About the Author

Claudia Ba

E-Mail: ba@ifs.tu-darmstadt.de

Claudia Ba, born in 1988, is a research assistant and scholarship holder at the Institute for Urban Sociology and Sociology of Space at the Technical University Darmstadt. Her PhD focused on heritage and identity constructions, the sociology of space, visual cultures, and the iconic coherence of cultural memory in West Africa. She has also published on iconic strategies in urban contexts and new urban tourism.

Contributions by Author: Claudia Ba

Invisible Superstructure of the Visible

Contested Notions of Authorized Order, or How to Render the Kankurang In_Visible

This article investigates debates on visualizations of the Kankurang and offers a new conceptualization of the interrelation of processes of heritagization and in_visibility. “Kankurang” refers both to an initiatory rite of the Mandinka ethnic group associated with the circumcision of young males as well as the spirit at its center.