Guests of the Bayreuth Academy in the last five years

Our Guests

Miss/es Dr. Cassandra Ellerbe-Dück

Inviting institution:	Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies
Stay:	13. Dezember 2013
Email:	c.ellerbedueck@gmail.com
Home university:	Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Deutschland)
Personal information:	TP 4 Gast AG B-Workshop "Multiple Futures Through Time”: “Sharing/Dividing Futures”   Dr. Cassandra Ellerbe-Dück studied at the universities of Paris (VIII) in France and LMU in Munich, Germany (Magister) and completed a PhD in Comparative Cultural Studies/Anthropology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. She has been a member of ADEFRA (Munich) since 1988 and active in various ISD activities in Munich and Cologne. Her research interests include Ethnography, Black European Studies, Gender Studies, German and American Cultural Studies, Migration and Transnational Studies, migration and development, and Western and Eastern classical dance forms. From November 2005-July 2006 she worked as a researcher and co-authored the German report with Judy Gummich “She Gives Back”, Gendered Diasporic Philanthropy, a research project sponsored by the Mama Cash Foundation, (www.mamacash.nl) Amsterdam, The Netherlands. From February 2007 to May 2007 Cassandra worked as a researcher for the EU Sixth Framework NEWS (Network on Ethnicity and Women Scientists) project (The State of Black, Migrant and Refugee Women in Academia in the Netherlands; www.ulb.ac.be/socio/gem) and co-authored the Netherlands research report with Prof. Gloria D. Wekker. Her most recent publications include “Afro-German Identities” in Afroeurope@ns Cultures and Identities (ed.) Marta Sofia López. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing; and “Black European Women in Europe 2008” in Voices of Black European Women 1, Reflections Challenges and Strategies from the First Black European Women’s Congress. July 2007. Cassandra was appointed Post-Doctoral Research Fellow for the EU Sixth Framework Project “Searching for Neighbours”: Dynamics of Mental and Physical Borders in Europe. Her main area of research looks at networks and network practices of African migrants in Germany (Bavaria) and Austria: www.sefone.soton.ac.uk. Dissatisfied with the subordinate positions often ascribed to women within Black liberation movements across the globe, Black females have sought to find their own voices, self-determined identities, and means of self-empowerment. While such movements have been meticulously documented within the African American context, there is still much to be discovered in regard to Black Europe. The 1980s and 1990s saw a proliferation of Black women’s organisations and the spread of Black feminist practices across Europe This, too, was the case with the Black Diaspora in Germany particularly where the lack of predominate Black neighbourhoods points to issues linked to the concepts of community, solidarity, the weaving of networks and the creation of “safe spaces”. Cassandras research project focuses on the grassroots activism and networking of Black women in Germany and Austria, and the formation of the Black European Women’s Council (BEWC) in Vienna, Austria. Moreover, this research looks at the Black lesbian feminist activist Audre Lorde’s role within the Matrilineal (Black feminist) Diaspora and links her activism to Black feminist consciousness- raising and the subsequent creation of Black diasporic “communities” in Germany and Austria.