Dr Anne Menzel

Senior Researcher | Academic coordinator Master programme
Contact
+49 (0)40 86607720
menzel@ifsh.de
Hamburg

Vita

Anne Menzel is senior researcher and coordinator of the Master's program "Peace and Security Studies" at IFSH. Previously, she worked as a researcher and academic coordinator at the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script" in Berlin. Other stations in her career include the Center for Conflict Studies in Marburg, the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, and the Institute for the History of Medicine in Giessen. Anne studied political science and received her PhD from Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis on dangerousness and unpeaceful relations in post-war Sierra Leone. Immediately after receiving her doctorate, she worked for a year as a freelance consultant, primarily for the NGO International Alert.

Research profile

Anne’s research on peacebuilding, development cooperation, and transitional justice combines interest in policy-relevant issues with ethnographic research and critical perspectives on conflicts and internationalized hierarchies and power relations, particularly in Sierra Leone (West Africa). 

Currently, Anne is also interested in processes of fascistization, with a particular focus on antifeminism and pop-cultural representations of fascistized femininity. In doing so, she builds on her research on neoliberal feminism in the context of development cooperation and extends it to examine current developments in the Global North. Her current research topics include:

  • Concepts and theories of fascism/fascistization
  • Neoliberal (post-)feminism, anti-feminism, and fascistized femininity
  • Power relations in knowledge production
  • The crisis of professional progress work (such as development cooperation or racism prevention) 

Selected Publications

  • Menzel, Anne, Mariam Salehi. 2024. Global Hierarchies and Unequal Pressures in the Report-Making of Truth Commissions. International Studies Review 26 (2): viae022. DOI: 10.1093/isr/viae022.
  • Ibrahim, Aisha Fofana, Alice James, Mariatu Kabba, Aminata Kamara, Anne Menzel, Nicky Spencer-Coker. 2021. Making Sense of Girls Empowerment in Sierra Leone: A Conversation. International Politics Reviews 9 (2): 353-374. DOI: 10.1057/s41312-021-00130-0.
  • Menzel, Anne. 2021. Delivering Output and Struggling for Change: Tacit Activism among Professional Transitional Justice Work in Sierra Leone and Kenya. Cooperation and Conflict 56 (4): 414-431. DOI: 10.1177/00108367211000800.
  • Menzel, Anne. 2019. ‘Without Education You Can Never Become President’: Teenage Pregnancy and Pseudo-empowerment in Post-Ebola Sierra Leone. Journal of Intervention and Statebuiling 13 (4): 440-458. DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2019.1612992.
  • Menzel, Anne. 2015. Was vom Krieg übrig bleibt: Unfriedliche Beziehungen in Sierra Leone. Bielefeld: transcript. DOI: 10.14361/transcript.9783839427798.
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