CV

Anika König studied at Freie Universität Berlin (Social Anthropology), Technische Universität Berlin (Sociology), and Universiteit van Amsterdam (Humanities and Social Sciences). After the completion of her Master’s degree, in 2004, she was a researcher at the Department of Sociology at Technische Universität Berlin for two and a half years. She then joined the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at The Australian National University, where she received her PhD for a fieldwork-based dissertation on ethnic conflict in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, in 2013. Later that year, she was a Visiting Assistant (Oberassistentin) at the Department of Ethnology (Chair of Prof. Bettina Beer) at Universität Luzern. Since mid-2013, she is a REGAIN postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Areas Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. In addition, she is currently preparing her habilitation at Universität Luzern on the topic of transnational surrogacy.
Anika König has conducted fieldwork in Germany, Indonesia and the United States and has, in addition, lectured on a range of topics at several universities, both in German and English language.
Her current research is on the commissioning of surrogacy by so-called ‘intended parents’ from German-speaking countries/regions. The focus of this project is on the negotiation and course of surrogacy in the United States, Asia, and Eastern Europe, particularly the experiences of intended parents and their interactions with agencies, surrogate mothers, doctors, hospitals, and lawyers. More broadly, she is also interested in the construction of kinship and family. In addition, she continues to work on violence and ethnic conflict in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Publications