The Americas - Research at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology

The Americas at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology

LMU’s Department of Social & Cultural Anthropology is one of the few university departments in the German-speaking area covering all parts of the Americas. North and South America, Mesoamerica and the Caribbean – hence the term “the Americas” – are regularly represented in teaching and research. Five focal areas make up the department’s Americanist profile:

• Human-environment relations
• Urban lifeworlds
• Indigenous languages: ethnolinguistics, multilingualism, language policy
• Trans-Pacific cultural relations: indigeneity, networks, museums, archives
• Expansion of cooperative teaching and research strands

Envisioning the Americas in its entirety can be traced back to the pre-colonial and ongoing presence of Indigenous peoples on the continent. This perspective distinguishes anthropology from philologically oriented cultural studies, which tend to define themselves along colonial boundaries, e.g., English/American Studies or Hispanic/Latin American Studies.

Our department emphasizes participative and interactive teaching engagements to mediate the abovementioned topics. The seminars developed and taught with indigenous students and teachers closely cooperating with the Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM) in Manaus are excellent examples of this. Besides the multiple comprehensive research projects, there are workshops and conferences regarding the Americas held regularly, which students are particularly welcome to attend.

The Americas-Colloquium