Dr. Michael Stasik

Michael Stasik is an anthropologist working at the intersection of cultures, economies, and mobilities in West Africa. His project at the MPI-MMG explored practices of transnational migration in West Africa by considering the trajectories and lifeworlds of individual/non-associational migrants in Ghana. The main interest here was to understand dynamics of the diversification and individualization of migration in the sub-region. Related research questions concerned the significance of distance, autonomy, and aloneness in constituting migrant experiences and aspirations.

Michael’s PhD research was an ethnographic study of a major bus station in Ghana’s capital Accra, focused on how West African urbanites make use of, and thereby reshape, infrastructures of mobility and exchange. His MPhil research examined the meanings that youth in Freetown, Sierra Leone, invest in popular music, especially with regard to the social and affective negotiations of love, intimacy, and reciprocity. He obtained his MPhil from the African Studies Centre Leiden and his PhD from the University of Bayreuth, where he also worked as researcher and lecturer in Anthropology (2011-2017). He was a recipient of the Young Scholars’ Award of the African Studies Association in Germany, the Dissertation Award of the University of Bayreuth, and ASC’s Africa Thesis Award. Michael is now at the University of Basel.

Research projects

• Individual migration in West Africa (completed)

Publications

Books

Stasik, M. (2012). DISCOnnections: Popular Music Audiences in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Bamenda, Leiden: Langaa Research, ASC Leiden. Link

Collected Editions

Valerie Hänsch, Michael Stasik and Serawit Bekele Debele (Eds.) (2020). Temporalities of Waiting in Africa (Special Issue). Critical African Studies 12(1). Link

Stasik, M., & Cissokho, S. (Eds.). (2018). Bus Stations in Africa (Special Issue). Africa Today. Link

Beck, K., Gabriel, K., & Stasik, M. (Eds.). (2017). The Making of the African Road. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Link

Contributions to a Collected Edition

Stasik, M., & Klaeger, G. (2018). Reordering Ghana’s roadside spaces: Hawking in times of infrastructural renewal. In U. Engel, M. Boeckler, & D. Müller-Mahn (Eds.), Spatial practices: Territory, border and infrastructure in Africa (pp. 153-172). Leiden: Brill. Link

Stasik, M. (2017). Alltagsspektakel am Straßenrand: Körpertechniken von Busausrufern in Accra, Ghana. In M. Verne, P. Ivanov, & M. Treiber (Eds.), Körper Technik Wissen: Kreativität und Aneignungsprozesse in Afrika - in den Spuren Kurt Becks (pp. 405-417). Berlin: LIT.

Beck, K., Klaeger, G., & Stasik, M. (2017). An Introduction to the African Road. In K. Beck, G. Klaeger, & M. Stasik (Eds.), The Making of the African Road (pp. 1-23). Link

Stasik, M. (2017). Roadside Involution, Or How Many People Do You Need to Run a Lorry Park? In K. Beck, G. Klaeger, & M. Stasik (Eds.), The Making of the African Road (pp. 24-57). Leiden, Boston: Brill. Link

Journal Articles

Michael Stasik, Valerie Hänsch and Daniel Mains (2020). Temporalities of waiting in Africa: Introduction to special issue. Critical African Studies 12(1), 1-9. Link

Stasik, M., & Cissokho, S. (2018). Introduction to Special Issue: Bus Stations in Africa. Africa Today, 65(2), vii-xxiv. Link

Stasik, M. (2018). The popular niche economy of a Ghanaian bus station: Departure from informality. Africa Spectrum, 53(1), 37-59.

Stasik, M., & Klaeger, G. (2018). Station Waka-Waka: The Temporalities and Temptations of (Not) Working in Ghanaian Bus Stations. Africa Today, 65(2), 93-110. Link

Stasik, M. (2017). How to dance to Beethoven in Freetown: the social, sonic and sensory organisation of sounds into music and noise. Anthropology Matters, 17(2). Link

Stasik, M. (2017). Rhythm, Resonance and Kinaesthetic Enskilment in a Ghanaian Bus Station. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, 82(3), 545-568. Link

Stasik, M. (2016). Contingent constellations: African urban complexity seen through the workings of a Ghanaian bus station. Social Dynamics, 42(1), 122-142.

Thiel, A., & Stasik, M. (2016). Market men and station women: changing significations of gendered space in Accra, Ghana. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 34(4), 459-478. Link

Stasik, M. (2016). Real love versus real life: youth, music and utopia in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 86(2), 215-236. Link

Stasik, M. (2015). Vernacular Neoliberalism: How Private Entrepreneurship Runs Public Transport in Ghana. Sociologus: Journal for Social Anthropology, 65(2), 177-200. Link

Other

Stasik, M. (2019). Les bus ghanéens, entre attente, ruses et petits arrangements. Le Monde Afrique (May 2019). Link

Stasik, M. (2019). Review: Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation, by Jennifer Hart. 2016. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Journal of African History 60(2), 321-323. Link

Stasik, M. (2018). Diversity, anthropologically studied. Link

Stasik, M. (2018). Review: Hexenjagd und Aufklärung in Ghana, by Felix Riedel. 2016. Köln. Modern Africa: Politics, History and Society, 5(2), 160-164. Link

Stasik, M. (2017). Masse, Musik und der Kao-Kult: eine Konzertnacht in Freetown. Muße. Ein Magazin. Link