معرفی
Professor Carola Lentz is a Senior Research Professor of Anthropology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, within the Faculty of History and Cultural Studies and the Department of Anthropology and African Studies. Since November 2020, she has served as president of the Goethe-Institut, while maintaining her academic affiliation. She is also a member of both the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Her research focuses on West Africa (particularly Ghana and Burkina Faso), examining nation building, ethnicity, politics of commemoration, middle classes, ethnography of the state, colonialism, land rights, and theories of culture. Her work combines ethnographic fieldwork with historical analysis to understand social change in post-colonial African contexts.
Lentz's publications reveal a strong focus on memory politics and national identity formation, with significant attention to how independence is commemorated across Africa and Asia. Her research on middle classes explores intersections between class membership and extended family networks, as well as how subnational identities interact with national class formations.
Among her major honors, she received the prestigious Melville J. Herskovits Award in 2014 for her book 'Land, Mobility and Belonging in West Africa,' becoming the first German academic to receive this award. Her work has been widely recognized for its contribution to African Studies.
Notably, Lentz was awarded the title of 'maalu naa' (development chief) in Nandom, Ghana, reflecting her deep engagement with local communities. She has directed research projects including 'Performing the nation and subnational differences in African national days' and has maintained extensive fieldwork connections in West Africa for decades.
