Passau: Migration and Translocality

Christian Ungruhe has joined the international research consortium ‘Migration and Translocality in West Africa’ (MiTra-WA), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in September 2021. In his work, he studies interlinkages and dynamics between migrants’ places of origin and destination to better understand the drivers, practices, structures and processes of rural-urban and cross-border migration and their interconnected impacts for rural and urban settings in West Africa. Empirically, he pursues a longitudinal study on young women’s migration practices from northern Ghana and their impact on gender relations and women’s social and economic participation and in the region.

Rotterdam: Mobile Lifeworlds

Between 2019 and 2021, he was a Marie Curie fellow at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC) at Erasmus University Rotterdam (the Netherlands). In his project ‘Mobile Life Worlds. Trajectories of West African football migrants en route and in South-East Asia’ he followed football players who pursue professional contracts in the Global South. Undertaking a longitudinal ethnographic approach, he particularly worked with players whom he had accompanied since 2010 and looked at the processes of their social, spatial and everyday mobilities and subjectivities on the road and in the making, with an emphasis on how the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted on their migration projects.

Aarhus: Sport migration and precarious life course trajectories

Before this, he worked at Aarhus University (Denmark) in a postdoc project on post-career life course trajectories of West African footballers in Northern Europe (2015-2019). By combining lenses of spatiality and temporality, his work dealt with players’ transitions into post-playing careers and the transformation of their physical capital into other relevant forms of social, cultural and economic capital. In particular, he focussed on former players’ ambivalent experiences of precarity and their communication in transnational settings (e.g., with kin and friends at places of origin).

Bayreuth: Migration, Youth, Sport

In 2015, he completed his PhD project at Bayreuth University (Germany) in which he dealt with the relationship between internal migration practices and the gendered negotiations of life phases of youth and social adulthood among young people from rural northern Ghana in the country’s southern cities. His project was based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in various Ghanaian localities. Beside this, between 2009-2013, he was working in a project on the trajectories of West African football players to and in Europe. (Bayreuth University). He particularly studied processes of racial ‘Othering’ as well as players’ responses to and the reproduction of existing images of Black people in Germany more generally.

Münster: "Street children's" life course trajectories

He started his academic career in 2005 when he graduated from the University of Münster (Germany) with an empirical study on ‘street children's’ life course trajectories in southern Ghana.

Newspaper and online media reports:

Fußball im Senegal. Der Fluch der Hoffnung (Frankfurter Allgemeine, 28 March 2023; author: Brigitte Wenger)

How Europe decides who wins the World Cup  (New York Times, 18 November 2022; authors: Tariq Panja, Elian Peltier and Rory Smith)

East African footballers are a rarity on the global stage: we analysed why (The Conversation, 4 September 2022) [French Version: Les footballeurs d'Afrique de l'Est sont rares sur la scène internationale: nous avons cherché les raisons]

The fighting spirit of young African footballers who migrate overseas (The Conversation, 17 February 2022; with James Esson and Paul Darby)

The precarious fate of African footballers after their game ends(The Conversation, 20 June 2021; with Sine Agergaard) [French Version: Le sort précaire des footballeurs africains en Europe après leur ultime match]

Forsker: I Ghana er fodbolden en vej til at avancere i samfundet – men de unge afrikanere ignorerer faldgruberne (Politiken, 13 November 2018)

Rassismus auf dem Rasen (Nürnberger Zeitung, 27 June 2012)

Sie suchen jede Gelegenheit & Zäh zum Ziel (Nordbayerischer Kurier, 4 April 2012)

Fans im Auftrag der Regierung (Nordbayerischer Kurier, 13 July 2010)

Die Welt im Fußball-Fieber (Fränkische Zeitung, 6 June 2010)

Welchen Talenten gelingt der Steilpass nach Europa? (Fränkischer Tag, 16 December 2009)

Radio features:

Subtile Ausgrenzung: Wie afrikanische Fußballspieler diskriminiert werden (Bayern 2, 15 June 2012)

Fußballmigration aus Afrika (Campusradio Köln, 12 June 2012)

Afrikanische Fußballmigranten (RBB Kulturradio, 4 June 2012)

Summer 23

Geographies of education in the Global South (Bachelor level)

Academic writing in human geography (Advanced Bachelor and Master level)

Winter 22/23

Ghana on the move: Geographies of structural change (Master level)

Research field trip: Ghana (Master level)

Academic writing in human geography (Advanced Bachelor and Master level)

Migration, Translocality and Livelihoods in West Africa (Master and Phd level)

Summer 22

Geographies of sport (Master level)

Inquiry-based learning: Qualitative data analyses with MAXQDA (Master level)

Winter 21/22

Migration and development in West Africa (Master level)

Inquiry-based learning: Qualitative meta-studies (Master level)