Prof. Dr. Tijo Salverda

Prof. Dr. Tijo Salverda

Guest Professor

Elite Master Program "Standards of Decision Making Across Cultures"
Institute for Near Eastern and East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Henkestr.91, Haus 8, Stock 2
91052 Erlangen
Germany

Prof. Dr. Tijo Salverda has a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology and an MA in History. He has worked at universities in the Netherlands South Africa, Germany and Austria. His research focuses on elites, inequality, and financial and corporate actors, including how they perceive and respond to counterpower. Building upon research conducted in Mauritius, Southern Africa and Europe, he is currently particularly interested in applying his anthropological insights towards a more sustainable and equal world – see also www.tijosalverda.nl

Relevant professional positions

2023 – 2024 Guest-Professor, Elite-Master `Standards of Decision-Making across Cultures ‘, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.
2022 – present Freelance Economic Anthropologist
2019 – 2022 University-Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology (fixed-term), Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria.
2018 – 2019 Deputy Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne, Germany.
2014 – 2018 Senior researcher, Global South Studies Center (GSSC), University of Cologne, Germany.
2012 – 2014 Research fellow, Human Economy Programme, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
2008 – 2012 Lecturer, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Faculty of Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
2004 – 2008 PhD candidate, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Academic qualifications

2022 Business Sustainability Management, University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, U.K.
2022 Certified Expert in Sustainable Finance, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Germany.
2012 University Teaching Qualification (Basis Kwalificatie Onderwijs), University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
2010 PhD, Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
2002 MA, History of Societies (World History/Non-Western History), Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Research

Experience 20 years of experience with designing and executing research; Management of projects; Reporting project outcomes.
Themes Elites; Inequality; Financial sector; Economy and morality; Corporations and their critics; Sustainability; CSR; Large-scale land and agricultural investments in Africa.
Locations South Africa, Zambia, Mauritius, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, Austria.
Methodology Qualitative (ethnographic) methods, such as participant observation and interviews (with CEOs, politicians, smallholder farmers, NGOs, employees, etc.); Financial analysis; Document analysis; Questionnaires; Desk research; Integration of statistical data.

Teaching and supervision

Courses Teaching and designing over 30 courses and tutorials at universities in Austria, Germany, South Africa, and the Netherlands (in English, German, and Dutch).
Themes Economy and Morality; (In)equality; Anthropology of Elites and Power; Political Anthropology; Counter-Power, Revolutions, Struggles, and Protests; Development and Anthropology; Globalisation; Environmental Change in the Indian Ocean; Witchcraft, Magic and Occult Economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond; Qualitative Research Methods; Research and Writing Colloquium.
Supervision Over 40 BA and MA theses; PhD students.

Monographs

2015 The Franco-Mauritian Elite: Power and Anxiety in the Face of Change. New York: Berghahn Books (new directions in anthropology series).

 

Internationally refereed articles

Forthcoming The colour of wealth concentration: The defence of economic privilege and multicultural ideology in postcolonial Mauritius. Canadian Journal of Development Studies.
2022 Time will tell: Temporalities of European land deal in Zambia and its critics. Geoforum 137 (December): 126–134.
2021 -When land becomes a burden: An analysis of an underperforming Zambian land deal. African Studies Review 64 (3): 653–674 (with Chewe Nkonde)

-Multi-scalar moral economy: Global agribusiness, rural Zambian residents, and the distributed crowd. Focaal–Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 89: 79–92.
2019 -Conflicting interpretations: On analyzing an agribusiness’ concerns about critique. The Journal of Business Anthropology 8 (1): 4–24 (with comments by Hannah Appel und Bill Beeman).

-Facing criticism: An analysis of (land-based) corporate responses to the large-scale land acquisition countermovement. The Journal of Peasant Studies 46 (5): 1003–1020.
2018 Attribution and contestation: Relations between elites and other social groups. Critique of Anthropology 38 (3): 265–284 (with Irene Skovgaard-Smith).
2017 Home is where our beach is: An analysis of Franco-Mauritians’ limited interest to emigrate. Journal of Mauritian Studies (special issue: Mauritian Diaspora in Question: Trajectories and Connections): 102-120.
2016 Who belongs to the elite? Insights from the study of the Franco-Mauritians. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 141: 123–142.
2015 -(Dis)unity in diversity: How common beliefs about ethnicity benefit the white Mauritian elite. Journal of Modern African Studies 53 (4): 533–555.

-Who does the state work for? Geopolitical considerations in the organization of (global) finance. Real-World Economics Review 71: 124–140.
2014 -Change, anxiety and exclusion in the postcolonial reconfiguration of Franco-Mauritian elite geographies. The Geographical Journal 180 (3): 236–245 (with Iain Hay).

-Introduction: Anxiety at the top. Comparative Sociology 13: 1–11 (with Erella Grassiani)
2013 Balancing redistribution: Franco-Mauritians’ Landownership in the maintenance of an Elite Position. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 31 (1): 503-521.

