CURRICULUM VITAE
Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg
Carleton CollegeDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology
Northfield, MN 55057 USA
Tel: +1 (507) 222-4113 / 1745 Ashland Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104 USA
Tel: +1(651) 644-6971
EDUCATION
1990Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
1985Master of Arts, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Concentrations: Health and Illness, African Studies, Gender.
1980Bachelor of Arts with Distinction, Honors in Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington. Concentrations: African Studies, Ethnomusicology.
RESEARCH AREAS
Subfields:African Studies; African Diaspora Studies; Medical Anthropology; Gender Studies; Anthropological Demography
Topics: Migration/Diaspora; Belonging; Human and Social Reproduction; Social Networks; Legal Consciousness; Collective Memory; Rumor.
TEACHING INTERESTS
Medical Anthropology; Anthropologies of Africa, Gender, and Reproduction; Anthropological Demography; Anthropological History and Theory; Ethnographic Classics and their Restudies; Ethnographic Fieldwork; Anthropology in/of Photography; Social Science Writing; Civic Engagement.
EMPLOYMENT
2019Research Affiliate,Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale,École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (research teamParenté et Logiques Relationnelles) (February-June)
2019Residence, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (January)
2018Fellow, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (July-December)
2012-presentBroom Professor of Social Demography and Anthropology, Carleton College
2011-2018Director, Africana Studies Program, Carleton College
2017-2023International Advisory Board (Fachbeirat) of the Max Planck Institute for Social
Anthropology, Halle.
2015Acting Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College (Feb-Mar)
2013-2014Fellow, Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study “Law as Culture,” Universität Bonn
2010-2011Research Associate, Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Ethnologie
2010-2011ResearchAffiliate, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
2010Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College (Jan-Mar)
2007-presentFull Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College
2005-2008Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College
2000-2007Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College
2000-2001Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow in Anthropological Demography, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania
1993-2000Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College
1992-1993Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
Carleton College
1991 Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Hamline University
1990Visiting Assistant Professor, Women's Studies Department, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis
1989-1993Affiliate Scholar, Center for Advanced Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
1989Lecturer, Department of History, Universität Hannover
1984Teaching Assistant, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University
1981-1982Associate Instructor, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University,
Bloomington
1980-1981Volunteer, U.S. Peace Corps, Cameroon (Health Education and Community Organizing)
PUBLICATIONS
A. Books and Dissertation
2016Mothers on the Move: Reproducing Belonging between Africa and Europe Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
2016Migranten, Recht, und Identität: Afrikanische Mütter und das Ringen um Zugehörigkeit in Berlin.
Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag (Series: Kultur und soziale Praxis).
2005Reproduction, Collective Memory, and Generation in Africa. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press (editor).
1999Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs: Threatened Reproduction and Identity in the Cameroon
Grassfields. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
1990“Then we were many”: Bangangté Women's Conceptions of Health, Fertility, and Social Change in a Bamiléké Chiefdom, Cameroon. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.
B. Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters
2018Comment on Krause, Elizabeth L., and Massimo Bressan. 2018. Circulating Children,
Underwriting Capitalism: Chinese Global Households and Fast Fashion in Italy. Current
Anthropology 59(5): 572-595 [584-586].
2018African Diasporas in Europe (and Beyond): A Conversation Between Two Anthropologists.
EuropeNow Journal, Issue 15, March 2018,
2017Revelation and Secrecy: Women’s Social Networks and the Contraception-Abortion Process in
Cameroon (with Sylvie Schuster). In: Transcending Borders: Abortion in the Past and Present,
edited by Tracy Penny Light and Shannon Stettner. Pp. 239-254. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
2016Forging Belonging through Children in the Berlin Cameroonian Diaspora. In: Affective Circuits:
African Migrations to Europe and the Pursuit of Social Regeneration, edited by Jennifer Cole
and Christian Groes-Green. Pp. 54-77. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (winner of the
2018 Council on the Anthropology of Reproduction Book Prize).
2015Mothers on the Move: Mobility and Intensive Care Work among Cameroonian Migrants to
Germany. Pp. 207-230. In: Anthropological Perspectives on Care: Work, Kinship and the Life
Course, edited by Erdmute Alber and Heike Drotbohm. London: Palgrave.
