PD Dr. Viola Thimm - Ethnologin

PD Dr. Viola Thimm -- Universität Heidelberg, Institut für Ethnologie
Voßstr. 2, 69115 Heidelberg (Deutschland)

 E-Mail

 

Profil von Viola Thimm

 

  
EDUCATION

Habilitation and Venia Legendi (German qualification for professorship) in Anthropology, University of Heidelberg, 07/2021.

 

Doctoral degree (Dr. disc. pol.) in Cultural Anthropology, 08/2013. University of Göttingen, Germany.


Magistra Artium (M.A.) University of Göttingen, Germany, 01/2007. Major: Cultural Anthropology. Minors: Gender Studies and Romance Studies. Studies: 10/2001-01/2007

 


ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Current position: Associate Professor (Privatdozentin) of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg

 

University of Hamburg, Asia-Africa-Institute, Department of Languages & Cultures of Southeast Asia
Research Fellow (“Eigene Stelle” by the German Research Foundation DFG), 01/2017 – present

 

Zayed University, Department of Social Sciences (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
Research Fellow (Visiting), 12/2017 – 04/2018

Monash University (Malaysia), School of Arts and Social Sciences, Gender and Religious Studies
Research Fellow (Visiting), 05/2017 – 10/2017

University of Hamburg, Asia-Africa-Institute, Department of Languages & Cultures of Southeast Asia
Associate Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 03/2015 – 12/2016
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 10/2013 – 02/2015

HIS Institute for Higher Education Development, Hanover, Germany
Research Assistant, 03/2015 – 07/2016
    
University of Kassel and University of Göttingen, DFG Research Training Group 1599/1
“Dynamics of Space and Gender” (“Graduiertenkolleg” by the German Research Foundation)
Doctoral Student/Research Assistant, 10/2011 – 09/2013    
Associate Doctoral Student, 10/2010 – 09/2011

University of Göttingen, Institute for Social & Cultural Anthropology; Gender Studies,
Lecturer, 10/2009 – 09/2012

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Institut Kajian Malaysia dan Antarabangsa –
Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS)
Visiting Scholar, 02/2009 – 08/2009

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) (now ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute), Singapore
Visiting Scholar, 09/2008 – 01/2009


LEADERSHIP OF RESEARCH PROJECTS
“From Malaysia to Dubai: Muslim pilgrimage and gender in the context of consuming practices“, since 10/2013 (funded by the German Research Foundation [DFG, “Eigene Stelle”] and by the “Nachwuchsinitiative Universität Hamburg” – Initiative for young scholars)

“Educational migration and gender in the regional context of Malaysia and Singapore“, 04/2008-08/2013 (funded by the German Research Foundation and by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation)

“Doing cultural difference in ethnological museums”, 02-08/2006 (self-funded)

PARTICIPATION IN RESEARCH PROJECTS
“Quality of study and teaching in German institutions of higher education”, 03/2015-07/2016
(funded by the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony)

Interdisciplinary Research Training Group “Dynamics of Space & Gender“, University of Kassel and University of Göttingen, 10/2010-09/2013 (funded by the German Research Foundation)


RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Gender relations and intersectionality

Kinship and family networks
    
Identity and identity politics; especially concerning the categories and practices of
gender, ethnicity, class, and religion

Islam and its socio-cultural entanglements

Cultural practices of mobility; especially those of (transnational) migration, pilgrimage, and tourism

Educational research; especially on education policies and higher-education research

Consumer culture and consumption

Cultural practices in Southeast and Western Asia; especially in Malaysia, Singapore,
and the United Arab Emirates

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS (SELECTION)
Olympia Morata Fellowship, University of Heidelberg

 

Research Fellowship (“Eigene Stelle”) (299,279 Euro), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), 01/2017-12/2019

Postdoctoral Fellowship (25,500 Euro), funded by the Nachwuchsinitiative Universität Hamburg, 10/2013-02/2015

Doctoral Fellowship (41,400 Euro), funded by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation, 07/2008-08/2011

Travel funds (700 Euro) from the Nachwuchsinitiative Universität Hamburg for the explorative fieldwork in the United Arab Emirates, 2014

Travel funds (800 Euro, declined) from the KMU network of Göttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences for a conference trip to Sydney, Australia, 2013

Remuneration for internship (2,100 Euro) by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation for the organization
and supervision of the exhibition “The Third World in the Second World War”, 03/2011-04/2011

Funding (4,300 Euro) for language course, travel, rent and living expenses from the Hans-Böckler-Foundation for the ethnographic fieldwork in Singapore and Malaysia, 2008

Listed for The David Myers Research Scholarship, La Trobe University, Melbourne (Australia), 2016

Listed for TIAS Post-doctoral Research Fellowship, University of Turku (Finland), 2016

Listed for the Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme, RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia), 2016

ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK
United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (in total 10 months, multi-sited), 04/2017-04/2018     

United Arab Emirates (1 month), 04/2014

Malaysia (2 months), 12/2013-01/2014    

Malaysia, Singapore and Germany (in total 14 weeks), 12/2009-01/2015    

Singapore and Malaysia (12 months, multi-sited), 09/2008-08/2009

Singapore (1 month), 08/2007

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Monographs

Forthcoming (under contract): Thimm, Viola: Narrating Intersectional Perspectives Across Social Scales: Voicing Victoria. Routledge.

