Speaker S1: Widening participation and sharing excellence: the role of MSCA
Damiana Otoiu, PhD. (Université Libre de Bruxelles), is an anthropologist of law and politics whose research is focused on how property rights are (re)defined and disputed in postcolonial contexts, and on the “social and political lives” of museum objects and of collections of physical anthropology. She undertakes research in France, Belgium, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo by looking at museums’ policies and norms in general, and at the current debates concerning the restitution of African collections in particular.
Damiana is a lecturer in Political Anthropology in the Department of Political Science of the University of Bucharest, a Spiru Haret Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study “New Europe College” in Bucharest, and a Coordinator of the research group “Heritage -making process” of the Centre Régional Francophone de Recherches Avancées en Sciences Sociales (CEREFREA Villa Noël), University of Bucharest.
She lectured at various universities, such as Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and Marseille, Boston University, University of the Western Cape in Cape Town. She coordinated several research projects, for instance “Museums and Controversial Collections. Politics and Policies of Heritage-Making in Post-colonial and Post-socialist Contexts”, funded by the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research (2015-2017, host institution – New Europe College). She is the recipient of several academic awards, including a (Marie Curie) Research Fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/ Saale, Project Group “Legal Pluralism”, and an Fernand Braudel International Fellowship for Experienced Researchers at the Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris (programme supported by the European Commision, Action Marie Curie – COFUND – 7th PCRD).