2010Urbanites and Urban Villagers: Comparing ‘home’ among elite and non-elite Bamiléké women’s
hometown associations. Africa 80(3):371-396 (with Flavien T. Ndonko).
2006Gerüchtsgenealogie: Geschichte, Gedächtnis, und Gerüchte in Kamerun. [Genealogy of Rumor:
History, Memory, and Rumors in Cameroon]. Kuckuck: Notizen zur Alltagskultur 21(2):20-24.
2006The Social Management of Fetal and Infant Death: Dual Disruptions to Reproductive Lives and
Discourses. Curare 29(1):7-15 (with Flavien T. Ndonko and Song Yang).
2006“Cucinare dentro”. Parentela e genere nel linguaggio Bangangté sul matrimonio e la
procreazione. Pp. 141-172. In: Silvia Forni, Cecilia Pennacini and Chiara Pussetti, eds.
Antropologia, Genere, Riproduzione: La costruzione culturale della femminilita. Rome Carocci.
2005How Rumor Begets Rumor: Collective Memory, Ethnic Conflict, and Reproductive Rumors in
Cameroon. Pp. 141-158. In: G.A. Fine, V. Campion-Vincent, and C. Heath, eds. Rumor Mills: The
Social Impact of Rumor and Legend. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction (with Flavien T. Ndonko
and Song Yang).
2005 Remembering ‘the Troubles’: Reproductive Insecurity and the Management of Memory in
Cameroon. Africa 75(1):10-29 (with Flavien T. Ndonko and Song Yang).
2005 Variations in Royal Blue: Bamiléké Display Cloth from Ritual Respect to Ethnic Demonstration.
HALI: Carpet, Textile and Islamic Art 142:86-93.
2004Doing Ethnography: Learning Ways of Thinking and Writing Anthropologically. Pp. 123-136. In:
Susan Singer and Carol Rutz, editors. Reflections on Learning as Teachers. Northfield, MN:
College City Publications.
2002Is Infertility an Unrecognized Public Health Problem? An Emic View from the Grassfields of
Cameroon. Pp. 215-232. In: Marcia Inhorn and Frank van Balen, eds. Infertility Around the
Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
2000Sterilizing vaccines or the politics of the womb: Retrospective study of a rumor in Cameroon
(with Flavien T. Ndonko and Bergis Schmidt-Ehry). Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14
(2):159-179. (Principal author).
1996Cooking Inside: Kinship and Gender in Bangangté Metaphors of Reproduction and Marriage. Pp.
176-197. In: M.J. Maynes, A. Waltner, B. Soland, and U. Strasser, eds. Gender, Kinship,
Power: An Interdisciplinary and Comparative History, New York: Routledge. (Slightly
modified reprint of American Ethnologist article).
1995Cooking Inside: Kinship and Gender in Bangangté Metaphors of Reproduction and Marriage.
American Ethnologist 22(3):483-501.
1994Plundered Kitchens and Empty Wombs: Fear of Infertility in the Cameroonian Grassfields. Social
Science and Medicine 39(4):463-474 (lead article).
1991Cooking Inside: Gender and Belonging in Bangangté Images of Marriage and Reproduction.
Working Papers in History and Society. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
1991Bangangté Women’s Images of Threats to their Reproductive Health: A Case Study. In: L.J.
Slikkerveer and P. Nkwi, eds., Ethnomedical Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, Leiden: African
Studies Centre.
C. Encyclopedia Entries
2013Wilson, Monica. Pp. 933-935. In: Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology. R. Jon McGee
and Richard L. Warms, eds. London: SAGE Publications.
2003Bamiléké. Pp. 314-322. In: Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, eds. Encyclopedia of Sex and
Gender. New York: Macmillan Reference, under sponsorship of the Human Relations Area
Files, Yale University.
2001Cameroon. Pp. 384-396. In: Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, eds. Countries and their
Cultures. New York: Macmillan Reference, under sponsorship of the Human Relations Area
Files, Yale University.
1995Bamiléké. Pp. 36-41. In: John H. Middleton and Amal Rassam, eds. Encyclopedia of World
Cultures. Volume 9. Africa and the Middle East. New York: G.K. Hall/Macmillan.
D. Book Reviews
2017Michaela Pelican. Masks and Staffs: Identity Politics in the Cameroon Grassfields. Journal of
Anthropological Research (Spring):124-126.