 

2021: Thimm, Viola; Shopping with Allah. Muslim Pilgrimage, Gender, and Consumption in Malaysia and Dubai. Professoral thesis („Habilitationsschrift“, unpublished), Faculty of Behavioural and Cultural Studies, University of Heidelberg.

 

2014: Thimm, Viola: Geschlecht und Bildungsmigration: Lebensentwürfe und Weiblichkeitsbilder malaysischer Bildungs­migrantinnen in Singapur [Gender & Educational Migration: Life Projects and Images of Femininity of Female Educational Migrants from Malaysia in Singapore]. Bielefeld: transcript.

 

Edited volumes

2021: Thimm, Viola (editor): (Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

2021: Buitelaar, Marjo*; Manja Stephan-Emmrich*; Viola Thimm* (editors; *The order of editor names for the volume as a whole is purely alphabetical, reflecting equal contribution and responsibility): Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility. Abington/New York: Routledge.

 

2018: Thimm, Viola (editor): Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender. Basel: MDPI.

 

2018: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi und Viola Thimm (guest editors): Special Section “Postcolonial Intersections: Asia on the Move” Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Vol 8 (3).

 

2018: Thimm, Viola (guest editor): Special Issue “Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender” Social Sciences Vol. 6–7. http://www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci/special_issues/muslim_mobilities_ gender.

 

2016: Thimm, Viola (associate editor): The International Journal of Diverse Identities, Vol. 16 .

 

Original articles, peer-reviewed

In press: Thimm, Viola: Gendered Pilgrimage: Hajj and umrah from women’s perspectives. Journal of Contemporary Religion. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2021.1930878

 

2021: Thimm, Viola: Muslim Fashion: Challenging Transregional Connectivities between Malaysia and the Arabian Peninsula. TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/trn.2021.1

 

2019: Thimm, Viola und Mayurakshi Chaudhuri: Migration as Mobility? An Intersectional Approach.

Applied Mobilities. https://doi.org/10.1080/23800127.2019.1573780

 

2018: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi und Viola Thimm: Postcolonial Intersections – Asia on the Move: Introduction. Special Section “Postcolonial Intersections: Asia on the Move”

Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Vol 8 (3):28–35.

 

2018: Thimm, Viola: Embodying and consuming Muslim pilgrimage: Gendered shopping and clothing practices by Malaysian women on “umrah and ziarah Dubai.“

Asian Anthropology, Vol 17 (3): 185–203.

 

2018: Thimm, Viola: Muslim Mobilities and Gender: An Introduction. Social Sciences, 7(1), 5.

 

2017: Thimm, Viola: Commercialising Islam in Malaysia: Ziarah at the intersection of Muslim pilgrimage and the market-driven tourism industry. UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 56, December. Bangi: Institute of Ethnic Studies.

 

2017: Thimm, Viola; Mayurakshi Chaudhuri; and Sarah J. Mahler: Enhancing intersectional analyses with polyvocality: Making and illustrating the model. Social Sciences. 6(2), 37.

 

2016: Thimm, Viola: “I really love that guy!” Romantische Liebe als Weg zur Moderne im regionalen Kontext Singapurs und Malaysias. [“I really love that guy!” Romantic love as a path to modernity in the regional context of Singapore and Malaysia]. Asien – The German Journal on Contemporary Asia 139 2/2016: 25-43.

 

2016: Thimm, Viola: “I can give you money but there is no use. The best thing I [can] give you is education.” Negotiating educational migration and gender in a Chinese Malaysian family. TRaNS: Trans-Regional and National Studies of Southeast Asia, 4(1): 65-84.

 

2015: Thimm, Viola: Die arabische abaya in Malaysia: Verhandlungen von muslimischen Kleidungspraktiken, weiblicher Körperlichkeit und Modernität The arabic abaya in Malaysia: negotiations of Muslim practices of clothing, female corporeality and modernity]. Paideuma, 61:95-116.

 

2014: Thimm, Viola: Soziale Mobilität für Frauen durch bildungsmotivierte Land-Stadt-Migration: Eine Biographie aus Malaysia [Social mobility for women through education-motivated rural-urban migration: A biography from Malaysia]. Ethnoscripts, 16(2):27-41.

 

2013: Thimm, Viola: Education, Migration, Gender: Policies of Education in Malaysia and Singapore.

GSE Journal of Education 2013:1-11.

 

2012: Thimm, Viola: “My dad wants to see me graduate with a good degree (…)” Bildungsmigration und Geschlecht im regionalen Kontext Malaysias und Singapurs. Journal Netzwerk Frauen- und

Geschlechterforschung NRW, 31: 62-67.

