معرفی
Katrin Seidel serves as a Research Fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, University of Bayreuth, within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence. Her prior roles include senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (2012-2019, 2021/22) and fellowships at Münster University's Excellence Cluster 'Religion & Politics' (2023) and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg (2015/16).
She completed her doctorate on Ethiopian legal pluralism (2013) and Habilitation on internationalized constitution-making in South Sudan and Somaliland (2021), both at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
Seidel's research critically examines legal pluralism and decolonial dynamics in African governance, focusing on normative negotiations between local and global actors in conflict-affected regions. Her work deconstructs Eurocentric frameworks in peace mediation and state formation, emphasizing power imbalances in knowledge production and advocating for epistemic diversity in global governance structures.
Her publications consistently explore tensions between state sovereignty and international intervention, employing interdisciplinary lenses from legal anthropology and spatio-temporal theory to analyze how conflict resolution models are adapted across cultural contexts in Africa.
Key recognitions include:
- Fellow, Excellence Cluster 'Religion & Politics', Münster University (2023)
- Fellow, Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research (2015/16)
At the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, she leads the 'Decentering Peace Mediation' project, investigating how African subregional mediation practices negotiate international models while challenging hegemonic narratives in global conflict resolution.