2015Cati Coe. The Scattered Family: Parenting, African Migrants, and Global Inequality. American
Ethnologist 42(1).
2008Richard Fardon. Lela in Bali: History through Ceremony. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 71(1):161-163.
2007Jennifer Johnson-Hanks. Uncertain Honor: Modern Motherhood in an African Crisis.
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13:238-239.
1997R. Devisch, F. De Boeck, and D. Jonckers, eds. Alimentations, Traditions et Développements en
Afrique Intertropicale. American Ethnologist 24(1):254.
1996Della E. McMillan. Sahel Visions: Planned Settlement and River Blindness Control in Burkina
Faso. American Ethnologist 23(1):162-163.
1995Marc-Olivier Gonseth, ed. Les frontières du mal: Approches anthropologiques de la santé et de la
maladie/Kranksein und Gesundwerden im Spannungsfeld der Kulturen. American Ethnologist
22(4): 1091.
1992Mary H. Moran, Civilized Women: Gender and Prestige in Southeastern Liberia. African Studies
Review 35(1):165-167.
1990René Collignon and Charles Becker, Santé et Population en Sénégambie des Origines à 1960.
International Journal of African Historical Studies 23(4): 695-696.
1986John M. Janzen, Lemba 1650-1930: A Drum of Affliction in Africa and the New World. Medical
Anthropology Quarterly 17(4):106.
1986Leith Mullings, Therapy, Ideology, and Social Change: Mental Healing in Urban Ghana. Medical
Anthropology Quarterly 17(2):52-53.
E. Popular Press
2011Kindererziehung in der Diaspora [Childrearing in the Diaspora]. LoNam: das afrikanische
Magazin 7(1) (Feb-Mar 2011):7.
2011Kindererziehung in der Diaspora II [Childrearing in the Diaspora II]. LoNam: das afrikanische
Magazin 7(2) (Apr-May 2011):8.
ADDITIONAL SCHOLARLY PRODUCTION
A. Papers Presented
2019“En France, les parents sont différents”: Shifting Boundaries of Relatedness in Cameroonian
Transnational Families. Paper prepared for the Parenté et Logiques Relationnelles
Seminar, Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale,École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, April 26, 2019.
2019Histoire et sociologie des migrations.Paper prepared, in collaboration with Nancy L. Green, for
the Social Sciences in Practice and Context seminar of the Programme Etudiants Exilés
de l’EHESS, February 22, 2019.
2018Fostering and Disciplining Children: Kinship and Class-Making Projects of Cameroonian Migrant
Mothers. Paper presented at the Wits Anthropology Seminar Series, University of
Witwatersrand, August 30, 2018.
2018The Demise of African Modes of Child Fostering? What Parenting Choices tell us about
Migration and Social Mobility. Paper prepared for the STIAS Seminar, Stellenbosch
Institute for Advanced Study, November 8, 2018.
2018 Legal Consciousness and Social Networks. Lecture presented at the University of
Minnesota, Sociology of Law graduate seminar, March 28, 2018.
2017“Rational Actors” within Social Networks: Kinship, Emotion, and Management of Social
Ties. Lecture presented at the University of Minnesota, Sociology 3701,
December 6, 2017.
2017Class Performances: Children’s Parties and the Reproduction of Social Class among
Diasporic Cameroonians. Paper presented at the American Anthropological
Association Annual Meetings, Washington, D.C, November 29, 2017.
2017Moderated reading of the book, Mothers on the Move: Reproducing Belonging between
Africa and Europe presented at the Afrika Medien Zentrum, Berlin, July 26,
2017.
2017Mothers on the Move: Reproducing Belonging between Africa and Europe, a book
presentation delivered to the Project C03 “Embodied Belonging” (Research
Group Affective Societies) and the Arbeitskreis (Working Group) Medical
Anthropology, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität
Berlin, July 20, 2017.
2017Mothers on the Move: lecture, panel discussion, and exchange on the Cameroonian
diaspora, presented at the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, Letters
and Social Sciences, University of Yaounde I, June 30, 2017.
2017 Remaking Kinship across Political Orders: Migration, Fostering, and Disciplining. Paper
presented at the conference “Navigating the Boundaries of Kinship and Politics,”
Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Universität Bielefeld, May 8-10, 2017.