 

Book chapters, peer reviewed

2021: Thimm, Viola: Introduction: (Re-)Claiming Bodies through Fashion and Style. Gendered Configurations in Muslim Contexts. In: Thimm, Viola (ed.): (Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam, pp. 1-18. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

2021: Thimm, Viola: Men’s Non-Fashion: Embodying Traditionality in the Gulf. In: Thimm, Viola (ed.): (Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam, pp. 109-126. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

2021: Buitelaar, Marjo*; Manja Stephan-Emmrich*; Viola Thimm* (*The order of author names in the introduction and that of editor names for the volume as a whole is purely alphabetical, reflecting equal contribution and responsibility): Introduction: Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility, pp. 19-35. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

 

2021: Thimm, Viola: Under male supervision? Islamic belief and nationality as basis for Muslim women’s pilgrimage. In: Buitelaar, Marjo; Manja Stephan-Emmrich; Viola Thimm (eds.): Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility, pp. 19-35. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

 

2019: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi; Viola Thimm und Sarah J. Mahler: Scaling Educational Policy and Practices Intersectionally: Historical and Contemporary Education Policies, Practices and Effects in South and Southeast Asia. In: Hankivsky, Olena and Julia Jordan-Zachery (eds.): The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy, S. 367-385. Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan.

 

2018: Thimm, Viola: Muslim Mobilities and Gender: An Introduction. In: Viola Thimm (ed.): Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender, S. 1-10. Basel: MDPI.

 

2014: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi; Viola Thimm and Sarah J. Mahler: Gendered Geographies of Power:

Their Value for Analyzing Gender across Transnational Spaces. In: Gruhlich, Julia and Birgit Riegraf (eds.): Transnationale Räume und Geschlecht, S. 94-209. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.

 

2014: Thimm, Viola: The Female Body in Transnational Space between Malaysia and Singapore. In: Buccieri, Kristy (ed.): Body Tensions: Beyond Corporeality in Time and Space, S. 55-72. Oxford: ID-Press.

 

2014: Thimm, Viola: Gender and the Body in Transnational Space: Female Educational Migrants from Malaysia in Singapore. In: McLean, Loyola et al. (eds.): Exploring Bodies in Time and Space, S. 37-45. Oxford: ID-Press.

 

2014: Thimm, Viola: “Gendered Geographies of Power”. Ein Modell zur Analyse von Bildungsmigration und Geschlecht am Beispiel von Malaysia und Singapur. In: Förschler, Silke et al. (eds.): Verorten – Verhandeln – Verkörpern, S. 61-84. Bielefeld: transcript.

 

2013: Thimm, Viola: Education, Migration, Gender: Policies of Education in Malaysia and Singapore.

In: Mokmin Basri et al. (eds.): Emerging Trends for Sustainability in Global Education: Opportunities and Challenges, Kajang (Malaysia): WorldConferences.net, S. 1-11.

 

Other publications

2018: Jongmanns, Georg and Viola Thimm: Förderprogramme in der Lehre und die Frage der personellen Nachhaltigkeit: Kriterien für eine tragfähige Aufgaben- und Personalstruktur (Funding programmes in teaching and the question of “personnel sustainability”). (https://his-he.de/projekte/detail/projekt/mwk-niedersachsen-personelle-nachhaltigkeit-in-der-lehre/)

 

2014: Thimm, Viola: Die Bersih-Bewegung in Malaysia [The Bersih movement in Malaysia]. Südostasien 1/2014:27-29.

 

2012: Thimm, Viola: “Singapore sucks!” – Skateboarding als Grenzraum zwischen Subkultur und staatlicher Kontrolle [“Singapore sucks!” – Skateboarding as a contested space between subculture and state control]. Südostasien 4/2012: 26-28. 

 

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY SERVICES  
For The Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (Germany) on sustainable project funding in institutions of tertiary education, 2016

For six German universities and universities of applied sciences on how to deal with temporal project funding in a possibly sustainable way, 2016

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Modernity & Gender in Malaysia & Singapore. MA Seminar, summer term 2012

Ethnographic fieldwork. BA Lecture & exercise, winter term 2011/12

Migration and Gender. BA & MA Seminar, summer term 2010

Gender and identity in Malaysia and Singapore. BA & MA Seminar, winter term 2009/10

Intersectionality – history and perspectives of theory BA Tutorial, summer term 2008

 

Bereich der Kompetenzen

 

Arbeitsbereiche:
Ethnizität, Gender, Identität, Identitätspolitiken, Islam, Migration, Organisationsforschung, Projektentwicklung, Projektmanagement, Religion, Tourismus, Wissenschaftsmanagement

Themen:
Ethnologie des Islam

Regionen:
Mittlerer Osten, Südostasien

Länder:
Malaysia, Singapur, Vereinigte Arabische Emirate

Sprachen:
Arabisch, Bahasa Melayu, Deutsch, Englisch, Spanisch