Mobility, Transnationalism and Contemporary African Societies: Poor Whites and Philanthropy in Southern African Writing

Tilo Gratz studied Social Anthropology, History and African Studies in Berlin at the Free University and Humboldt University. He holds a PhD from Bielefeld University (1998), and obtained his habilitation degree (postdoctoral qualification) in Social Anthropology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1998. Between 1999 and 2005, he has been working as Senior Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale. Currently, he is employed at the University of Hamburg, and works as a Lecturer at the Institute of Ethnology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg as well as at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. After conducting research in the realm of political and economy anthropology, as well as the study of friendship and social organisation, his current research primarily focusses on the appropriation of electronic media and ICT in West Africa.