Hansjörg Dilger

Hansjörg Dilger is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin, where he serves as Director of the Collaborative Research Centre 1171 'Affective Societies,' Deputy Head of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Head of the Research Area Medical Anthropology I Global Health. He is also Co-Coordinator of the DFG-Funded Scientific Network 'Public Anthropology.' His academic career spans positions at the University of Florida and extensive research in Eastern and Southern Africa, particularly Tanzania and South Africa.

• Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology (since 2013)
• Director of Collaborative Research Centre 1171 'Affective Societies' (since 2022)
• Co-Coordinator of DFG Network 'Public Anthropology' (since 2022)
• Former Vice Dean for Research at the Department of Political and Social Sciences (2019-2021)
• Former President of the German Anthropological Association (2015-2019)

Dilger's research focuses on how people negotiate notions of a 'good life' during social, economic, and political transformations. His work integrates critical medical anthropology, anthropology of religion, ethics and morality, political anthropology, and anthropology of affect and emotion. He examines the multilayered conflicts and emerging relations involved in social differentiation within urbanization, mediatization, and global connectivity, with particular attention to postcolonial inequalities.

His recent publications reveal a strong trajectory toward decolonial approaches, affective studies, and critical examinations of global health. The 15 most recent articles show increasing interdisciplinary engagement with museum studies, collaborative knowledge production, and the intersection of care, migration, and racialization in health contexts. His work consistently addresses power dynamics in knowledge production and the ethical responsibilities of anthropological research.

• Margherita-von-Brentano award for 'Female Refugees in Berlin' research collective (2017)
• Senior Fellow of Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (2010-13)
• Multiple DFG-funded research projects on religion, health, and migration
• Extensive editorial work including special issues on medical anthropology and religion

Dilger has supervised numerous PhD students, with completed projects examining religious conversion in Uganda, zakat distribution in Nigeria, gender in Pakistan, and violence in the Philippines. Current supervision includes research on education in Egypt, Gülen movement housing, schooling in Kenya, Islamic medicine in Turkey, and religious spatial contestation in Nigeria. His recent work shows growing engagement with decolonial debates around ethnographic collections and collaborative research approaches.