, the polyphonic dimension of Ramos’s work consists not only in his re-publishing sketches and texts based on his very first journey to Ethiopia, but in the lack of relation between the sketches and
the text, an example of what we might call ‘internal polygraphy’.
Englert, Birgit & Harisch, Immanuel. (2020). On the Relevance of Using Social Media Platforms as Archives for the Writing of African History. Stichproben: Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 39, 31-53. https://doi.org/10.25365/phaidra.240_02
In 2020, around 453 million people-roughly a third of the entire population on the African continent-were reported to be using the internet and about 217 million African users were active on social media. In this paper we suggest to understand social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and community forums as a kind of archives for writing African histories of everyday life. We argue that these platforms provide user-generated archives in the sense that they are built by users who document their everyday life by uploading items (photographs, videos, graphics, texts) which they either created themselves or which they accessed somewhere and made available by uploading them. By engaging with literature on archival science as well as on social media platforms, we discuss the opportunities which come along with the emergence of these new archives but also the ethical challenges that need to be faced when using sources from these online platforms. The article also engages with practical considerations on how to access, store and cite these sources. While many of the issues raised apply to African Studies more generally, we discuss the topic with a focus on African contemporary history.
Englert, Birgit. 2020. Moving beyond HipHop: Tracing Mobilities in the work of Franco-Comorian artists Soprano and Ahamada Smis. In: A. Ganser-Blumenau, & A. Pelz (Hrsg.), Mobile Kulturen und Gesellschaften – Mobile Cultures and Societies (S. 127-143). V&R unipress, Vienna University Press.
"The topic of this special issue “translocal popular culture” can refer to quite different phenomena: to popular culture that emerges first as the result of translocal flows, as well as to popular culture that is practiced and consumed in translocal spaces and thereby becomes subject to various transformation processes. The contributions that are gathered here refer to translocal popular culture in both senses and in some cases a neat distinction is not possible in any case.
The concept of translocality closely relates to that of transnationalism which from the 1990s on aimed to overcome the limitations of methodological nationalism inherent to many migration studies (Wimmer/ Glick Schiller 2002, de Jong/ Dannecker 2018). Translocality on its part emerged somewhat later with the intention to overcome the limitations of transnationalism which were closely tied to its presupposed relevance of the “nation” (Greiner/ Sakdapolrak 2013: 3). The concept of translocality serves to capture the sense of local-local connections across national boundaries (Brickell/ Datta 2011: 10) or within nation states, as Ogone (2015) argued with regard to the internal Kenyan Luo diaspora. Further, translocality is also usefully employed in historical contexts that precede the existence of nation states. Freitag and von Oppen (2010: 12) stipulated that - viewed from a historian’s perspective - transnationalism appears to be merely a special case of translocalism. (cf. Englert 2018: 544). Translocality is thus the overarching concept that provides - together with the notion of popular culture1 - the common ground for the contributions to this special issue. Nevertheless, some authors chose to refer to transnationality where this concept proved the better option."
Englert, Birgit ; Moreto, Nginjai Paul. / Retelling the World in Swahili – Revisiting the Practice of Film Translation in Tanzania. Africa Every Day. Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent.. editor / Kemi Balogun ; Lisa Gilman ; Melissa Graboyes ; Habib Iddrisu. Ohio University Press, 2019. pp. 265-273
Englert, Birgit. 2018. Looking through two lenses: reflections on transnational and translocal dimensions in Marseille-based popular music relating to the Comoros. In: Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power, 25: 5, 542-557. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2018.1507959
can be understood as reinventing or re-performing ‘Comorian culture’, affirming the role of notions of ‘ethnicity’ with respect to constructions of ‘diaspora’.
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Popular and Mobile: Reflections on using YouTube as an archive from an African Studies perspective. Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, Nr. 31, 27-56.
In this paper I reflect on the characteristics of YouTube as an archive, with a focus on its relevance for African Studies. I discuss the challenges of dealing with the audiovisual sources stored in this archive of popular culture and beyond, given the mobility that characterises the platform and its sources. I explore how to contextualise audiovisual sources found on YouTube and reflect on which ethical aspects need to be considered when using them for research purposes, and how to refer to them in citations.
Englert, Birgit. 2016. Reflections on the Role and Production of Research Films in African Studies. In Exenberger, Andreas; Pallua, Ulrich (Hrsg.), Africa Research in Austria: Approaches and Perspectives. (S. 43-64). (Edited Volume Series). Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press.
