Hermann Amborn

Hermann Amborn (11 April 1933 – 18 June 2024) was a German anthropologist and ethnologist. With a regional focus on northern and eastern Africa, Amborn's research addressed the political organisation of society, the division of labour, agricultural ethnology, and ethics in applied anthropological research.^[1][2]

Hermann Amborn
Born	(1933-04-11)11 April 1933 Braubach, Germany
Died	18 June 2024(2024-06-18) (aged 91) Munich, Germany
Academic background
Alma mater	Munich Institute of Ethnology
Thesis	The Importance of the cultures of the Nile Valley for iron production in sub-Saharan Africa (Die Bedeutung der Kulturen des Niltals für die Eisenproduktion im subsaharischen Afrika) (1973)
Doctoral advisor	Hermann Baumann and Helmut Straube
Academic work
Institutions	Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Main interests	Anthropology, African society and politics.
Website	https://www.ethnologie.uni-muenchen.de/personen/emeriti/amborn/index.html

Life and career

Amborn's father was a pastor who opposed the Nazi regime.^[1] As a young man, Amborn initially trained as a technical draftsman and engineer before changing fields.^[3] Amborn held visiting professorships in Hamburg and Berlin in addition to Kansas State University. He became a full professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1987, where he was made professor emeritus on retirement in 1998.^[1] From 1991 to 2001, Amborn was the ethics working group spokesperson for the German Anthropological Association (formerly Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, now: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie).^[2][4]

Amborn notably contributed to the study and discussion of African communities which self-govern outside of a statist framework through anti-hierarchical structures, without reliance on violent coercion in enforcing their rules and laws, and in line with anarchist principles.^[5] Mark Bray describes Amborn's work as "challenging the inevitability of the state as the "natural" outcome of societal evolution"^[6]

Amborn died in Munich on 18 June 2024, at the age of 91.^[7]

Selected works

• Die Bedeutung der Kulturen des Niltals für die Eisenproduktion im subsaharischen Afrika. (Dissertation) Studien zur Kulturkunde. Frobenius-Institut, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3515024115
• Differenzierung und Integration. Vergleichende Untersuchungen zu Spezialisten und Handwerkern in südäthiopischen Agrargesellschaften. (Habilitationsschrift) Trickster, München 1990
• Unbequeme Ethik. Überlegungen zu einer verantwortlichen Ethnologie. Reimer, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3496025239
• Flexibel aus Tradition / Burji in Äthiopien und Kenia: Unter Verwendung der Aufzeichnungen von Helmut Straube / With explanation of some cultural items in English. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 3447060832
• Das Recht als Hort der Anarchie. Gesellschaften ohne Herrschaft und Staat. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-95757-240-0. Materialien vom Autor dazu online
• 'Concepts in Wood and Stone - Socio-religious Monuments of the Konso of Southern Ethiopia', Zeitschrift für Ethnologi, 2002.
• Burji: Versatile by Tradition in Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa, Volume 1 edited by Günther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson. Berghahn Books, 2009.
• Mobility, Knowledge and Power: Craftsmen in the Borderland in Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa, Volume 1 edited by Günther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson. Berghahn Books, 2009.
• Law as Refuge of Anarchy: Societies without Hegemony or State. Untimely Meditations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2019.^[8]