Sinah Theres Kloß
I'm a social anthropologist and research group leader at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), University of Bonn, Germany. My main research areas are the anthropology of religion; body politics and embodiment; material culture studies; tattooing, clothing and dress; transnational migration; and Postcolonial and Southern theory. My regional focus is on the Caribbean, especially Guyana and Suriname, but I also specialize in the transcultural flows between India and the Caribbean.
News
Visiting Professorship @ Uni Bonn
Winter Term 2024/25
During the winter term, you can find me at the Department of Anthropology of the Americas as Visiting Professor (Vertretungsprofessorin) of Anthropology
of the Americas, University of Bonn
October 1, 2024 - March 31, 2025
Talk @ ifeas, Uni Mainz
"Marks of Devotion: Tattoos as Means of Subordination and Emancipation among Caribbean Hindu Women"
Institutskolloquium ifeas (Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien)
University of Mainz
January 14, 2025, 6-8pm
Talk @ Lecture Series
"Othered Ethnography: The Influence of Intersectional Identities, Gendered Challenges and ‘Tropes of Hardship’ on Ethnographic Research",
Lecture Series Engaged Anthropology: Reimagining Social Transformation in Collaborative Anthropological Research
December 3, 2024; 12-2pm
Global Heritage Lab, University of Bonn
Talk @ Conference "Embodied Histories" -
"Sensitive and Permeable Bodies: Hair, Ritual Shaving and Birth in Hindu Suriname"
"Embodied Histories: Cultural History of, in, and through the Human Body"
16th Annual Conference of the International Society for Cultural History
University of Potsdam
September 5, 2024
Talk @ Workshop "Gendered Bodies"
"Durchlässige Körper: Ethnologische Annäherungen an körperliche Grenzen und Materialisierungsprozesse während Schwangerschaft und Geburt"
Vernetzungstreffen Medical Humanities
University of Siegen
July 5, 2024; 11:00-12:00
Book Chapter
“Tattooed Dependencies: Sensory Memory, Structural Violence and Narratives of Suffering among Caribbean Hindu Women,” In: Narratives of Dependency (eds. E. Brüggen and M. Gymnich), Berlin: De Gruyter, 347-365. DOI: 10.1515/9783111381824-016 (open access)
Journal Article
"Serving toward Release: Tattoos, Religious Work, and Coercion in Post-Indenture Communities."
Journal of Global Slavery 9 (2024): 17-42. DOI: 10.1163/2405836X-00901007
Book Chapter
“Talking History: Ethnographic Interviews, Intersectional Identities, and Power Negotiations in Research Encounters,” In: Un-Mapping the Global South (eds. G. Bauer, N. Hirschfelder and F. Resende), New York: Routledge, 37-54. DOI: 10.4324/9781003422853-4
Podcast Episode @ Exzellent erklärt - Spitzenforschung für alle
"Tätowierungen: Tattoos als Instrumente der Macht"
Feb. 1, 2024
Voted Equal Opportunity Representative of the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) for the period 12/2023-12/2025
December 15, 2023
Magazine Article @ Dependent
"All Money Spent: Celebrating '150 Years of Indian Immigration' in Suriname."
In: Dependent: The Magazine of the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, 2023 (2), pp. 36-39.
Latest BookS
Edited Volume
New York: Routledge (Routledge Studies in Cultural History).
Edited Volume.
Paderborn: Brill | Fink.
Edited volume
Munich: oekom.
Upcoming Events
Workshop Series and Study Group
"Anthropological Perspectives on Embodied Dependencies"
Past events
Film Screening and Discussion
"Sweet Tassa: Music of the Indian Caribbean Diaspora"
September 16, 2023
