Photo: Jürgen Wolff
Eva Reichel began studying social and cultural anthropology at the Free University of Berlin in 2003, having previously taught at a grammar school for 25 years. She conducted her first field research during her studies. In 2005/06 she stayed in the Indian highlands on the border between Jharkhand and Odisha near the Ho. The results of her research were included in a first book, which was published in 2009 by Manohar/ Delhi/ India under the title "Notions of Life in Death and Dying. The Dead in Tribal Middle India" was published by Manohar/ Delhi/ India. After graduation, she taught as a research assistant at the Institute of Ethnology of the Free University of Berlin and prepared her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Georg Pfeffer. After a long-term study in 2009/2010 and regular further research stays in the highlands of Middle India, she started writing her doctoral thesis in addition to her teaching activities in Berlin. She successfully completed her doctoral thesis in November 2018 at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Rewritten into a monograph, it was published on August 10, 2020 under the title "The Ho: Living in a World of Plenty. Of Social Cohesion and Ritual Friendship on the Chota Nagpur Plateau, India" by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston.
Her main research interest is on the Chota Nagpur Plateau as a tribal zone in Central India; especially West Singhum in Jharkhand and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, India. Her research focuses on the Adivasi (first settlers) of the South Asian subcontinent; in particular the Ho, Santal, Munda and other tribal societies settled on the plateaus of Central India. In this region, she conducts research on topics such as kinship and marriage relationships, ritual friendships, communication between the living and the dead, and socio-cultural norms.
Eva Reichel is associate researcher at the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt am Main and associate fellow at the University of Groningen.
