Birgit Englert

• Associate Professor
• Professor (Associate) at University of Vienna

Introduction. Travel writing – on the interplay between text and the visual Birgit Englert, Sandra Vlasta Beginning of the article: "‘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 w...

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...

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 t...

Book review of: WIEDEMANN, Charlotte. 2022. Den Schmerz der Anderen Begreifen. Holocaust und Weltgedächtnis. Berlin: Propyläen, 288 Seiten. ISBN: 978-3-549-10049-3

Full reference: Englert, Birgit. 2022. Zurück zum Ausgangspunkt: verdrängte Solidaritäten zwischen afrikanischen und palästinensischen Akteuren. In: Böckmann, Matthias; Gockel, Matthias; Kößler, Reinhart; Melber, Henning (Eds.): Jenseits von Mbembe – Geschichte, Erinnerung, Solidarität. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 225-243. [“Back to the starting poi...

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 v...

Englert, Birgit. 2023. Schwarz-Palästinensische Solidaritätsreisen im Kontext deutschsprachiger Debatten. In: Benz, Wolfgang (Ed.). Erinnerungsverbot? Die Ausstellung "Al Nakba" im Visier der Gegenaufklärung. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 114-127.

Introduction to the edited collection titled "Cultural Mobilities between Africa and the Caribbean"

A review published in 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", Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal 6 (2020), edited by Sandra Vlasta and Birgit Englert All contributions are available open access at: https://uni...

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 arc...

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,...

Beginning of the review: "„Eine Reise ist kein Spaß…“ lautet das dem ersten Kapitel vorangestellte Bonmot. Die Zeile darunter lautet schlicht: „Wien-Teheran in 70 Tagen“. Eine Reise ist aber auch keine Flucht, ließe sich ergänzen, auch wenn erstere durchaus mit Strapazen verbunden sein mag, wie im Fall der Radreise, die den Autor Franz Paul Horn g...

CFP for the Special Issue: 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 te...

From the introduction to the text: “Some of the most compelling and commercially successful African rap in the 2000s emanates from France,” notes Charry (2012, 18), editor of Hip Hop Africa, in his introductory chapter to the anthology. French hip-hop and rap2 certainly has to be seen as a postcolonial phenomenon,3 having developed in direct linka...

From the beginning of the review: "Bereits der Untertitel von „A Simple Man“, nämlich „Kasrils and the Zuma Enigma“ macht deutlich, dass in dem neuesten Buch von Ronnie Kasrils das Verhältnis von zwei „Big Men“ im Mittelpunkt steht: dem von 2009 bis 2018 amtierenden südafrikanischen Präsidenten Jacob Zuma und dem ehemaligen Anti‐Apartheidkämpfer,...

Beginning of the chapter: "On a late afternoon in August 2009, we walk by a wooden shack in the Chamwino neighborhood in Morogoro, a regional town in central Tanzania. The covers of six films are on display outside, including titles such as Unstoppable with Wesley Snipes and Tears of the Sun with Bruce Willis. “Imetafsiriwa Kiswahili” (It has been...

Foreword to the special issue "Translocal Popular Culture" of the journal Stichproben. Vienna Journal of African Studies

Special Issue: Translocal Popular Cultures edited by Birgit Englert Translocal Popular Culture. Foreword Birgit Englert Artikel / Articles: Movies on the Move: Transnational Video Film Flows and the Emergence of Local Video Film Industries in East Africa Daniel Künzler Encountering Chinese Modernity: The Emerging Popularity of Chinese Televisio...

This article starts from the observation that whenever new concepts become popular, they are applied to more and more contexts until they have become so inclusive that they risk losing their analytical power. This tendency also shapes the relationship between the concepts of transnationality and translocality, which is discussed here with a focus o...

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 audiovis...

In this article, I wish to reflect on the role and production of research films in African Studies, which is – just as any area study – in itself highly diverse. In the first part of the paper, I start with some thoughts on the relevance of audiovisual work in African Studies in general, and continue with some reflections on how to work with film i...

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-Como...

http://vgs.univie.ac.at/_TCgi_Images/vgs/20140526181911_HSK33_Einleitung.pdf Landgrabbing, definiert als großflächige Landnahme durch finanzstarke Investoren, hat in den vergangenen Jahren sowohl in Medien und journalistischen Publikationen (etwa Liberti 2012; Pearce 2012) als auch in akademischen Kreisen ein großes Maß an Aufmerksamkeit erfahren....

Das Spektrum qualitativer Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung ist so vielfältig wie die Herausforderungen, mit denen ForscherInnen in diesem Bereich konfrontiert sind: Erstellung von Studiendesigns, Probleme in der praktischen Umsetzung oder die inhaltliche Evaluierung der erhobenen Daten. Darüber hinaus werden ethische Fragen nach der Legitimati...

Das Spektrum qualitativer Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung ist so vielfältig wie die Herausforderungen, mit denen ForscherInnen in diesem Bereich konfrontiert sind: Erstellung von Studiendesigns, Probleme in der praktischen Umsetzung oder die inhaltliche Evaluierung der erhobenen Daten. Darüber hinaus werden ethische Fragen nach der Legitimati...

