Wouter van Beek

Cameroon has been a place of study since my PhD work, especially the far North. The ethnography of the Mandara Mountains, in particular the Kapsiki/Higi, forms a permanent element in my work in Cameroon. In Mali the Dogon of Central Mali form the first focus of my research. Their relations within and beyond Mali and their reception of tourists form the topic of my research since 1980. From 1996 onwards, through a UNITWIN connection with the Universities of Windhoek and Western Cape, I became increasingly involved with Southern Africa, first with Namibia, now with South Africa. Participation in the SANPAD program, the academic cooperation between the Netherlands and South Africa, resulted in tutoring South African PhD candidates, and in two SANPAD projects, one on witchcraft accusations and a recent one on Holy Places in South Africa, together with Tilburg University. My main thematic interests are religion, cultural ecology and tourism, and these themes form my anchor within the "Connections and Transformations in Africa" programme, providing both the theoretical and comparative framework for the empirical studies. I have the chair of Anthropology of Religion (part time) at the University of Tilburg. I teach religious anthropology as part of the BA course in Religious Science and lecture in the honours program of Tilburg University as well as in the new Liberal Arts program. I will continue my previously planned research in the ASC's Connections and Transformations research programme and will combine this with research at the University of Tilburg's Faculty of Humanities. One African involvement had to be discontinued. From 1992 till 2003 I was President of the World Draughts Federation, and from 2003 till December 2006 I was Executive Vice President of the African Draughts Confederation. For this volunteer service, in addition to the professional work, I have received the distinction of 'Ridder in de Orde van Oranje Nassau', in June 2008.