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Eric Otieno is a social theorist, political economist, writer, and facilitator. He is a doctoral researcher at the department of development and postcolonial studies at the University of Kassel, Germany and held a visiting researcher position at Johannesburg’s Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in the Spring of 2018. His dissertation project ‘Resisting Necropolitics: Protest, Patents and Power in the Global Political Economy’ explores the intersections between social justice, postcolonial politics, multilateralism and global health. Eric has been awarded scholarships by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Hans BöcklerFoundation, and was the recipient of the 2013 Goethe University-DAAD Prize.
Outside Academia, Eric interned at Medico International and with the Green Party at the German Bundestag. At the German Federal Ministry of Environment, he was part of the 2017 UN Climate Change Conference taskforce and also worked as a liaison officer for visiting heads of state during the German G20 Presidency in 2017. As a facilitator for intersectional engagement with antiracism and colonial continuities, he co-hosted the Frankfurt town-hall conversation with the UN Panel of Experts on People of African Descent during their first ever visit to Germany in 2017.
He is active in the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD) and an alumnus of the Africa Good Governance Network (DAAD), the 2016 Network Inclusion Leaders Programme Berlin (NILE) and the 2016-2017 transatlantic exchange programme of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Washington D.C. Eric’s commentary has been featured on HR and SWR2 Radio, and on platforms such as Africa Is A Country, Contemporary And (C&), Nataal, Sleek and Frieze. He is contributing editor of GRIOT magazine and independently curated a group photography exhibition at Stuttgart’s Institut Français in 2019.
Updated September 2020
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