Comparative Cultural and Social Anthropology

Dr. Vanessa Eileen Thompson (former research associate)

Academic Staff Member

Research areas

Critical Racism and Migration Research
Black Studies
Post- and decolonial-feminist Theories and Methodologies
Gender Studies and Intersectionality of Social Inequalities
Abolition and Theories of Transformative Justice
Critical Police Studies
Cultural Studies
Qualitative Social Research, especially Ethnography

Projects

Discipline and Punish of the Other. An Analysis of Racial Profiling and its Gender Specific Dimensions
Supported by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts
Project Management: Dr. des. Vanessa Eileen Thompson
Run time: 01.05.2019-31.08.2020

“Policing Blackness in Europe. Intersectional Critiques and Horizons of Abolition”
Postdoctoral Project

Solidarities in Black. Anti-Black Racism and the Struggle beyond Recognition in Paris
Dissertation at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main
(supervised by Professor Kira Kosnick and Professor Ramón Grosfoguel, concluded)
Awarded with the WISAG-Price for the best PhD thesis in the Social Sciences and Humanities at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, 2017

Research Abroad

Department of Black Studies, University of California Santa Barbara
Humanities Research Institute, University of California
Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California Berkeley
École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris

Publications

Articles:

(peer reviewed, forthcoming, 2020). Policing in Europe and abolitionist intersectional care: The case of madness. Race & Class, Special Issue on State Violence, Race and Mental Health.

(peer reviewed, 2020). Decolonizing City Spaces and Images. Black Collective Solidarity and Conviviality in Paris. Darkmatter, Special Issue on Racial Imagery, https://darkmatter-hub.pubpub.org/pub/hzzpjlmx/release/1.

(2020). Postcolonial Ethnographies: Exiting the Comfort Zone and Entering the Contact Zone. WestEnd. Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung: 109-123.

with P. Bacchetta, F. El-Tayeb, J. Haritaworn, J. Hernandez, S. Smythe and T. Willoughby-Herard (peer reviewed, 2018). Queer of Color Space-Making in and beyond the Academic Industrial Complex. Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Special Issue: The University and What Can Be Done,
4(1): 44-63.

with K. Hoppe, D. Klingenberg, F. Trautmann and A. Vorbrugg (2018). Worüber wir reden, wenn wir mit jemandem nicht reden wollen. Zum Spannungsverhältnis von Rassismuskritik und Meinungsfreiheit an der Universität. Movements: Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime
Studies 4(1): 167-177. (What we are talking about when we don’t want to talk to someone. About the contradictions of critiques of racism and freedom of speech at the university).

with V. Zablotsky (peer reviewed, 2016). Rethinking Diversity in Academic Institutions. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies, 16: 77-95.

with S. Salem (peer reviewed, 2016). Old Racisms, New Masks: On the Continuing Discontinuities of Racism and the Erasure of Race in European Contexts. Ninety Sixty Nine: an Ethnic Studies Journal, Special Edition: Across Difference, 3(1): 1-23.

(peer reviewed, 2016). Black Jacobins in Contemporary France: On Identities on Politics, Decolonial Critique and the Other Blackness. Sociological Focus, Special Issue on Black Movements, 49(1): 44-62.

Books:

(in preparation, 2021). Schwarze Feminismen. Special Issue edited together with D. Bergold-Caldwell and Christine Löw. Femina Politica. Zeitschrift für Feministische Politikwissenschaft. (Black Feminisms).

(in preparation, 2020). Sicherheit. Rassismuskritische und feministische Perspektiven. Edited together with M. Laufenberg. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. (Security. Race Critical and Feminist Perspectives).

Book Chapters:

(peer reviewed, forthcoming, 2020). Policing Difference, Feminist Oblivions and the (Im-)Possibilities of Intersectional Abolition. In: Transitioning to Gender Equality. Ed.: Ch. Binswanger, A. Zimmermann. Geneva: MDPI Books.

(forthcoming, 2020). Verschränkte Beschlagnahmen: Postkoloniale Perspektiven auf die Strafgesellschaft. In: Foucaults Vorlesungen, 1970–1984. Ed.: F. Vogelmann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. (Intersecting Confiscation. Postcolonial Perspectives on the Punitive Society).

