Prof Ullrich Kockel

Institute for Northern Studies

Scott’s House

Kirkwall

 

Twitter: @CreativEthnolog

Available to talk to the media about

• Cultural heritage
• Cultural ecology/sustainability
• Endogenous development 

In these languages

English, German

Biography

Ullrich Kockel is Professor of Creative Ethnology at UHI. He taught at Leeds Polytechnic and NUI Galway before receiving his PhD from the University of Liverpool, where he was appointed to the first-ever full-time post in Irish Studies at a British university. Ullrich also taught Geography at University College Cork and has held chairs in European Studies (University of the West of England), Ethnology and Folklife (University of Ulster), and Cultural Ecology and Sustainability (Heriot-Watt). He is a Visiting Professor at the Center for Social Anthropology, Vytautas Magnus University Kaunas, Lithuania, and the Latvian Academy of Culture, and was President of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), 2008-13.

Research groups and interests

Throughout my research career, I have worked at the interface of arts and crafts, ethnology, and intercultural philosophical anthropology. My primary regional foci are Scotland, the eastern Baltic, Ireland and Germany, and I have also worked in border regions and ethnic frontiers elsewhere in Europe. One of my major research topics has been sustainable local and regional development, especially regarding heritage and other cultural resources, from an interdisciplinary perspective rooted in cultural anthropology (aka European ethnology), human ecology, and political economy. In recent years, my work has focused on indigeneity, displacement, and place-making.