Marie Huber | Associated Researcher
Home Institution
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Philipps Universität Marburg
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Position
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow
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Disciplines
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History
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Biography
Marie Huber researches global economic history, with a focus on postcolonial business history and development in Africa. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Marburg. Prior to that, she served as PI in a research project on aviation in postcolonial Africa at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In her Ph.D. project and first book, Marie looked at the Ethiopian example to examine the history of the World Heritage Program in developing countries.
Researchtopic
In her Ph.D. project and first book, Marie looked at the Ethiopian example to examine the execution of the World Heritage Convention in developing countries.
Title of thesis
Developing Heritage - Developing Countries, Ethiopian Nation-Building and the Origins of UNESCO World Heritage, 1960-1980Summary of thesis
The history of development has paid only little attention to cultural projects. This book looks at the development politics that shaped the UNESCO World Heritage programme, with a case study of Ethiopian World Heritage sites from the 1960s to the 1980s. In a large-scale conservation and tourism planning project, selected sites were set up and promoted as images of the Ethiopian nation. This story serves to illustrate UNESCO’s role in constructing a “useful past” in many African countries engaged in the process of nation-building. UNESCO experts and Ethiopian elites had a shared interest in producing a portfolio of antiquities and national parks to underwrite Ethiopia’s imperial claims to regional hegemony with ancient history. The key findings of this book highlight a continuity in Ethiopian history, despite the political ruptures caused by the 1974 revolution and UNESCO’s transformation from knowledge producer to actual provider of development policies. The particular focus on the bureaucratic and political practices of heritage, bridges a gap between cultural heritage studies and the history of international organisations. The result is a first study of the global discourse on heritage as it emerged in the 1960s development decade.
Projects
Since 2021 German foreign trade with Africa
-Funding of a preliminary study on German direct investment in Africa from 1950-1990 by Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI), Berlin
-Case studies on 1. German political economy of development aid from 1960 on, 2. Lufthansa’s international route expansion towards the Global South and 3. German-Ethiopian economic relations within the framework of the sub-project "Foreign Economic Securitisation" in the SFB/TRR 138 "Dynamics of Security".
-Archival Research in Germany and Ethiopia
-Stay of a visiting scholar: Shakila Yacob, Malaysia.
Since 2020 State-owned enterprises and industrialisation in Africa after 1960
-Submission as ERC Starting Grant in 2021 (rejected, ranking range 33 - 34 %) and 2023
-seed funding of HU Berlin for the preparation of an ERC Starting Grant (25,000 €)
-Conducting an international workshop in 2020
-Archival research in Germany, Ethiopia, USA, Côte d' Ivoire, Netherlands, France
2018-2023 Aviation in post-colonial Africa
-funded by DFG "Eigene Stelle" (337,600 €) and PostDoc scholarship of HU Berlin
-Part of the DFG Priority Programme
-Principal Investigator, management of a team (1 research assistant, 3 support staff)
-Research stays in France, Ethiopia, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Netherlands, USA
-Stay of a visiting scholar: Waqar Zaidi, Lahore University of Management and Science, Pakistan
-Conduction of 3 international workshops in 2020 and 2022, cooperation with Lahore University of Management and Science, Pakistan
Postcolonial Skies: Aviation and African Modernities in the Jet Age
"Postcolonial Skies: Aviation and African Modernities in the Jet Age" explores how aviation development in postcolonial Africa shaped and reflected contested notions of modernity. This research examines the intersection of decolonization and the jet age, offering a unique lens to study African multiple modernities and rewrite aviation history from an African perspective. The project employs four theoretical approaches: material culture analysis of jet aircraft, new spatial theories of airspace, examination of postcolonial temporalities, and critical engagement with archives. By centering African experiences and agency, this study aims to enhance our understanding of technological modernity, state-building, and global connectivity in postcolonial contexts, contributing to African history, Science and Technology Studies, and mobility studies.
Publications
please see my ORCID profile or my google scholar profile
for a complete and up-to-date list of my publications