(peer reviewed, 2020). Von der Rückkehr nach Reims zur Vielfalt der Kämpfe. Eribons Perspektiven auf Intersektionalität. In: Eribon revisited – Perspektiven der Gender und Queer Studies. Eds.: S. Völker, E. Kleinau and K. Kalmbach. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 125-141 (From the Return to Reims to the Intersectionality of Struggles).

(2019). We have to act. That is what forms collectivity. Black Solidarity beyond Identity in Contemporary Paris. In: Locating African European Studies: Interventions – Intersections – Coalitions. Eds.: M. Stein, F. Espinoza, C. Kögler, D. Nyangulu. London: Routledge, pp. 31-45.

with F. El-Tayeb (2019). Racial Profiling als Verbindung zwischen alltäglichem Rassismus, staatlicher Gewalt und kolonialrassistischen Traditionen. Ein Gespräch über Racial Profiling und intersektionale Befreiungsprojekte in Europa. In: Racial Profiling. Struktureller Rassismus und antirassistischer Widerstand. Eds.: M. Wa Baile, S. O. Dankwa, T. Naguib, S. Schilliger and P. Purtschert. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 311-329. (Racial Profiling as a Connection between Everyday Racism, State Violence and Racist-colonial Legacies. A Conversation on Racial Profiling and Intersectional Emancipatory Projects).

(2018). There is no justice, there is just us! Ansätze zu einer postkolonial-feministischen Kritik der Polizei am Beispiel von Racial Profiling. In: Kritik der Polizei. Ed.: D. Loick, Frankfurt/M.: Campus, pp. 197-219. (There is no justice, there is just us! A Postcolonial-feminist Critique of Policing. The Case of Racial Profiling).

with J. Ehrmann (2018). Abolitionistische Demokratie: Intersektionale Konzepte und Praktiken der Strafkritik. In: Strafe und Gefängnis. Theorie, Kritik, Alternativen. Eine Einführung. Ed.: R. Malzahn, Stuttgart: Schmetterling Verlag, pp. 161-181. (Abolition Democracy. Intersectional Concepts and Practices of the Critique of Punishment).

(2018). Turn white or disappear. On the Everyday of Racist Policing. In: We Protect you from yourselves. The Politics of Policing. Eds.: Democracia and Felix Trautmann, Madrid: Brumaria, pp. 79-93.

with A. Vorbrugg (2018). Rassismuskritik an der Hochschule. Mit oder trotz Diversity Management? In: Prekäre Gleichstellung: Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, soziale Ungleichheit und unsichere Arbeitsverhältnisse in der Wissenschaft. Eds.: M. Laufenberg, M. Erlemann, P. Lucht, M. Norkus, G. Petschick. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp. 79-99 (Critiques of Racism in the University. With or despite Diversity Management?).

with V. Zablotsky (2017). Nationalismen der Anerkennung – Gedenken, Differenz und die Idee einer „europäischen Kultur der Erinnerung.“ In: Decolonize the City! Zur Kolonialität der Stadt. Gespräche – Aushandlungen – Perspektiven. Eds.: Zwischenraum Kollektiv. Münster: Unrast, pp. 156-177 (Nationalisms of Recognition – Memory, Difference and the Idea of a “European Culture of Memoralization“).

(2015). On the Move! The Rise of a Black LGBT*Q Clubbing Scene in Paris and Negotiations within the Coloniality of the City. In: Postmigrant Club Cultures in Urban Europe. Ed. K. Kosnick. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, pp. 87-114.

(2015). The Master’s Tools will never Dismantle the Master’s House. Frantz Fanon on the Politics of Recognition and Whiteness in Hegemonic Social Philosophy. In: Unveiling Whiteness in the Twenty-First Century: Global Manifestations, Transdisciplinary Interventions. Eds. D. Howard-Wagner, V. Watson, L. Spanierman. MD: Lexington Books, pp. 171-192.

Other Publications (Selection):

(2020). Die Verunmöglichung von Atmen. In: Heimatkunde. Migrationspolitisches Portal der Heinrich Böll Stiftung: https://heimatkunde.boell.de/de/2020/09/02/die-verunmoeglichung-von-atmen (The impossibility of breathing).