Englert, Birgit; Dannecker, Petra. 2014. Praktische und ethische Aspekte der Feldforschung. In: Dannecker, Petra; Englert, Birgit (Eds.). 2014. Qualitative Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung. GEP. Vienna: Mandelbaum, 233-265.
Dannecker, Petra; Englert, Birgit. 2014. Einleitung. In: Dannecker, Petra; Englert, Birgit (Eds.). 2014. Qualitative Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung. GEP. Vienna: Mandelbaum, 7-19.
Englert, Birgit; Gföllner, Barbara; Thomsen, Sigrid. (Eds.). 2021. Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean. London and New York: Routledge.
fully open access now: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003152248/cultural-mobilities-africa-caribbean-birgit-englert-barbara-gf%C3%B6llner-sigrid-thomsen?fbclid=IwAR2gz_dVTWQmI2CCI-GjgBjvLAO7jbVLoXFSaZq-TqEt6USZSSxl8EsoWi4
with a foreword by Mimi Sheller,
an introduction by the editors,
and contributions by Àníké Bello, Dominik Frühwirth, Shelene Gomes, Immanuel R. Harisch, Ana Nenadović, Doris Posch, Kevin Potter, Paola Ravasio, and Anna-Leena Toivanen
This book investigates the cultural connections between Africa and the Caribbean, using the lens of Mobility Studies to tease out the shared experiences between these highly diverse parts of the world.
Despite their heterogeneity in terms of cultures, languages, and political and economic histories, the connections between the African continent and the Caribbean are manifold, stretching back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The authors in this book look to the past as well as to the present, focusing on the manifold mobile connections between the regions’ subjects, objects, ideas, texts, images, sounds, and beliefs. In doing so, the book demonstrates that mobility extends beyond just the movement of people, and that we can also see mobility in objects and ideas, travelling either in a material sense or in imaginary terms, in physical as well as in virtual spaces.
Bringing the transdisciplinary fields of African Studies, Caribbean Studies, and Mobility Studies into dialogue, this book will be of interest to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences.
https://www.routledge.com/Cultural-Mobilities-Between-Africa-and-the-Caribbean/Englert-Gfollner-Thomsen/p/book/9780367708313
Englert, Birgit; Gärber, Barbara. (Eds.). 2015. Landgrabbing. Globale Kontexte und regionale Fallstudien. Historische Sozialkunde. Geschichte – Fachdidaktik – Politische Bildung. Vienna: Verein für Geschichte und Sozialkunde (VGS), 47 pages. [“Landgrabbing global contexts and case studies”]
Englert, Birgit; Gärber, Barbara. (Eds.). 2014. Landgrabbing. Landnahmen in globaler und historischer Perspektive. Historische Sozialkunde (HSK). Vienna: new academic press, 232 pages. [“Landgrabbing in historical and global perspective”]
Dannecker, Petra; Englert, Birgit (Eds.). 2014. Qualitative Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung. Vienna: Mandelbaum, 267 pages. [“Qualitative Methods in Development Studies”]
Sonderegger, Arno, Grau, Ingeborg, Englert, Birgit; (Eds.). 2011. Afrika im 20. Jahrhundert. Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Reihe: Edition Weltregionen (EWR), Vienna: Promedia, 254 pages. [“Africa in the 20th Century: History and Society”]
Englert, Birgit; Daley, Elizabeth (Eds.). 2008. Women’s Land Rights & Privatization in Eastern Africa. Oxford: James Currey, Nairobi: EAEP; Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 192 pages
Englert, Birgit; Grau, Ingeborg; Komlosy, Andrea (Eds.). 2006. Nord-Süd-Beziehungen. Kolonialismen und Ansätze zu ihrer Überwindung. Vienna: Mandelbaum, 262 pages. [„North-South-Relations. Colonialisms and Approaches to Overcoming them“]
Englert, Birgit. 2001. Die Geschichte der Enteignungen. Landpolitik und Landreform in Zimbabwe 1890-2000. Hamburg: LIT-Verlag.
