Marlene Persch
Marlene Persch studied social and cultural anthropology at the University of Vienna. As a sowi:docs fellow (2020-2025) at the University of Vienna and a Marietta Blau fellow (2025/2026) at the Universities of Frankfurt and Bayreuth, she is currently working on her PhD project “Becoming a state actor: Production of state awareness among prison officers in Ghana.” Her research interests include the anthropology of the state, anthropological debates on care, and prison ethnographies.
She has done extensive ethnographic research in a prison in Ghana focusing on care relations and the everyday of prison officers. Welfare aspects in the prison have strengthened her interest in bureaucracies and state institutions. She is currently working on her dissertation project, which focuses on the production of state awareness among state actors. The focus is on processes of boundary dissolution between public/private, state/family, which are linked to images of “good” state practice.
Research
Becoming a State Actor: Production of state awareness among Prison Officers in Ghana
Recent Publications
Der sorgende Staat? Sorgenarrative im Jugendgefängnis in Accra, Ghana.
Contact
E-Mail:
Link: https://ksa.univie.ac.at/institut/mitarbeiterinnen/professorinnen/thelen-tatjana/persch-marlene/