Academic staff member

After vocational training as a paramedic, Paul Hummel studied at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and the Université de La Réunion. He completed two combined bachelor’s programs in the subjects of Geography, Political Science and Sports Science. He then specialized his training as a human geographer in the English-language master’s degree program Human Geography: Globalization, Media and Culture at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. In his master’s thesis, he dealt with political and indigenous identity in the music of the P’urhépecha in Michoacán, Mexico. The documentary Raíces y Brotes (2023) was created as part of a practical film approach to geography.

After two years of professional activity with a regional focus on the countries of the French-speaking Sahel within the Africa portfolio of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Paul Hummel has been working as a doctoral candidate and academic staff member in the Human Geography work group under the direction of Prof. Dr. Veronika Cummings since October 2023.

In his current research, he deals with migrant self-narratives in the context of European migration between the western Sahel states and France. The focus is on artistic forms of expression such as music or Film, which can be understood as a form of identity formation and subjectivation as well as politicized counter-designs to dominant migration policy discourses. He is particularly interested in the extent to which artistic practices in exile and migration contexts can promote social resilience, while at the same time being integrated into postcolonial and defamatory narratives. His work examines the unequal preconditions for creative resilience and understands aesthetic practices as a central site of spatially manifesting social conflicts.