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Dr. Kai Kresse

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Kai Kresse
is the vice director of research. He is since 2006 at ZM0, first as a research assistant for a two-year research project, for which he was on leave from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He was from 2002 to 2009 Lecturer in Social Anthropology (with tenure, 2005).

He studied philosophy, anthropology, African Studies and German Literature in Hamburg, Vienna and London, where he completed his doctorate at SOAS in Anthropology and African Studies 2002. Before St. Andrews he gained teaching experience in the fields of philosophy, African Studies and Anthropology, in Hamburg and at SOAS in London. His ethnographic research mainly focuses on East Africa, the Swahili region and the Kenyan coast. With a view to trans-regional connections he increasingly works across networks and relationships to the Indian Ocean. Conceptually he developed in his book 'philosopher Ising in Mombasa' (2007) a general approach of an anthropology of philosophy. This builds on many years of dealing with the research, philosophy 'and' knowledge 'in Africa. reviews .

His current research project at the CMO, " meaning change: Muslim reform discourse and everyday practice in post-colonial Mombasa ", is a contribution to regional ethnography of Muslim societies and to current discussions about the post-colonial Africa. Other areas of research, to which he also published works or include historical ties and social networks in the western Indian Ocean; Swahili texts in their context, Islam in East Africa, African literature, knowledge and intellectual practices, cultural philosophy and philosophical anthropology.

He is co-editor of the series 'Society and History in the Indian Ocean' (Hurst and Columbia University Press), co-editor of the online journal 'polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy' ( ) And the Scientific Advisory Board of the journals 'Islamic Africa' (Evanston University Press) and Africa: Journal for the International African Institute (Cambridge University Press), as well as the series 'worlds of philosophy' (Alber Verlag).

His teaching experience includes courses in theories of the social sciences, anthropology of religion, regional ethnography of East Africa, research methods, Religion in Africa, African philosophy, anthropology, philosophy and Swahili. In the UK he worked Bachelor, Master and PhD students in Anthropology and African Studies and was multiple internal and external examiner for doctoral theses. He has doctoral degrees in the Department of Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin And he is a Principal Investigator at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies involved. He is also a member of a newly formed Working Group on Trans-Regional Studies Forum .