Florian Balbiani

Since April 2025
Research Associate, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Scientific Coordination "Koloniales Erbe in Thüringen"

September 2024 – November 2024
Scholarship holder, German Historical Institute London

Since February 2023
PhD scholarship holder, Junior Research Centre "Wissensgeschichte der Neuzeit", University of Erfurt

April 2022 – November 2022
Secretary, Department of German History, University of Hamburg

May 2020 – March 2022
Student Assistant and Tutor, Department of German History (Prof. Dr Angelika Schaser), University of Hamburg

October 2019 – May 2022
Master's programme in History, University of Hamburg

October 2018 – September 2019
Master's programme in Global History, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin

June 2016 – March 2019
Student Assistant, Editorial Office "History and Society", Department of Modern History/Contemporary History (Prof. Dr Paul Nolte), Freie Universität Berlin

July 2016 – February 2017
Project Manager, German Library Association, Berlin

October 2014 – September 2018
Bachelor's degree in History and Political Science, Free University of Berlin

Researching Swahili. Africanist Linguistics in Germany, Britain, and East Africa, 1843-1945

After the arrival of the first missionaries in what is now Kenya in the 1840s, the East African lingua franca Swahili sparked interest in Europe. Initially, it was individual missionaries who learned the language, debated its standardization, recorded language samples, and translated the Bible. With the institutionalization of colonial sciences at the turn of the 20th century, the exploration of Swahili became firmly established in the metropolises of the colonial powers Germany and Britain. Africanist linguistics is thus closely linked to missionary and colonial claims to authority over the political upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries. In my work, I inquire into the ideological and political factors, ideas, networks, and material conditions that shaped knowledge production. This involves, on the one hand, examining the competition and cooperation among European missionaries, colonial officials, and Africanists from a transimperial perspective. On the other hand, the contribution of African actors to knowledge production is explored – from scholars on the Swahili Coast to lecturers at colonial scientific institutions in Europe.

• Colonial History
• History of Science
• Missionary History
• Cultures of Remembrance

see also: https://uni-erfurt.academia.edu/FlorianBalbiani

Monograph:

Mission – Kolonialismus – Nationalsozialismus. Ernst Dammann und die Hamburger Afrikanistik, 1930–1937 (= Hamburger postkoloniale Studien, vol. 8), Munich 2023.

Review in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte 109 (2023); Afrika und Übersee 97 (2024).

Editorship:

(since 01/2024, together with Albert Feierabend and Iris Schröder): Mapping Africa and Asia. Cartographies of Africa and Asia (1800-1945). open access

Reviews, smaller contributions:

Knowledge Production between Mission, University, and Colonial Administration: Swahili Studies in Britain and Germany, 1840s-1940s, in: German Historical Institute London Blog 2025. open access

Spracharbeit zwischen Wissenschaft, Mission und Kolonialismus. Ein deutscher Afrikanist in Tanganyika, 1933–1936, in: Themenportal Europäische Geschichte 2025. open access

Review of: Morgan J. Robinson: A Language for the World. The Standardisation of Swahili (= New African Histories), Athens 2022, in: H-Soz-Kult 2024. aopen access

Ein Wettlauf um Swahili-Manuskripte im Kenia der 1930er Jahre: Plädoyer für einen transimperialen Blick auf die Afrikalinguistik, in: Transimperial History Blog 2024. open access

Review of: Hamburgs umstrittene Orte. Zum Umgang mit unbequemen Denkmälern, hg. vom St. Pauli-Archiv e.V., 2 Bde., Hamburg 2018 und 2022, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte 109 (2023), pp. 215-217.

Review of: Hannimari Jokinen, Flower Manase and Joachim Zeller (eds.): Stand and Fall. Das Wissmann-Denkmal zwischen kolonialer Weihestätte und postkolonialer Dekonstruktion, Berlin 2022, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte 109 (2023), pp. 217-219.

Review of: Ludwig Gerhardt: Carl Meinhof. Das Leben des ersten Ordinarius für Afrikanistik (= Wissenschaftler in Hamburg, Bd. 5), Göttingen 2022, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte 108 (2022), pp. 253-255.

Die Zwangsarbeit in den Erinnerungen der Überlebenden, in: Das Lagerhaus G am Dessauer Ufer. Ein ehemaliges Außenlager des KZ Neuengamme auf dem Kleinen Grasbrook, hg. von der Stiftung Hamburger Gedenkstätten und Lernorte zur Erinnerung an die Opfer der NS-Verbrechen und der Studentischen Forschungsgruppe Dessauer Ufer, Hamburg 2022, pp. 16-20.

„Identitätspolitik“ und soziale Bewegungen. Sprechposition und Diskurs, in: Perspektiven des demokratischen Sozialismus. Zeitschrift für Gesellschaftsanalyse und Reformpolitik 37 (2020), H. 2, pp. 208-211.