For the past 9 years, David Tjiharuka worked as a Philosophy and Applied Ethics‘ lecturer at the University of Namibia. His academic expertise is in ethics, critical thinking, and ecology, and my interests are in phenomenology and ethnology. He will work for the project „Empathy and Resilience: Phenomenological, Anthropological and Psychological Approaches to the Resilience Potentials within Cultural Practices of Collective Resonance“. It examines the different forms and functions of collective empathy in the ethnographic context of an indigenous group in the arid north-west of Namibia. The project is headed by Prof. Michael Bollig from the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne.

• Phenomenology
• Ethnology
• Ecology
• Development

Phenomenological, anthropological and psychological research on resilience inherent in cultural practices of collective resonance

This project focusses on the forms and functions of group related empathy within the context of an Indigenous Community in northwest Namibia. The interaction between the phenomenlogical conceptualisation of relations between collective empathy and personal resilience on the one hand and participant observation based ethnography on the other hand constitutes the innovative core of the project.

Project Investigators: 
Prof. Dr. Michael Bollig
Prof Dr. Thiemo Breyer

Research Associates:
Dr. Jagna Brudzinska
David Tjiharuka

Funding:
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) 
Projektseite GEPRIS
2024–2027