2017Teaching Global Health in African Studies: Engagement in and Beyond the Liberal Arts
Classroom. Paper presented at the African Studies Initiative symposium “Global
Health and Geographies of Disparity in Africa: Knowledge, Creativity,
Accountability,” at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, May 5–6, 2017.
2017Navigating the Boundaries of Kinship across Borders: Cameroonian Transnational
Families and Childrearing in the Shadow of the State. Paper presented to the
Global Studies Roundtable, Hamline University, March 14, 2017.
2016Forging Belonging Through Children in the Berlin Cameroonian Diaspora. Paper
presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meetings, Washington, D.C.,
December 3, 2016.
2016Escorting Maimouna and other Tales of Discovery: Legal Consciousness and Subjective
Belonging of African Women Asylees in Berlin. Paper presented at the
American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Minneapolis,
November 17, 2016.
2016Belonging in the Shadow of the State: Rethinking Kinship to Rebuild Futures among
African Refugees and Immigrants. Paper presented to the African Studies
and Social Anthropology Programs at Bayreuth University, June 16, 2016.
2016Stories that Connect People to Themselves and to Others. Presidents Civic Engagement
Steward Award acceptance speech, Minnesota Campus Compact Annual Meeting,
Macalester College, April 7, 2016.
2015In the Shadow of the State: Cameroonian Mothers and Migrant Legal Consciousness in
Berlin. Paper presented at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, co-
sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies and the African-
American and African Studies Department, December 9, 2015.
2015Strange Expectations: Cameroonian Migrants and their German Healthcare Providers
debate Obstetric Choices. Paper presented at the American Anthropological
Association Annual Meeting, Denver, November 20, 2015. Session co-organizer
with Alma Gottlieb, “New African Migrants in Europe and the US: Encounters
with the Familiar and the Strange.”
2015On the Non-Circulation of Children: Migrants’ Infrequent Fostering Arrangements
between Germany and Cameroon. Presented at the Council on European
Studies International Conference of Europeanists, Paris, July 8-10. Session co-
organizer (with Cati Coe): Governance and Affective Circuits of Care in African
and Asian Migrations to Europe.
2015Stories that Connect People. What Matters to Me and Why conversation series, presented
at Carleton College, January 22, 2015.
2014On the Non-Circulation of Children: Migrants’ Infrequent Fostering Arrangements
between Germany and Cameroon. Presented at the American Anthropological
Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., December 3, 2014. Session co-
organizer (with Cati Coe): “Governance, Transnational Migration, and Affective
Circuits of Care.”
2014Reproducing Belonging in the Shadow of the Leviathan: African Migration, Legal
Anthropology, and Social Demography. Angelina Weld Grimke Lecture in
African and African American Studies, presented at Carleton College,
October 23, 2014.
2014Reproducing Belonging: Affective Circuits between Cameroon and Berlin. Paper
presented at the lecture series “Current Approaches in the Anthropology of
Religion and Medicine” Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology colloquium
and the Working Group on Medical Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin, July
17, 2014.
2014Legal Cultures and Global Mobility. Paper presented at the conference, “The Normative
Complex: Legal Cultures, Validity Cultures, Normativities,” Käte Hamburger
Centre for Advanced Study—Law as Culture, April 9, 2014.
2014Mothers on the Move: Social and Legal Anthropological Perspectives. Paper presented at
the Forum “Law as Culture,” Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study—Law
as Culture, March 25, 2014.
2014Ethnic Boundaries and Collective Memories of Mass Violence in Cameroon. Informal
presentation at the Institut für Diaspora und Genozidforschung (Institute for
Diaspora and Genocide Research), University of Bochum, Februrary 28, 2014.
2013Mothers on the Move: Birth and Belonging from Africa to the European Union,
Presentation of a Book Project. Paper presented at Fellows Meeting, Käte
Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study—Law as Culture, December 11, 2013.
2013Documents of the Undocumented: African Migrants’ Experiences. Paper presented at the
symposium “Globalization and Documentality: à propos ‘Documentality’ by
Maurizio Ferraris,” Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study—Law as
Culture, November 19, 2013.
2013“It’s Hard Being a Mother Here”: Parenting Careers of African Immigrant Mothers,
Lessons for Culturally Responsive Family Therapy.” Paper presented at St.
