uni'wissen 1-2013_ENG

Amonth in Priština, Kosovo, for an ongoing art project; a week in Osnabrück to prepare for an upcoming job; two weeks of research in Sofia, Bulgaria; an exhibition in Berlin; project meet ings in Stuttgart and Munich; a couple of days visiting friends in Frankfurt; the film festival at the Biennale in Venice, Italy; and then five months on a grant in Singapore: This is what the life of an artist can look like, juggling proposals and contracts, programs, and freelance work. Dr. Anna Lipphardt, junior professor in cultural stud ies at the University of Freiburg, examines itiner aries like this in great detail – mobility as a permanent condition is one of her research inter ests. Lipphardt studies people who aren’t just trying to get from A to B but whose daily lives consist of being on the road: In two projects she is investi gating various kinds of artists and small family run circuses. Previously, she wrote a dissertation on the migration of Jews from Vilnius, Lithuania, after the Holocaust. “In my new projects I want to study what mobility and being on the road are like when they are not connected with a catas trophe but are part of a regular lifestyle.” At Odds with the Ofﬁcial Narrative In April 2011 Lipphardt launched the research group “COME – Cultures of Mobility in Europe” at the Institute of European Ethnology of the Uni versity of Freiburg. Mobility research is currently in vogue; globalization and transnational net works attract attention. However, Lipphardt con siders her group’s approach to be at odds with the common, official narrative: Politicians, and also political scientists, tend to associate mobil ity with progress. “Occasionally you’ll hear a dis cussion on how to remove barriers to mobility, but the financial, social, and emotional costs of this lifestyle are not systematically included in the dialogue.” Lipphardt’s research group stud ies traveling street artists, “alternative travelers” that often live in mobile homes and the transat lantic networks of the Roma. The central ques Cultural studies professor Anna Lipphardt is investigating the consequences of long term mobility for performing artists A Life on the Road by Thomas Goebel 4

uni'wissen 1-2013_ENG

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