12.30-13.30 (Brussels Time)
The presentation will be in English.
Abstract:
My presentation is based on my dissertation on Tuareg craftsmanship in Niger as a social practice, published in 2024 under the title “Die Unbeständigkeit der Dinge: Handwerk, Familie und Mobilität bei den Tuareg in Niger (The Impermanence of Things: Craft, family and mobility among Tuareg in Niger)”. It explores craftsmanship as a form of embodied knowledge that is acquired, shared, and transmitted within the family. I approach craft from an anthropological perspective, starting from my own bodily engagement in touching, treating, and shaping leather, wood, and silver. This experiential entry point allows me to consider craft not only as a set of technical skills, but also as a way of perceiving and relating to tools, materials, and the world. At the same time, I examine how craftsmanship is inseparably linked to everyday family life. Workshops are often located in the home, where children learn skills simply by being present, and where interactions with clients and relatives naturally become part of domestic routines. In this sense, the family shapes technical practice and merges with the routines and innovations that emerge in the workshop. My aim is to show the ordinariness of craft: how craftsmanship is socially constructed and how it is sustained through family relations, everyday interactions, and small, practical engagements with things.
The speaker
Valerie Nur (born Hänisch) is a research assistant at the Chair of Refugee, Migration and Mobility Studies at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. She studied social and cultural anthropology, sociology, African religions, and history in Bayreuth, Basel, Aix-en-Provence, and Berlin. In May 2021, she defended her PhD dissertation on artisanal skills, mobility, and family among Tuareg artisans in Niger at the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS). Her dissertation was awarded the Frobenius Research Award 2022 and the first prize of the German Society for Social and Cultural Anthropology (GASCA) in 2023. Her current research interests include questions of technology, digitality, and environmental justice.
How to participate:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86747609174?pwd=DOZPDzk69rqFwama9Wv0Lz3kZlvDI0.1
Meeting ID: 867 4760 9174 6 – Passcode: 353834
Friday, March 20, 2026, 12:30–13:30 (Brussels Time)