Mary’s University of Minnesota, Marriage and Family Therapy Program, June 11,
2013.
2012Mothers on the Move: Mobility and Intensive Mothering among Cameroonian Migrants
to Germany. Paper presented at the invitation-only workshop, “Rethinking
Care: Anthropological Perspectives on Life Courses, Kin-Work and their trans-
local entanglements,” IKG Work and the Human Lifecycle in Global History,
Humboldt University, Berlin, December 6-7, 2012.
2012Mothering, Migration, and (Not)Belonging in Africa and Europe: Toward a Global
Ethnography. Paper presented at the International Roundtable Series,
Hamline University, November 30, 2012.
2012“It’s Hard Being a Mother Here”: On the Move through the Mothering Career. Paper
presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San
Francisco, November 2012 (Session co-organizer, “‘It’s Hard Being a Mother
Here’: New Spaces of Motherhood”).
2012Of “German Children” and African Mothers on the Move: Global Ethnography/Social
Demography of New African Migration. Paper presented at the Minnesota
Population Center, University of Minnesota, October 22, 2012.
2012Skin-close and Arm’s Length: Migrants and Belonging in Contemporary Germany.
Paper presented in a joint session with Daniel Williams, Humanities Center,
Carleton College, May 24, 2012.
2012“I have a German child”: Children and Cameroonian Immigrants’ Complex Belonging.
Paper presented in three versions at Department of Anthropology, Macalester
College, February 10, 2012; at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology/
Program in Cross-Cultural Studies, Carleton College, February 15, 2012;and at
the Council for European Studies 19th International Conference of Europeanists,
March 23, 2012, Boston.
2012Aliens among Them: Experiences of (Not) Belonging in Europe Today—A Commentary.
Dialogos faculty lecture series, Humanities Center and Learning Teaching Center,
Carleton College, January 24, 2012.
2011Fleeting Trust and Braided Socialities: Temporality and Belonging in African Migrants’
Reproductive Practices. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, November 18, 2011 (Session co-
organizer, “Temporality and Trust in New Socialities Surrounding Reproductive
Challenges”).
2011Familiarity and Trust, or Familiarity vs. Trust?: Belonging and Health-Seeking in
Contexts of Reproductive Insecurity. Paper presented at the Workshop “Trust and
Intimacy in Relationships of Health and Healing: Perspectives from Africa, Past and Present,” Free University of Berlin, February 11, 2011.
2011Birth and Belonging in an Emerging African Diaspora: Au Village, Yaoundé, and Berlin.
Paper presented at the Kölner Ethnologisches Kolloquium, University of Cologne,
January 25, 2011.
2011Familiarity vs. Trust?: Hometown Associations and Women’s Health-Seeking among
Cameroonian Migrants to Berlin. Paper presented at the Arbeitskreis Medical
Anthropology, Free University Berlin, January 20, 2011.
2011The Institutional Basis of Familiarity vs. Trust in Cameroonian Migrant Women’s Health
Seeking Strategies. Paper presented to the Colloquium on Law, Organizations, Science, and Technology,Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, January 12, 2011.
2010Birth and Belonging in an African Diaspora: Global Webs and Local Exclusion
from Cameroon to Berlin. Paper presented at the joint colloquium of the Seminar
für Ethnologie (Martin Luther Universität-Halle) and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, December 7, 2010.
2010The Role of Reproduction in the Politics of Belonging among Cameroonian Migrants.
Paper presented to scholars’ group, Bellagio Center, July 2010.
2010Birth and Belonging in an African Diaspora: Global Webs and Local Exclusion
from Cameroon to Berlin. Paper presented to the Working Group on
Anthropology and Population, Department of Anthropology, Brown University,
April 9, 2010.
2009Fruitful Displacements: Vital Conjunctures, Horizons, and Networks in Cameroonian
Migrants’ Abortion Decisions. Poster session presentation, Society for Medical
Anthropology Fiftieth Anniversary Conference, Medical Anthropology at the
Intersections, Yale University, November 24-27, 2009.
2009‘I Was All Alone’: Comparing Contraception and Abortion Experiences in Cameroon.
Paper presented at the IUSSP meeting on abortion, contraception and public
health, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, January 2009 (with Sylvie Schuster).
2008Common but Never Routine: A Differentiated View of Illegal Abortion in