Collaboration across cultures and disciplines
About Me
I listen to people and talk to them
As linguistic anthropologist and resource analyst, I research why certain groups of people – women, youth, people affected by poverty or persecution – are not heard and are excluded from access to public services such as health care, education, or legal systems. Putting people into the center of attention is my goal.
Since the beginning of my working life, as researcher, NPO worker, writer, I have always collaborated closely with, well, people. My expertise and my longstanding experience enable me to provide insights into the context, history, cultural, and political situation of their living spaces. Like this, sustainable programs can be developed and implemented that improve both the situation and the prospects of disadvantaged people and groups on the ground.
Curriculum
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After growing up and going to school in Basel, Switzerland, I joined a medical project in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil as a junior research assistant and field operator. Doing and studying anthropology was a goal I had already carried in my heart since I was little, so this is what I did. The USA was the place to study social anthropology and I was lucky to get into great schools both for my undergraduate and graduate trainings. Between degrees, I worked as health educator and field operator in rural Côte d'Ivoire in collaboration with the Ivorian Ministry of Health for two years. Staying in touch with people and life beyond academia continues to be important to me.
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Books and stories and listening to how people tell them are at the basis of my anthropological work. Their stories have brought me to projects in health care, the justice sector and human rights, to linguistics, and to consultancy work with governments and NPO work.​​​​​​
​​​​The Present
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* Consulting and sparring for trans-disciplinary and trans-cultural work (since 2015)
* Editing texts for publishing (since 2000)
* English language coaching for presentations and for networking events (since 2000)
* Co-managing an NPO (since 2020)
* Research in scientific and applied projects, linguistic and medical anthropology (since the early 1990s)
* Curate and moderate book projects (since 2022)
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Getting there
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PhD in African Studies (2020)
MA in African Studies (2015)
MA in Social Anthropology (1996) ​​​