Margrit E. Kaufmann

Dr Margrit E. Kaufmann is a senior researcher at the Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Studies (IfEK). As an expert in critical diversity in theory and practice, she advised and supported the University of Bremen's diversity processes from 2009 to 2023. She also initiates and advises on diversity projects and processes outside the university, drawing on her many years of experience.

She has been working at the University of Bremen since 1992 in the field of ethnologically based cultural studies in various positions, first as a research assistant, later as a part-time and substitute professor, then as a university lecturer, and since 2009 as a scientific expert on diversity for the university management and, since 2011, as a Bremen Senior Researcher. She is the spokesperson for the Bremen Institute for Cultural Research (bik e.V.), which was founded in 2018: www.uni-bremen.de/kultur/forschung/bik-bremer-institut-fuer-kulturforschung

She is a trained teacher and has many years of practical experience working at various school levels and in second language acquisition in Switzerland, teaching at universities and colleges, including internationally, and in adult education. This teaching and practical experience has been incorporated into the central projects on research-based learning and dealing with diversity at the University of Bremen.

She completed her studies in ethnology, folklore, and social and economic history at the University of Zurich with a Lic. phil. degree. She has conducted research projects in southern Carinthia, central Bhutan, eastern Nepal, and northern Germany. She completed her doctorate in cultural studies at the University of Bremen with an intersectional research project (‘On the interweaving of sexism and racism – using the example of the social and political significance of childbirth’). She continues to develop Critical Diversity Studies through research and teaching from intersectional perspectives.