Thomas Krippner

Email: thomas.krippnerspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

12/2017 – … PhD scholar at the Graduate academy Entangled Temporalities in the Global South of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies
6/2016 – 11/2017 Research fellow at the dept. of Anthropology, Asia-Orient-Institute, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen
9/2016 – 4/2017 Lecturer at the dept. of Anthropology, Asia-Orient-Institute, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen
10/2016 PhD student at the faculty of Humanities, Asia-Orient-Institute, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen, Subject: Anthropology
6/2014 – 8/2016 Assistant Professor at Christ University Bangalore, India - Dept of Languages / Applied Sociology https://christuniversity.in/
1/2015 – 4/2016 Coordinator of Indo-German student exchange between Christ University Bangalore and Asia-Orient-Institute, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tuebingen - funded by DAAD-program ‘Gateway to India’
4/2014 – 6/2014 Supervision of Indian students participating in Fast-Track-Program (Studienbrücke) conducted by the Goethe-Institute Bangalore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkQQhgESKq4
10/2004 – 6/2013 M.A. graduation (Magister Artium) at the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, Thesis Topic: Playing Culture - Anthropological Perspectives on the Emergence of Meaning in South Asian Childhood
10/2009 – 12/2012 Research assistant at the SFB619 Ritualdynamics at the South-Asia-Institute, University of Heidelberg http://www.ritualdynamik.de
2010 – 2011 Founding member and chairman (2010) of the charitable association Café ohne Grenzen e.V. (reg. association)
9/2008 – 3/2009 ERASMUS study-exchange to Université IX, Paris, France INALCO (National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures) http://www.inalco.fr/

PhD Project: Changing Student Identities in Indian Higher Education

In the light of neoliberal transformations, Indian universities and their increasing number of students are undergoing substantial change. Urbanization, modernization ideologies and global education regimes and are shaping today’s generation in this young nation, bringing up new imaginaries and aspirations for the future. Students as active participants in the arena of future-making play a key role in this socio-cultural transformation.

My dissertation project focuses on the transitional character of student identities in a private university in metropolitan Bengaluru and examines their future imaginations, strategies and decisions, involving ideas about professional opportunities, modes of living or belonging and citizenship. In my recent ethnographic fieldwork, I follow students into their daily routine and through various stages within their educational and personal pathways towards the future.

In my approach I investigate contemporary dynamics shaping Indian universities and their participants by linking micro-perspectives on individual decision-making processes and macro-perspectives on institutional, political and global dimensions of educational frameworks. My work integrates the theoretical focus of the graduate academy exploring the concepts of temporalities and the Global South as useful tools to grasp the negotiations of temporal and spatial horizons involved in higher education.

I argue that being a student is a fundamentally transformative stance towards the world in an individual and collective dimension: by imagining and creating their own professional future, students perform social actions and participate in the negotiation of new understandings and paradigms about what future means. Hence, they not only develop their individual identities, but contribute to a larger process of cultural production and transformation, shaping the collective conscience of a whole generation and nation state.

Advisors

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Alex (Universität Tübingen)

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Thies (Universität Tübingen)