Words

Franziska Seise, Clara Bolldorf, Mona Hartel, Josefine Hilbeck, Leonie Anna Koll, Nina McAllister, Dennis Lange, Stefanie Roth, Katharina Sonnberg, Elena Tietze Illustrations: Elena Tietze For our work placement project ‘Integration as a Dialogic Process’ (2019-2020), we – a group of students at Freie Universität Berlin’s Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology – worked with Wedding-based charity WIR GESTALTEN e.V. to mentor young refugees. We regularly held private, guided discussions in

Text: Zeynep Disbudak & Burçin Tetik  Photography: Zeynep Disbudak  “Does it feel any different?” I asked Burçin as I was embarking on the journey which she, on paper, has completed, while fearing to ask the main question, “will it ever feel any different?” Upon this, we decided to walk the path she did every year until she received her citizenship.  We have spent a day sitting in front of Ausländerbehörde*,

I have been looking forward to the book “The Kids from the Refugee home” by Cool Kids & Hoa Mai Trần with illustrations by Michaela Schultz for a long time. It‘s a wonderful read!

It was about one year ago that I became aware of the wonderful paintings by Viennese artist Peter Kokoefer. For months, I had been searching for a painter whose artwork could enrichen my upcoming book of poems. Peter and I had already met years before, at the closing of a film project led by our mutual friend and filmmaker Judith Albrecht…

In May 2020 we asked you on Facebook and Instagram to send us a photo, an illustration, a short video, a GIF or a sentence about your new ritual, together with your first name and the city you live in. Which new ritual have you integrated into or rediscovered in your everyday life? Intensive hand washing, the gym app, talking to plants, baking bread rolls, walking around the block…?

It is a coincidence where we are born
Whether we stay or go, is either a decision or fate…

Heimat /Home is a trilogy: three texts by three authors meet on our blog for three consecutive weeks and inspire each other. They all revolve around the question: What does home /Heimat mean to me? Heimat[ˈhaimaːt] Feminine noun 1) home, homeland, home town 2) habitat, biotope 3) native country, town or place Text and illustrations by Guillermo Alberto Diaz Morales Translated by Joanna Mitchell Heimat* is one of the most popular words I have heard

Joint public statement about the situation at the EU external borders by the Working Groups Migration and Public Anthropology of the German Anthropological Association (GAA) While the COVID-19 pandemic draws public and media attention to the emergence of yet another crisis, the critical situation of migrants confined to Greek refugee camps has become nothing but a murmur on the sidelines of public debate. Due to the suspension of the EU-Turkey

By Amelie Bauer, Paul Gredig, Maysun Hijazi, Kesho-Tabitha Imadonmwinyi, Marie-Helen Jakob, Izabela Matulewicz, Jennifer Rosenberg, Arowotosuna Olaitan Smith, Elisabeth Winterer and Jodi Cheuk Tung Wong Norms of physical appearance are connected to processes of exclusion and recognition, especially within a city shaped as strongly by migration as Berlin. In this third part of our blog post series, based on research conducted during the seminar “Beauty and the Norm: Appearance and

By Amelie Bauer, Paul Gredig, Maysun Hijazi, Kesho-Tabitha Imadonmwinyi, Marie-Helen Jakob, Izabela Matulewicz, Jennifer Rosenberg, Arowotosuna Olaitan Smith, Elisabeth Winterer and Jodi Cheuk Tung Wong In this second part of our blog post series, we present several locations for beauty consumption which we visited as part of the seminar “Anthropology of Beauty: Global Norms, Local Bodies?” offered at the Freie Universität Berlin. These places presented themselves to us as spaces

By Amelie Bauer, Paul Gredig, Maysun Hijazi, Kesho-Tabitha Imadonmwinyi, Marie-Helen Jakob, Izabela Matulewicz, Jennifer Rosenberg, Arowotosuna Olaitan Smith, Elisabeth Winterer and Jodi Cheuk Tung Wong Preface: In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, on 22 March the German Federal Chancellor and the Prime Minister closed all service providers in the field of personal care, such as hairdressers, beauty salons, tattoo studios, etc. by official decree. Many of the people we

Try out some of the favorite recipes of those behind the article “Let’s talk about food” that you find in the current issue of our print magazine Encounter. Order your copy here: contact-english@encounter-blog.com Karen Spiced dark chocolate cream (vegan) This indulgent dark chocolate dessert with a hint of cardamom will make you forget the darkness of the Berlin winter. Great to prepare for fancy holiday dinners or just as a special

Did you know that in Syria, ground blackseed with honey is used as a tonic for children? That Italians drink a tea made of bay leaves with lemon and honey against stomach aches?