PD Dr. Viola Thimm has been Associate Professor of Anthropology (Privatdozentin) at Heidelberg University since July 2021. She is Visiting Professor (Vertretungsprofessorin) for Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Erlangen-Nürnberg during summer semester 2022. She was awarded her Habilitation and Venia Legendi in Anthropology (German qualification for professorship) in 2021 with her professoral thesis “Shopping with Allah: Muslim Pilgrimage, Gender, and Consumption in Malaysia and Dubai”.
Thimm was Principal Investigator of the project “From Malaysia to Dubai: Muslim pilgrimage and gender in the context of consuming practices”, from October 2013 until July 2021 (funded by the Olympia Morata Programme in support of young female professors; the German Research Foundation [DFG, “Eigene Stelle”], and by the “Nachwuchsinitiative Universität Hamburg” – Initiative for young scholars). She studied Cultural Anthropology, Gender Studies and Romance Studies and received her doctoral degree in Cultural Anthropology by the University of Göttingen in 2013 with a dissertation on Gender and Educational Migration in Singapore and Malaysia (“Geschlecht und Bildungsmigration: Lebensentwürfe und Weiblichkeitsbilder malaysischer Bildungs-migrantinnen in Singapur”, published by Transcript Verlag).
She was a guest researcher at Zayed University (Dubai, United Arab Emirates) (2017-2018), Monash University (Malaysia) (2017), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) (2009) and at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) (now ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute) (Singapore) (2008). Her research interests include cultural practices of mobility (especially those of transnational migration, pilgrimage and tourism); gender relations and intersectionality; kinship and family networks; Islam and its socio-cultural entanglements; consumer culture and consumption.
Her regional focus lies in Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Singapore) and the Arabian Peninsula (United Arab Emirates, Oman), where she has conducted a total of 2.5 years of extensive ethnographic fieldwork. Her most recent publications include “Narrating Intersectional Perspectives Across Social Scales: Voicing Valerie” (Routledge 2022) and “(Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
PD Dr. Viola Thimm will be Visiting Professor (Vertretungs-professorin) for Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Erlangen-Nürnberg during summer semester 2022.
Contact:
Publications
Monographs
Forthcoming (manuscript under review): Thimm, Viola; Shopping with Allah. Muslim Pilgrimage, Gender, and Consumption in Malaysia and Dubai.
2022: Thimm, Viola: Narrating Intersectional Perspectives Across Social Scales: Voicing Valerie. Routledge.
2014: Thimm, Viola: Geschlecht und Bildungsmigration: Lebensentwürfe und Weiblichkeitsbilder malaysischer Bildungs¬migrantinnen in Singapur [Gender & Educational Migration: Life Projects and Images of Femininity of Female Educational Migrants from Malaysia in Singapore]. Bielefeld: transcript.
Edited volumes
2021: Thimm, Viola (editor): (Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
2021: Buitelaar, Marjo*; Manja Stephan-Emmrich*; Viola Thimm* (editors; *The order of editor names for the volume as a whole is purely alphabetical, reflecting equal contribution and responsibility): Muslim Women's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility. Abington/New York: Routledge.
2018: Thimm, Viola (editor): Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender. Basel: MDPI.
2018: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi und Viola Thimm (guest editors): Special Section “Postcolonial Intersections: Asia on the Move” Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Vol 8 (3).
2018: Thimm, Viola (guest editor): Special Issue “Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender” Social Sciences Vol. 6–7.
2016: Thimm, Viola (associate editor): The International Journal of Diverse Identities, Vol. 16 .
Original articles, peer-reviewed
2021: Thimm, Viola: Gendered Pilgrimage: Hajj and umrah from women’s perspectives. Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol 36 (2): 232-241.
2021: Thimm, Viola: Muslim Fashion: Challenging Transregional Connectivities between Malaysia and the Arabian Peninsula. TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, Vol 9 (2): 117-128.
2019: Thimm, Viola und Mayurakshi Chaudhuri: Migration as Mobility? An Intersectional Approach.
Applied Mobilities.
2018: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi und Viola Thimm: Postcolonial Intersections – Asia on the Move: Introduction. Special Section “Postcolonial Intersections: Asia on the Move”
Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies, Vol 8 (3):28–35.
2018: Thimm, Viola: Embodying and consuming Muslim pilgrimage: Gendered shopping and clothing practices by Malaysian women on “umrah and ziarah Dubai.“
Asian Anthropology, Vol 17 (3): 185–203.
2018: Thimm, Viola: Muslim Mobilities and Gender: An Introduction. Social Sciences, 7(1), 5.
2017: Thimm, Viola: Commercialising Islam in Malaysia: Ziarah at the intersection of Muslim pilgrimage and the market-driven tourism industry. UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 56, December. Bangi: Institute of Ethnic Studies.
2017: Thimm, Viola; Mayurakshi Chaudhuri; and Sarah J. Mahler: Enhancing intersectional analyses with polyvocality: Making and illustrating the model. Social Sciences. 6(2), 37.
2016: Thimm, Viola: “I really love that guy!” Romantische Liebe als Weg zur Moderne im regionalen Kontext Singapurs und Malaysias. [“I really love that guy!” Romantic love as a path to modernity in the regional context of Singapore and Malaysia]. Asien – The German Journal on Contemporary Asia 139 2/2016: 25-43.