Aus dem Vorwort:
"Den Schwerpunkt dieses Buches, das auf meiner Diplomarbeit basiert, bildet die Landreform in Zimbabwe, die seit der Unabhängigkeit des Landes im Jahr 1980 mit schwankender Intensität durchgeführt wurde. Landreform ist ein Thema von unmittelbarer Bedeutung für die gesamte Bevölkerung Zimbabwes. Diskussionen, vor allem über die Art ihrer Durchführung, verlaufen zwischen unterschiedlichen Interessengruppen, die sich nicht auf den Gegensatz zwischen afrikanischer Bevölkerung und Siedlern europäischer Herkunft reduzieren lassen. Um die postkoloniale Situation beurteilen zu können, ist eine genaue Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte des Landes seit dem Ein-treffen der ersten Europäer ab 1890 notwendig. Denn Zimbabwe ist als ehemalige Siedlerkolonie eines der wenigen Länder in Afrika, das von einer massiven Landenteignung betroffen war. Auch die theoretische Beschäftigung mit Konzepten von Landreform und ihre Anwendung in anderen Teilen der Welt ist für die Beurteilung der speziellen Situation in Zimbabwe von Bedeutung. Das Ziel dieses Buches ist es ein umfassendes Bild der Landpolitik der letzten 110 Jahre in Zimbabwe zu bieten, wobei mir die Darstellung der Zusammen-hänge zwischen der "Geschichte Rhodesiens" und der "Geschichte Zimbabwes" ein besonderes Anliegen ist. Diese Arbeit beinhaltet zwar eine Fülle von geo-graphischen und wirtschaftlichen Daten möchte aber den Diskurs über Landpolitik und Landreform in den Vordergrund stellen. Anzumerken ist auch, dass fast die gesamte gegenwärtige Literatur zum Thema Land in Zimbabwe in englischer Sprache erschienen ist. Daher habe ich es mir zum Ziel gesetzt, eine möglichst umfassende Darstellung des Themas auf Deutsch zu verfassen. Mein Interesse am Thema Landreform in Zimbabwe wurde erstmals im Rahmen meines Auslandsjahres an der School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, geweckt. Einerseits durch Dr. Debbie Potts, die in ihrem Kurs über die Humangeographie des Südlichen Afrika die aktuelle Entwicklung in Zimbabwe besonders hervorhob und andererseits durch die Teilnahme an der Konferenz "Land Reform in Zimbabwe: The Way Forward", die am 11. März 1998 in London stattfand. Ein großer Teil der Wissenschaftler, die über dieses Thema arbeiten, sowie die Vertreter der wichtigsten Interessensgruppen in und außerhalb von Zimbabwe waren anwesend und diskutierten über die kurz zuvor von Präsident Mugabe angekündigte Radikalisierung der Landreform.[...]"
Travel writing – on the interplay between text and the visual
Guest editors: Sandra Vlasta und Birgit Englert
“To travel is to see” notes Bernard McGrane, and writing about travels is thus the attempt to grasp what was seen – in words and/or in visual form. Accordingly “travel literature” not only deals with written texts, but also with visual elements, be it images, drawings, sketches, (out)looks, view points, or others, regardless whether they are drawn with words or also displayed visually. An arbitrary listing of some titles of travel writings (and travel blogs) underlines this: Pictures from Italy/Italienisches Bilderbuch/Sketches of Spain/ Impressions de voyage/ Reiseaufnahmen/ Blickgewinkelt. Illustrations like maps, sketches, drawings, photographs, and film which were produced on the road, as well as visual materials which were added later on, has been part of travel writing since the beginning of the genre. Visual material can serve to convey information that cannot be verbalised. The visual further may give authenticity to what was experienced and narrated and underlines the credibility of the traveller/narrator. At the same time, the visual guides the view of the reader and tends to strengthen certain viewpoints even more than texts do, although visual depictions only seem to be more realistic, as Giorgia Alù und Sarah Patricia Hill remind us: “[visual representation] distorts rather than reflects social reality”] . Illustrations in travel writing thus partake in the construction of difference, of images of the self and the other and consequently in the emergence of stereotypes and clichés.
This thematic issue of Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal >mcsj> is dedicated to the relation between text and the visual in travel writing. The latter is defined as narratives about travels which the narrators/authors have actually undertaken. We understand travel as a specific form of mobility which is characterised by certain elements and thus distinguishable from other forms of mobility – even though the exact delimitation may sometimes be blurred. In the context of Mobility Studies we are therefore also interested in the question how travel can be distinguished from other forms of mobility and how this is realised in the writings about it. Structural categories such as gender, generation, class, race and others have an impact on any form of mobility, thus also on travel. We look forward to analyses which deal with the repercussions of these categories on the experiences of travelling and their descriptions and draw on the historical as well as contemporary political, economic and social contexts of the respective cases.
