Daphne Berdahl (June 14, 1964 – October 5, 2007) was an

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

known for her work on Eastern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and Post-socialist Europe. Her work on gender and consumption as well as her writing on post-communist nostalgia has been widely cited by scholars of post-socialism.

Biography

Daphne Berdahl was born on June 14, 1964, in Freiburg, Germany, to Margaret and Robert Berdahl, a scholar of

German History The concept of Germany as a distinct region in Central Europe can be traced to Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as ''Germania'', thus distinguishing it from Gaul. The victory of the Cherusci, Germanic tribes ...

and well-known former

chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

of Berkeley. Berdahl was raised in

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

, attended

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

for her undergraduate degree, and earned her

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. She received a two-year position as a post-doctoral fellow at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

, and later joined the faculty at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, where she worked from 1997 to 2007 as an Assistant Professor and then an Associate Professor of

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

. Berdahl married John N. Baldwin in 1990, and the couple had two daughters. On October 5, 2007, Berdahl died after an eight-year struggle with

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

. A graduate fellowship was set up at the University of Minnesota in her honor.

Scholarship

Berdahl's research covered the topics of

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

consumption Consumption may refer to: * Eating *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically known as consumption * Consumer (food chain), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of n ...

, and the

politics of memory The politics of memory refers to how societies construct, contest, and institutionalize collective memories of historical events. Often this practice should serve political, social, or ideological purpose. As a field of study, memory politics seek ...

, focusing on the former

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

(East Germany). She was one of the first scholars to tackle Eastern Germany and post-socialism in the discipline of anthropology and one of the first scholars to grapple with the concept of Ostalgie, nostalgia for the east. She also focused on transglobal processes and local communities,

national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...

, and socialist societies' transitions, specifically

German re-unification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

. In 1999, she published ''Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland'', an ethnographic account of her time spent in Kella, an East German border village between 1990 and 1992. She has also published a great deal on Ostalgie. In 2003, she received a McKnight Arts and Humanities Research Award, and in 2007, she was awarded a prestigious

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

. A collection of her essays was published posthumously by Indiana University Press in 2010, "On the Social Life of Postsocialism: Memory, Consumption, Germany" by Daphne Berdahl, edited with an introduction by Matti Bunzl, foreword by Michael Herzfeld.

Selected bibliography

* "Voices at the

Wall A wall is a structure and a surface that defines an area; carries a load; provides security, shelter, or soundproofing; or serves a decorative purpose. There are various types of walls, including border barriers between countries, brick wal ...

: Discourses of Self, History and National Identity at the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, commonly called the Vietnam Memorial, is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granit ...

," ''History & Memory: Studies in Representation of the Past'' 6 (Fall/Winter 1994), 88-124. * ''Dismembering the Past: The Politics of Memory in the German Borderland'' (1997) * ''Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland.'' Berkeley: University of California Press (1999), . * '' Ostalgie for the Present: Memory, Longing and East German Things'' (1999) * ''Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union'', University of Michigan Press (2000), . * ''Go, Trabi, Go! Reflections on a Car and its Symbolization Over Time'' (2001) * ''On the Social Life of Postsocialism: Memory, Consumption, Germany '' (2009)

Awards

McKnight Foundation The McKnight Foundation is an American Minnesota-based family foundation. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation maintains a $2.5 billion endowment, which it distributes in grants. In 2022, the foundation issued $120 million, supporting Min ...

Arts and Humanities Research Award 2003 * Recipient of a

2007

Notes

External links

University of Minnesota ProfileUniversity of Michigan Press Information about ''Altering States: Altering States:Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union''
*Minneapolis Star-Tribune obit

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berdhal, Daphne 1964 births 2007 deaths American women anthropologists American cultural anthropologists Harvard Fellows University of Chicago alumni University of Minnesota faculty 20th-century American women scientists Ostalgie 20th-century American anthropologists