Newcastle University

Research Interests

Post-socialism and eastern Germany; history, memory (personal, social) and morality; governance and institutions; the self, identity, belonging and citizenship; narrative; ethnography

Other Expertise

I have worked in the applied and policy sector as research assistant for the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at the University of Glasgow and the School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University.

Current Work

My current work concerns the government of the socialist past in eastern Germany and questions of memory, morality and political subjectivity in this context. I explore these questions ethnographically using data compiled through participant observation and life-story interviews. The data was collected during a recent ESRC funded research project on 'The socialist past in eastern Germany' (2007-2009). I have worked in eastern Germany for a number of years and have also explored questions of eastern German identity and cultural change, and suffering and trauma with regard to former political prisoners of the East German state. All these projects were based in the same region where I maintain good relationships to my informants. My methodological interests concern ethnography, anthropology at home, narrative and rhetoric.

Future Research

The question of the writing of history and nation-building in the post-socialist realm is of continuing importance, and in terms of research activity a very fast growing field. Attention focused on these issues especially since the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009. What intrigues me increasingly is how this matter of the writing of history in the present is informed and guided by visions of the future, and how these may differ between different players.

Postgraduate Supervision

I am happy to supervise on: aspects of society and/or culture in postsocialist/postcommunist states; persecution or imprisonment; suffering and trauma; personhood and the self; history and memory and nation-building; other projects using ethnographic methods and/or life-story approaches.

Current students:
Anna Brightman (ESRC funded; co-supervised with Dr Simon Philpott)

Esteem Indicators

Since 1996 I have given six invited papers at a number of national internation institutions including: the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmith, the department of sociology at Aberdeen University, the Max Plank Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, and the Zeitgeist seminar series at Bristol University.

I am the convenor of the interdisciplinary network 'Memory and History in Postsocialism', which aims to champion the work of eastern European scholars. The network developped out of an international conference at Newcastle in September 2008.
http://research.ncl.ac.uk/memory-in-postsocialism/

I am an active member of the interdisciplinary network 'After the Wall' which is based at the Universities of Bangor and Bristol.

Member of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and Association of Social Anthropologists, UK and of the Commonwealth (ASA).

I have peer-reviewed articles for Ethnos; Social Anthropology; Anthropology today; Social Theory and Health; Journal of International and Global Studies
I have reviewed book proposals for the Peter Lang publishing company and  Berghahn (EASA series).

Funding

Durham University studentship 2000-2002
ESRC postdoctoral fellowship 2003-2004
ESRC First Grant 2007-2009
HSS Faculty REF grant 2010-11
UTLC Teaching Innovation Grant 2011-12 (with Geoff Payne)

Projects

• Social Construction of the Socialist Past in Eastern Germany
  Project Leader(s): Dr Anselma Gallinat

Undergraduate Teaching

SOC1031: Knowing in Sociology: An Introduction to Theory, Methods and Epistemology (Stage 1, semester 2). I teach the methods part of this module. In 2011-12 a UTLC Teaching Innovation Grant supports a project on the use of laptops in small group work on this module (with Geoff Payne).

SOC2065: The Anthropology of Eastern Europe (Year 2, semester 2).

UG dissertation supervision

Postgraduate Teaching

SOC8033 'Specialist Study': The ethnographic lens: Anthropological traditions, debates and issues.

MA supervision

• Gallinat A. Memory Matters and Contexts: Remembering for Past, Present and Future. In: Saunders, Anna and Debbie Pinfold, ed. Remembering and Rethinking the GDR. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Submitted.
• Gallinat A. The rush to (East) German history: Recognising memory and belonging. In: McLaughlin, J., Richardson, D., Phillimore, P, ed. Contesting Recognition: Culture, Identity and Citizenship. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp.187-205.
• Gallinat A, Collins P. The ethnographic self as resource: Writing memory and experience into ethnography. Oxford: Berghahn, 2010.
• Gallinat A. Intense paradoxes of memory: researching moral questions about remembering the socialist past. History and Anthropology 2009, 20(2), 183-199.
• Gallinat A. Being “East German” or being “At home in eastern Germany”? Identity as experience and as rhetoric. Identities 2008, 15(6), 665-686.
• Gallinat A. Difficult stories: Public discourse and narrative identity in Eastern Germany. Ethnos 2006, 71(3), 343-366.
• Gallinat A. A ritual middle ground? Personhood, ideology and resistance in East Germany. Social Anthropology 2005, 13(3), 291-305.
• Gallinat A, Kittel S. Zum Umgang mit der DDR-Vergangenheit: Einige anthropologische Ueberlegungen. In: Grossboelting T, ed. Friedensstaat, Leseland, Sportnation? DDR-Legenden auf dem Prüfstand. Berlin: Ch Links Verlag, 2009.
• Gallinat A. "Menacing buildings...": Former political prisons and prisoners in Eastern Germany. Anthropology Today 2006, 22(2), 19-20.