Abstract vom Buch: Das Spektrum qualitativer Methoden in der Entwicklungsforschung ist so vielfältig wie die Herausforderungen, mit denen ForscherInnen in diesem Bereich konfrontiert sind: Erstellung von Studiendesigns, Probleme in der praktischen Umsetzung oder die inhaltliche Evaluierung der erhobenen Daten. Darüber hinaus werden ethische Fragen...

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 S...

„Landgrabbing – Landnahme“ – der Definitionsrahmen wurde bewusst breit angelegt und bezieht sich auf Landnahmen in unterschiedlichen historischen, geographischen und politischen Kontexten, so etwa in Bezug auf koloniale Eroberung, vor dem Hintergrund totalitärer Regime und im Zuge von Landreformen. Auch die gegenwärtige Form von Landgrabbing durch...

Abstract: Bongo Flava, also known as the “music of the new generation” (muziki wa kizazi kipya), has over the past fifteen years grown into the commercially most important musical form in Tanzania. Besides the well-known “superstars” of Bongo Flava who are mainly based in Dar-es-Salaam, thousands of young people in various regions of the country no...

Abstract of the book: Ce livre est un hommage à Alain Ricard dont les recherches, menées à la croisée de l’anthropologie culturelle, des sciences de la communication et de la littérature comparée, ont été d’un apport considérable pour une meilleure connaissance des dynamiques littéraires et artistiques sur le continent africain. La prise en compte...

Bongo Flava Musik hat dazu beigetragen, unter den TanzanianerInnen, die in der Ära der Liberalisierung und Mehrparteien-Politik aufgewachsen sind, eine generationenbezogene Identität zu schaffen. Wichtiger noch, dieses junge musikalische Genre hat eine wichtige Rolle dabei gespielt die Sichtbarkeit und das Sich-Gehör-Verschaffen von jungen Menschen...

This article focuses on a phenomenon of technical innovation that has spread quickly in Tanzania in the past couple of years: the translation of films in languages such as English or Hindi/Urdu into Swahili, the official language of Tanzania. This article discusses this phenomenon through the life and work of Hemed Musa from Masasi, a young man who...

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...

Introduction As actor in Swahili language film productions that started to boom in the mid-2000s, Steven Kanumba has acquired superstar status in Tanzania. 1 Accordingly, the expectations among his fans and the general Tanzanian public were high when 25-year old Kanumba was invited to participate at the opening ceremony of the reality show Big Brot...

Introduction This chapter aims to complement the detailed analysis of land markets in Iringa Region by Elizabeth Daley in the preceding chapter in two ways: through a discussion of women's rights to land in the context of a changing matrilineal/matrilocal framework and a focus on gendered attitudes towards titles as collateral. It aims to show how...

Aims of the Book Land is the main resource from which millions of people in rural Africa derive their livelihoods. That women do the vast majority of work in agricultural smallholder production, producing between 60 and 80 per cent of all food grown in African countries, has become a common observation – and with it the concern that most women on t...

What Remains to be Done? With this book we have tried to offer a nuanced picture of how the issues of privatization, gender relations and land rights are currently interacting in Eastern Africa as a contribution to the debate on how women's rights can best be secured in the overarching context of the increasing ‘privatization’ of land tenure. The d...

Bongo Flava, also known as the ‘music of the new generation’ (muziki wa kizazi kipya), has grown over the past ten years into the commercially most important musical form in Tanzania. Besides the well-known ‘superstars’ of Bongo Flava who are mainly based in Dar-es-Salaam, thousands of young people in various regions of the country not only consume...

Bongo Flava music has helped to shape a generational identity of those Tanzanians who grew up in the era of liberalisation and multi-party politics. More importantly, this youthful musical genre has helped to increase the visibility and voiceability of youth in the Tanzanian public and thus at least indirectly encouraged the political participation...

This volume focuses on the impact on women's land rights from the contemporary drive towards the formulation and implementation of land tenure reforms which aim primarily at the private registration of land. It is solidly grounded in the findings from seven case studies, all based on in-depth qualitative research, from various regions of Tanzania,...

In: Veronika Bilger, Bea Gomes und Arno Sondegger (eds.), Rassistische Dimensionen afrikanischer Geschichte und Gegenwart. Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien Nr. 6/2004.

Bongo Flava, the Tanzanian variety of HipHop has become a big issue in Tanzania during the past few years. More and more young people use rap lyrics to express themselves. This article first gives a brief over- view of the history of Bongo Flava and discusses the topics, lyrics and the sound of this music. It then turns to the situation of the unde...

Introduction Land tenure within customary systems is dynamic and flexible. Whereas in the past communal forms of landholding dominated, individualisation of rights to land within customary systems has occurred for some time now. Privatisation however, i.e. the registration and titling of rights to certain plots of land is a more recent development,...

Editorial of Special Issue on Land Reform in Africa

This article first gives a brief overview on how the gender debate featured in the process of land reform in Tanzania and asks why socioeconomic arguments have to be used by advocates of gender equitable land rights. It then focuses on the area of the case study, the Uluguru mountains, and shows that the need for registration is rather a consequenc...

Zusammenfassung Der Diskurs über die Landreform in Zimbabwe ist von Vorurteilen und Emotionen geprägt, hinter denen die wirtschaftlichen und politischen Fakten untergehen. In diesem Artikel setze ich mich daher zunächst mit den verschiedenen Akteuren und ihren Argumentationslinien auseinander. Nach einem Überblick über die jüngsten Entwicklungen im...