Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology • LMU Munich

Institutional Affiliation

Team member of the research group Highland Asia and PhD student at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich

Education

M.A., Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Tuebingen, 2015
B.A., Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin, 2012

Research Interests

My PhD project focuses on livelihood strategies and socio-economic practices in the mountainous Pamir region of Tajikistan. Given the lack of local income opportunities, I am particularly interested in relations that people in the region entertain with “other” places, actors and resources, within the region and beyond. Such relations aim not only at making a living but also to pursue different goals, such as higher education. In this context cultural-religious role models and a transnational Isma’ili community can play important roles in a family’s decision concerning migration, seeking employment, education or starting a business. However, changing opportunities somewhere else, in turn, affect life back in the Pamirs. It is this relation, between marginality and connectivity, that my dissertation aims to explore. 

Faculty Sponsor

Timothy Oakes, Geography. 

Term at CU

Carolin Mäertens was a visiting scholar for the academic years 2018-19.