Dr. Annika Schmeding is a cultural anthropologist and currently a Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and a Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Her work examines the fallout of decades of war, violence and migration on civilians in Afghanistan and the greater Middle East, with particular focus on minorities. Before joining KNAW&UvA, Annika was a Harvard Society Fellow.

Her first book, Sufi Civilities (Stanford University Press), chronicles the role of Sufi thought and practice within Afghanistan and the region ore broadly in politics, history, education, literature, the arts and everyday life. The book examines navigational strategies employed by Sufi leaders over the past four decades to weather periods of instability and persecution, showing how they adapted to changing conditions in novel ways that crafted Sufism as a force in the civil sphere. Arguing against a narrow understanding of the civil sphere, the book shows the centrality of informal networks and communities in writing history, as well as in the lived experiences of war, neoliberal restructuring and violence.

Annika’s writing, teaching and academic work is based on long-term multi-sited research in Afghanistan and the wider region (Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, India) since 2009. Her professional experience ranges from research for private sector companies, NGOs and national governments to expert testimony in international court cases. Reflecting on the ethics, promises and pitfalls of ethnographic research led to co-editing the book Frontier Ethnographies (Berghahn 2024).

Annika completed a PhD in anthropology (Boston University, USA) and also holds a Research Master in Middle East Area Studies (Leiden University, The Netherlands) and BA in anthropology, political science and comparative literature (Freie Universität, Germany). She has been a fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies at the Quaid-i Azam University and at Harvard’s Society of Fellows.

Her writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, the Afghanistan Journal and International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) and is forthcoming in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI). She has contributes to books published by Brill, Routledge and IB Tauris. Her current book project is under contract with Amsterdam University Press.

Outside of her research work, she have been involved in different socio-cultural projects, including fundraising for the Afghan children’s circus by driving a motor rickshaw from Kabul to Istanbul and Islamic arts exhibitions in Afghanistan.