2016: Thimm, Viola: “I can give you money but there is no use. The best thing I [can] give you is education.” Negotiating educational migration and gender in a Chinese Malaysian family. TRaNS: Trans-Regional and National Studies of Southeast Asia, 4(1): 65-84.
2015: Thimm, Viola: Die arabische abaya in Malaysia: Verhandlungen von muslimischen Kleidungspraktiken, weiblicher Körperlichkeit und Modernität The arabic abaya in Malaysia: negotiations of Muslim practices of clothing, female corporeality and modernity]. Paideuma, 61:95-116.
2014: Thimm, Viola: Soziale Mobilität für Frauen durch bildungsmotivierte Land-Stadt-Migration: Eine Biographie aus Malaysia [Social mobility for women through education-motivated rural-urban migration: A biography from Malaysia]. Ethnoscripts, 16(2):27-41.
2013: Thimm, Viola: Education, Migration, Gender: Policies of Education in Malaysia and Singapore.
GSE Journal of Education 2013:1-11.
2012: Thimm, Viola: “My dad wants to see me graduate with a good degree (…)” Bildungsmigration und Geschlecht im regionalen Kontext Malaysias und Singapurs. Journal Netzwerk Frauen- und
Geschlechterforschung NRW, 31: 62-67.
Book chapters, peer reviewed
2021: Thimm, Viola: Introduction: (Re-)Claiming Bodies through Fashion and Style. Gendered Configurations in Muslim Contexts. In: Thimm, Viola (ed.): (Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam, pp. 1-18. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
2021: Thimm, Viola: Men’s Non-Fashion: Embodying Traditionality in the Gulf. In: Thimm, Viola (ed.): (Re-)Claiming Bodies: Gendered Configurations in Islam, pp. 109-126. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
2021: Buitelaar, Marjo*; Manja Stephan-Emmrich*; Viola Thimm* (*The order of author names in the introduction and that of editor names for the volume as a whole is purely alphabetical, reflecting equal contribution and responsibility): Introduction: Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility, pp. 19-35. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.
2021: Thimm, Viola: Under male supervision? Islamic belief and nationality as basis for Muslim women’s pilgrimage. In: Buitelaar, Marjo; Manja Stephan-Emmrich; Viola Thimm (eds.): Muslim Women’s Pilgrimage to Mecca and Beyond. Reconfiguring Gender, Religion, and Mobility, pp. 19-35. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.
2019: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi; Viola Thimm und Sarah J. Mahler: Scaling Educational Policy and Practices Intersectionally: Historical and Contemporary Education Policies, Practices and Effects in South and Southeast Asia. In: Hankivsky, Olena and Julia Jordan-Zachery (eds.): The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy, S. 367-385. Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan.
2018: Thimm, Viola: Muslim Mobilities and Gender: An Introduction. In: Viola Thimm (ed.): Understanding Muslim Mobilities and Gender, S. 1-10. Basel: MDPI.
2014: Chaudhuri, Mayurakshi; Viola Thimm and Sarah J. Mahler: Gendered Geographies of Power:
Their Value for Analyzing Gender across Transnational Spaces. In: Gruhlich, Julia and Birgit Riegraf (eds.): Transnationale Räume und Geschlecht, S. 94-209. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.
2014: Thimm, Viola: The Female Body in Transnational Space between Malaysia and Singapore. In: Buccieri, Kristy (ed.): Body Tensions: Beyond Corporeality in Time and Space, S. 55-72. Oxford: ID-Press.
2014: Thimm, Viola: Gender and the Body in Transnational Space: Female Educational Migrants from Malaysia in Singapore. In: McLean, Loyola et al. (eds.): Exploring Bodies in Time and Space, S. 37-45. Oxford: ID-Press.
2014: Thimm, Viola: “Gendered Geographies of Power”. Ein Modell zur Analyse von Bildungsmigration und Geschlecht am Beispiel von Malaysia und Singapur. In: Förschler, Silke et al. (eds.): Verorten – Verhandeln – Verkörpern, S. 61-84. Bielefeld: transcript.
2013: Thimm, Viola: Education, Migration, Gender: Policies of Education in Malaysia and Singapore.
In: Mokmin Basri et al. (eds.): Emerging Trends for Sustainability in Global Education: Opportunities and Challenges, Kajang (Malaysia): WorldConferences.net, S. 1-11.
Other publications
2018: Jongmanns, Georg and Viola Thimm: Förderprogramme in der Lehre und die Frage der personellen Nachhaltigkeit: Kriterien für eine tragfähige Aufgaben- und Personalstruktur (Funding programmes in teaching and the question of “personnel sustainability”).
2014: Thimm, Viola: Die Bersih-Bewegung in Malaysia [The Bersih movement in Malaysia]. Südostasien 1/2014:27-29.
2012: Thimm, Viola: “Singapore sucks!” – Skateboarding als Grenzraum zwischen Subkultur und staatlicher Kontrolle [“Singapore sucks!” – Skateboarding as a contested space between subculture and state control]. Südostasien 4/2012: 26-28.
