Academic career
Behrend studied ethnology, sociology and religious studies in Munich, Vienna and Berlin. After completing her studies in ethnology with a Master's degree at the Free University of Berlin in 1973, she trained in documentary filmmaking at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin from 1980 to 1984. [1] In 1987, she received her PhD from the Free University of Berlin with the thesis Die Zeit geht krumme Wege. Raum, Zeit und Ritual bei den Tugen in Kenia (Space, Time and Ritual of the Tugen in Kenya). In 1992, she obtained her habilitation from the University of Bayreuth with the thesis War in the North Ugandas. The Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena . [2]
In Germany, Behrend taught at the Institutes of Ethnology at universities in Berlin, Bayreuth and Mainz. After a visiting professorship at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris in May 1994, she became a tenured professor at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Cologne. During various visiting professorships and senior fellowships, she taught again at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris in 1997, and in 2003 at the Programme of African Studies (PAS) of Northwestern University, Evanston, USA. In 2007, she pursued research at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies in Vienna [3] and in 2010 at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan. [2]
Behrend's research primarily has focused on popular culture in Africa, the relationship between religion, war, and violence. She conducted fieldwork in East Africa, particularly in Kenya and Uganda. [4] Shorter travels for research led her to Nigeria, Ghana, among other African countries. One of Behrend's earliest research projects was conducted in Kenya, where she studied the Tugen community. In Spirit Possession, Modernity and Power in Africa, she examined how spirit possession and rituals were employed as forms of resistance and coping mechanisms in the face of socio-political change. [5] In Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits. War in Northern Uganda 1986–97, she analyzed the biography of Acholi medium-spirit Alice Lakwena and the history of her Holy Spirit Movement in Uganda from social anthropological perspectives. [6] In his introduction to the English translation, Yale University professor of anthropology John F. M. Middleton welcomed Behrend's detailed description of the internal organization of the movement. [7]
Her 2020 autobiography Menschwerdung eines Affen. Eine Autobiografie der ethnografischen Forschung (Incarnation of an Ape. An Autobiography of Ethnographic Research) was critically acclaimed. [8] It was awarded the 2021 Leipzig Book Fair Prize [9] and has been published in Italian and Spanish. [10]
Contributions to studies on photography in Africa
Being part of the research college "Media and Cultural Communication” of the Universities of Cologne, Bonn and Aachen, Behrend was one of the founders of the newly formed academic field of the anthropology of media in Germany. As part of her research on photography in Africa, she co-curated the exhibition Snap me one! Studio photographers in Africa. This exhibition was shown in 1999 in Germany, [11] the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., and at the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam. In 2010, she curated the exhibition Photography as a Dream Machine. Popular African Photographers at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Additionally, she donated studio portraits from the East African Indian diaspora to the Smithsonian Museum collections. [12]
Behrend was particularly interested in how African communities use visual media to represent themselves and engage with their past, as well as with their religious beliefs and practices. [13] Her research contributed to the understanding of photography as a cultural practice that goes beyond mere documentation, influencing how history and memory are constructed and communicated. [14]
Since her retirement in 2012, Behrend has been living and working in Berlin. [15]