(2020). When I can’t breathe becomes pandemic. Why Black feminism matters now! In: Migrazine. Online Magazin von Migrantinnen für Alle.

(2018). Repairing Worlds: On Radical Openness beyond Fugitivity and the Politics of Care. Comments on David Goldberg’s Conversation with Achille Mbembe. In: Theory, Culture & Society, 35(7–8): 243-250.

(2017). Afrikanische politische Philosophie als plurale Kritik. Rezension zu: F. Dübgen and S. Skupien (2015). Afrikanische politische Philosophie. Postkoloniale Positionen. Berlin, Suhrkamp, Neue Politische Literatur, 62: 371-372. (African political philosophy as plural critique. Review of African political philosophy. Postcolonial Positions).

with J. James (2016). Racial Profiling, Institutioneller Rassismus und Widerstände. In: Handbuch des Informations- und Dokumentationszentrums für Antirassismusarbeit e.V. (IDA) zu Flucht und Asyl, Düsseldorf, pp 55-59. (Racial Profiling, institutional racism and resistances).

with L. Digoh-Ersoy (2016). Schwarze Geschichte, Rassismuskritik und (Selbst-)Organisierung in Deutschland. In: Handbuch des Informations- und Dokumentationszentrums für Antirassismusarbeit e.V. (IDA) zu Rassismuskritik, Düsseldorf, pp. 58-64. (Black Stories, Critiques of Racism and (Self-) Organization in Germany).

with J. Ehrmann (2014), Emanzipation wird erst in der Praxis denkbar. Angela Davis im Gespräch über Feminismus, Gefängniskritik und Diversity. In: Jungle World (51) 19.12.2013, (Emancipation becomes Conceivable in Practice. A Conversation with Angela Davis on Feminism, Critique of Punishment and Diversity).

with J. Ehrmann (2014), Der Klang von Black Power. Interview mit Angela Davis. In: Missy Magazine, 02.2014. pp. 24-26. (The Sound of Black Power. Interview with Angela Davis)

Vita

07.2020 - present
Research Associate, Chair of Comparative Cultural and Social Anthropology, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

08.2017 - 06.2020
Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Chair of Culture and Migration (Professor Kira Kosnick), Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University
Frankfurt.

10.2018 - 04.2019
Invited Guest Lecturer, Gender Studies Center, University of Cologne

11.2017
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt. Dissertation: Solidarities in Black. Anti-Black Racism and the Struggle beyond Recognition in Paris. Advisors: Professor Kira Kosnick and Professor Ramón Grosfoguel. Grade: summa cum laude (highest distinction awarded in Germany).

01.2017 - 03.2017
Visiting Scholar, Research Group in Residence, Queer of Color Formations and Translocal Spaces in Europe, Humanities Research Institute, University of California

07.2016 - 07.2017
Fellowship, Department of Black Studies, University of California Santa Barbara.

01.2014 - 06.2014
Visiting Scholar, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California Berkeley (invited by Professor Ramón Grosfoguel).

05.2010 - 04.2016
Research Associate and Junior Lecturer, Chair of Culture and Migration (Professor Kira Kosnick), Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University
Frankfurt.

05.2009 - 12.2011
Research Assistant, European Research Council (ERC), Starting Grant Project Post-Migrant Socialities: Ethnic Club Cultures in Urban Europe
(Professor Kira Kosnick), Goethe University Frankfurt.

04.2003 - 01.2010
Studied Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology and German Literature, Goethe University Frankfurt and Lumière Lyon 2 University, Lyon.

Awards and Grants

Research Grant of the Hessian Ministry for Higher Education, Research and the Arts for the postdoctoral project “Policing Blackness in Europe. Intersectional Critiques and Horizons of Abolition.
University of California Humanities Research Institute Conference Grant for the international symposium “On the Matter of Blackness in Europe. Transnational Perspectives”.
WISAG-Price for the best PhD thesis in the Social Sciences and Humanities at Goethe University 2017.
International PhD Program Democracy, Knowledge, and Gender in a Transnational World (IPP Transnational), Travelling Grant for Visiting Scholarship at University of California Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Department.

Referee for Academic Journals

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Suburban. Zeitschrift für kritische Stadtforschung, Zeitschrift für
Diskursforschung, Open Gender Journal

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