SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Barbara Götsch holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology and an MA in Modern Languages from the University of Vienna, and an MSc in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she specialized in the anthropology of learning and cognition. She is a psychological anthropologist with focus on anthropology of mind (“theories of mind”, practices of mentalizing), human sociality and narrative. Her PhD research centred on social cognition in a work setting in Morocco, where she explored planning and strategizing among co-workers. After that, she worked on future oriented imaginings in urban planning in Southeast Asia. She currently studies narratives of sense-making, mentalizing and the role of humor as it is used in dealing with adverse life events (crises, confinement), increasingly also drawing on work in psychoanalysis and mental health. Her ethnographic work includes fieldwork in the Middle East (Morocco), urban Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore), and Europe (Austria).
MAIN RESEARCH AREAS
- Psychological Anthropology
- Theory of Mind & Mentalizing
- Narrative
- Sociality & Social Learning
- Organizational Anthropology
Regional focus
- Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe
PROJECTS (COLLABORATION)