About the Journal

About the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
The working paper series is published by the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Münster. Since its foundation in 1965, the department has combined theoretically grounded studies with empirically oriented research, thereby promoting a comprehensive understanding of social, political, economic and religious life in diverse contexts. Research and teaching at our department are characterised by a strong commitment to critical reflection on ethnographic fieldwork and to methodological pluralism and comparative perspectives. Our regional expertise is particularly strong in East and West Africa and in South and Southeast Asia, where we explore issues and questions pertaining to psychological and medical anthropology, media and visual culture, religion and politics, transnational mobilities, social inequality, gender studies, and environmental anthropology. These research fields reflect the department’s interest in thinking beyond regional specializations and accounting for global interdependencies that shape contemporary societies across the globe.

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About the working paper series 
As part of this intellectual landscape, the working paper series provides a platform for the publication of ongoing research and emerging ideas. It brings together contributions of researchers and students from the University of Münster and of visiting scholars, with the aim of fostering scholarly dialogue across academic and geographic boundaries. While capitalizing on the departement’s particular research profile, the series explicitly invites contributions from early career and more advanced scholars located at institutions in other world regions and also welcomes work on thematic fields beyond the departement’s core research areas.

In line with the department’s commitment to decentering and diversifying existing institutions, forms and trajectories of knowledge production, the series promotes inclusive forms of knowledge production, encourages multilingual publishing, and supports contributions from diverse scholarly contexts. Through a transparent and dialogue-oriented peer review process, it emphasizes collaboration, mentorship, and the continuous development of academic work. The working paper aeries is published online in open access format, making research findings widely and freely available at an early stage. It thereby contributes to ongoing debates in Social and Cultural Anthropology while strengthening global scholarly exchange.

All contributions are subject to quality control by the editorial team, which consists of Dr. Arne Harms, Prof. Dorothea Schulz, Ph.D., Prof. Dr. Thomas Stodulka, and Emma Wendt, M.A..