Interviews with German anthropologists - Video Portal for the History of German Anthropology post 1945

Dr. Volker Harms was born in 1941 in Wilhelmshaven, which is situated in the North of Germany. At the age of fourteen he moved with his family to Hamburg where he finished school in 1962 and took up his studies. After a first encounter with studying History of Art, Romanistics and Archaeology, Harms decided to study Anthropology. At the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology Erhard Shlesier, Hans Fischer, Herbert Tischner, Helga Rammow and Wolfgang Haberland were among his teachers. His regional focus at that time was on Polynesia and his theoretical interest not only included Anthropology but also Sociology.

In 1967 Hams and his fellow students also founded the »Critical University« (dt. »Kritische Universität«) in order to establish new contents and methods in the academic field, e.g. an Applied Anthropology. In 1969 Harms finished his graduation thesis and took up a junior position at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology in Göttingen. From 1973 on he moreover co-worked at two research projects which were initiated by the educational sciences in Göttingen. In 1978 Harms took up a position at the Überseemuseum in bremen, where he organized several exhibitions during the following years.

In 1980 Harms moved to Tübingen. He held an academic position through which he could work both as a curator at the Ethnographic Collection (Völkerkundliche Sammlung Tübingen) and an academic lecturer at the university. He was teaching at the Institute for Ethnology until his retirement in 2006.