2011 Embodied signs of elite distinction: Franco-Mauritians’ white skin colour in the face of change. Comparative Sociology 10 (4): 548–570.
2010 In defence: Elite power. Journal of Power 3 (3): 385–404.

 

Edited volumes and special issues

Forthcoming  The moral dynamics of contemporary capitalism in Africa. Critical African Studies (with Cristiano Lanzano and Jörg Wiegratz).
Forthcoming Moral economies of (re)distribution in contemporary Africa. Journal of Contemporary African Studies (with Cristiano Lanzano and Jörg Wiegratz).
2014 Anxiety at the Top. Comparative Sociology 13 (with Erella Grassiani).
2013 The Anthropology of Elites: Power, Culture and the Complexities of Distinction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (with Jon Abbink).

 

Book chapters

2023 The other side of succession issues: How the decline of some family businesses allows for the consolidation of others. In: Tobias Koellner (ed.) Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2014 Balancing redistribution: Franco-Mauritians’ landownership in the maintenance of an elite position (reprint 2013 article). In: George Barrett, Shirley Brooks, Jenny Josefsson’s and Nqobile Zulu (eds). The Changing Face of Land and Conservation in Post-Colonial Africa: Old Land, New Practices? New York: Routledge.
2013 -Introduction: An anthropological perspective on elite power and the cultural politics of elites. In: Jon Abbink and Tijo Salverda (eds). The Anthropology of Elites: Power, Culture and the Complexities of Distinction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (with Jon Abbink).

-In defense: Elite power (reprint 2010 article). In: Jon Abbink and Tijo Salverda (eds). The Anthropology of Elites: Power, Culture and the Complexities of Distinction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2008 Maintaining an elite position: How Franco-Mauritians sustain their leading role in post-colonial Mauritius. In: Jon Abbink and André van Dokkum (eds). Dilemmas of Development: Conflicts of Interest and their Resolutions in Modernizing Africa. Leiden: Afrika-Studiecentrum, African studies collection 12.

 

Other publications (selected)

2023 -Stranded mindsets: The consequences (for institutional investors) of ignoring a key risk. LinkedIn. 

-Catching up with time. Institutional Landscapes blog series.
2022 –Sharing power is not the end of the world; clinging to it may be. LinkedIn.

-Ethnography in pandemic times. The Journal of Business Anthropology 11 (1): 103-106.
2021 -Elite culture. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2. Edition.

-Land Grabbing und seine KritikerInnen: Ein Fallbeispiel in Sambia. In: Karin Fischer, Christian Reiner and Cornelia Staritz (eds.). Globale Warenketten und ungleiche Entwicklung: Arbeit, Kapital, Konsum, Natur. Vienna: Mandelbaum.
2019 -Tales of Inequality: What Piketty, Rousseau, Scrooge McDuck, and the Devil may have in common (winner essay prize What is the future of inequality among people, and how can it be changed by social and cultural practice? University of Cologne; with Florian Willems).

-‘Decent work’: Historical and cultural varieties. Voices from Around the World (Online-Journal GSSC; http://voices.uni-koeln.de/; with Andrea Hollington, Sinah Kloß, Nina Schneider und Oliver Tappe).
2018 -Controlling knowledge and the role of engaged intellectuals. Voices from Around the World (Online-Journal GSSC; http://voices.uni-koeln.de/; with Jonathan DeVore, Andrea Hollington, Sinah Kloß, Nina Schneider und Oliver Tappe).

-How capitalists think–about belonging, moralities, global entanglements, and historical social processes, for example. Focaal Blog (http://www.focaalblog.com/; with Patrick Neveling)

-Aiming to keep capitalist accumulation in check: The role of the global land rush’s fiercest critics. Focaal Blog.
2017 Beyond the horizon: The logics of exclusive seaside resorts. In: Franz Krause, Andrea Hollington, Sinah Kloß, Tijo Salverda, Nina Schneider and Oliver Tappe (eds.). Social Water. Voices from Around the World (online journal GSSC).
2016 -Hope for the future? Efforts and ideas to improve the current economic predicament. Voices from Around the World (online journal GSSC; with Andrea Hollington, Sinah Kloß, Nina Schneider and Oliver Tappe).

-Reclaiming the state. In: Tijo Salverda, Andrea Hollington, Sinah Kloß, Nina Schneider and Oliver Tappe (eds.). Hope for the future? Efforts and ideas to improve the current economic predicament. Voices from Around the World (online journal GSSC).
2015 -Several contributions The Human Economy Blog (http://thehumaneconomy.blogspot.de/)

-Concepts of the Global South. Voices from Around the World (online journal GSSC; with Andrea Hollington, Oliver Tappe and Tobias Schwarz).

-Die grauen Herren von der Wall Street. Kulturaustausch. Stuttgart: Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations.
2009 Culture and Moral Issues in the Financial Markets. Memo included in the investigation of the (Dutch) Parliamentary Committee Inquiry Financial System.
2007

2004

 -Still standing, the maintenance of a white elite in Mauritius. IIAS newsletter 45.

-Changing definitions of ethnic boundaries on Mauritius. IIAS newsletter 33.