Narratives about travel can take very different forms. We welcome contributions which focus on printed forms of travel writing that have generally also been edited (for example classic travelogues, graphic novels or illustrated books). Furthermore, we are also looking for analyses of formats such as the travel diary which in the last two decades has often been published in the format of blogs. Often, these are available instantaneously to a broad readership and have been authorised only by their writers. These examples also illustrate the broad timeframe of this issue which reaches up to the present.
We have a comprehensive understanding of “text” and “visual” – the focus is on the interplay between what is verbally formulated (text) and visually presented (e.g. sketches, drawings, images, maps, photos, films etc.) in travel writing. These two elements can obviously also overlap, for example in the form of ekphrasis or of texts which are inscribed into images such as in comics and graphic novels.
With contributions by:
Ana de Almeida
Birgit Englert
Holger Helm
Tanja Kapp
Jan-Hendrik Müller
Mirja Riggert
Anna Karina Sennefelder
Sigrid Thomsen
Erika Unterpertinger
Sandra Vlasta
Rhian Waller
Daniel Winkler
Christian Wimplinger
All contributions are available open access at: https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
Englert, Birgit (Ed.). 2019. Translocal Popular Culture. Special Issue of Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, Nr. 36 / 2019, 172 pages.
Elizabeth Daley; Englert, Birgit (Eds.). 2010. Securing Women’s Land Rights in Eastern Africa. Special Issue for the Journal of Eastern African Studies (JEAS), Oxford, Vol. 4/ 1.
Abstract:
"This collection of papers on Securing Women's Land Rights presents five articles relating to eastern Africa. Four of these illustrate practical approaches to securing land rights for women in distinct situations: law-making for women's land rights (Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda); land tenure reform in practice (Rwanda); women's rights under pastoral land tenure (Ethiopia); and women's rights in areas of matrilineal-matrilocal land tenure (Malawi). This article serves as an overall introduction to the subject, reviewing past issues and highlighting new ones, and setting out the shape of a positive, pragmatic approach to securing women's land rights in eastern Africa. Five key themes emerge: the role of customary institutions; the continuing central role of legislation as a foundation for changing custom; issues of gender equity and equitability, and underlying goals; the challenges of reform implementation and of growing women's confidence to claim their rights; and the importance of encouraging effective collaboration among all those working in the field of women's land rights. The article calls for a stronger focus on gender equity – on securing equal land rights for both women and men – in order to achieve sustainable positive change in broader social and political relations."
Englert, Birgit (Ed.). 2008. Popular Music and Politics in Africa. Special Issue of Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies, Nr. 14/2008, 137 pages.
Englert, Birgit. 2003. Landreform in Afrika. Special Issue of the Austrian Journal of Development Studies (JEP) 1/2003, 110 pages. [“Land reform in Africa”]
und Gesellschaften in unterschiedlichen Weltgegenden mehr und mehr bewusst wurden.
Das Kapitel „Unfreie Befreier. Über Krieg und Kolonialität“ etwa beginnt mit ihrer Erinnerung an den Moment, als ihr in Mali jemand „ein Foto von Schwarzen Soldaten in einem schneebedeckten Schützengraben“ (S. 15) zeigte. Da wurde ihr klar, dass auch afrikanische Soldaten gegen das nationalsozialistische Deutschland gekämpft hatten. Das war ihr bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt trotz intensiver Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus nicht bewusst gewesen. [...]
See the bilingual thematic issue on "Travel Writing: On the Interplay between Text and the Visual | Reisebilder – Bilderreisen: Zum Zusammenspiel von Text und Bild im Reisebericht",
edited by Sandra Vlasta and Birgit Englert
All contributions are available open access at: https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
See the bilingual thematic issue on "Travel Writing: On the Interplay between Text and the Visual | Reisebilder – Bilderreisen: Zum Zusammenspiel von Text und Bild im Reisebericht",
edited by Sandra Vlasta and Birgit Englert
All contributions are available open access at: https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
Englert, Birgit. 2019. Review of: Kasrils, Ronnie. 2017. A Simple Man. Kasrils and the Zuma Enigma. Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media Ltd., 283 Seiten. ISBN: 978‐1‐ 4314‐2577‐8. In: Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien / Vienna Journal of African Studies No. 37/2019, Vol. 19, 135‐147.
Englert, Birgit. 2014. Review of: Krings, Matthias and Uta Reuster-Jahn (eds.) Bongo Media Worlds. Producing and Consuming Popular Culture in Dar es Salaam (Mainzer Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung, 34). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2014, 286 pp, softcover, size 17 x 24 cm, ISBN 978-3-89645-834-6. In: Swahili Forum 21 (2014): iv-vi
Englert, Birgit. 2013. Rezension von: Gerd Spittler, Michael Bourdillon (Hrsg.) (2012): African Children at Work. Working and Learning in Growing Up for Life. Münster: Lit. In: Diskurs. Kindheits- und Jugendforschung Heft 3-2013, 364-365.
