"Spotlight on..." Riccarda Flemmer

What tasks and responsibilities do you have in your current position? How does your daily working routine look like?

My position as a junior professor entails tasks of teaching, research, supervision, and administration. I am responsible for three doctoral students as a first supervisor and two as a second supervisor, my team consists of two student assistants and a doctoral student. A day during the semester usually starts in the office with administrative tasks or writing if possible, teaching is more in the afternoons, and the evenings are often filed with either my own research colloquium and talks or events at the University.

What do you like most about your current job?

What I enjoy most in my job is doing field research, collaborating with academics and activists, and teaching research-based seminars. The passion for ethnographic and engaged research comes from my time working at the GIGA, more specifically from working in a research project with Almut Schilling-Vacaflor. From Almut, I also learned how to design interdisciplinary, collaborative and policy-relevant research.

Which moment during your doctoral studies was the most memorable?

The moment at the GIGA office I remember most is, when my colleague and project leader Almut as an anthropologist said, “Our job is to show complexity.” As a political scientist I replied, “No, our job is to reduce complexity.” This was when we understood that combining this zooming-in and -out of empirics will be our contribution. Since my doctoral research, this moment reoccurs from time to time when I feel overwhelmed by the complexities of fieldwork or interdisciplinary collaborations gifting me with a smile and new optimism.

How did your time at the GIGA influence you as a person and in terms of your career planning?

The time at the GIGA reassured me in my wish to be a researcher. This wish was cemented due to the doctoral training programme combined with insights into cross-regional research and inspiring co-workers, including the people from the administration, li-brary and editing office. Beyond research, the heartfelt (work) ethos fostered and embodied at the Institute for Latin American Studies continues to shape my personal life as well as my academic career.