Englert, Birgit. 2007. Review of: Raab, Klaus. 2006: Rapping the Nation. Die Aneignung von HipHop in Tanzania. Berlin: Lit-Verlag. In: Afrika Spektrum Vol. 42, 1/2007, (German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg) 125-127.
Englert, Birgit. 2000. Review of: Melber, Henning (Ed.) 2000. Namibia - A Decade of Independence 1990-2000. In: Austrian Journal of Development Studies 4/2000, p. 434-445.
Englert, Birgit. 2008. Neuer Wind im tanzanischen Parlament. In: HABARI – Rundbrief des Tanzania Netzwerks, Nr. 3/2008, 38-42.
Englert, Birgit. 2008. Gender und Landrechte in Südafrika. A study commissioned by the Vienna Institute for Development Cooperation (VIDC), online available: http://dp.vidc.org/fileadmin/Bibliothek/DP/pdfs/G_LR/gLRSuedafrika.pdf [„Gender and Land Rights in South Africa“], 37 pages
Englert, Birgit. 2007. Gender und Landrechte in Simbabwe. A study commissioned by the Vienna Institute for Development Cooperation (VIDC), online available: http://dp.vidc.org/fileadmin/Bibliothek/DP/pdfs/gLRSimbabwe.pdf [„Gender and Land Rights in Zimbabwe“], 40 pages
Tuesday, 15 June 2021, 5 pm (Vienna time) in Zoom
INPUTS BY
Flo Kasearu (Tallinn), artist, and Sara Bédard-Goulet (Tartu), literary scholar, who will read from their pocket book „(Dis)covering …. Mountains“. Tallinn and Marseille: Routes to Roots, 2020
and
Manuel João Ramos (Lisbon), anthropologist, travel writer and sketcher, author of “Of Hairy Kings and Saintly Slaves. An Ethiopian Travelogue”. Canon Pyon: Sean Kingston Publishing, 2018
FOLLOWED BY DISCUSSION.
An online event on the occasion of the publication of »Travel Writing: On the Interplay between Text and the Visual | Reisebilder – Bilderreisen: Zum Zusammenspiel von Text und Bild im Reisebericht« Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal Vol. (2020), Issue 6, 270 pages edited by Sandra Vlasta and Birgit Englert,
with contributions by Ana de Almeida, Birgit Englert, Holger Helm, Tanja Kapp, Jan-Hendrik Müller, Mirja Riggert, Anna Karina Sennefelder, Sigrid Thomsen, Erika Unterpertinger, Sandra Vlasta, Rhian Waller, Daniel Winkler, Christian Wimplinger
All articles, essays and reviews – partly in English, partly in German – are available fully open access on the website of: Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal https://unipub.uni-graz.at/mcsj/periodical/titleinfo/6011478
Please use this link to access the Zoom-meeting:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/98696933448?pwd=UjJLOW1ScXpPVFpDZFU1VVdmUjlnQT09
Meeting-ID: 986 9693 3448
Kenncode: 278191
An event hosted by
the Research Platform Mobile Cultures and Societies,
the Department of African Studies at the University of Vienna,
the MSCA project European Travel Writing in Context (Mainz/Nottingham),
and Mobile Culture Studies – The Journal at the University of Graz,
organised by Birgit Englert (Vienna) and Sandra Vlasta (Mainz/Rome).
Englert, Birgit; Andres Carvajal. 2014. ‘Créer Comoria’ – un documentaire sur le groupe de musique Franco-Comorien Afropa à Marseille / ‘Creating Comoria’ - a documentary on the Franco-Comorian music group Afropa in Marseilles“. (Documentary / research film, 76 minutes, HD, French with English subtitles, Vienna/Barcelona) Roles: Script, Camera, Production.
Open access on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/199555814
Carvajal Gomez, Andres Felipe; Hamada Hamza, Mounir; Fritsch, Katharina; (Producer: Birgit Englert). 2016. Histoires de Twarab à Marseille. (Documentary / research film, 74 minutes, HD, 16:9, Marseilles/ Barcelona / Vienna.
Open access on Vimeo -
French version: https://vimeo.com/288013953;
English version: https://vimeo.com/286368915