Ullrich Kockel, Professor of Ethnology and Folk Life at the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritages (AICH) at Magee, has been elected President of SIEF, the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore.

Professor Kockel was appointed President of SIEF following his election during the General Assembly held as part of SIEF 2008, a major international conference hosted by the AICH at the University of Ulster's Magee campus this month.

The election of the Magee-based academic reflects international recognition of his contribution to the development of European ethnology, and especially his efforts to establish it as a university subject in the United Kingdom, where he currently is the only holder of a Chair in this field.

Congratulating Professor Kockel, the Director of AICH, Professor Mairead Nic Craith, said

"This is a tremendous personal honour for Ullrich as well as a great honour for the Academy, which has established itself as a leading centre for innovative research in European ethnology."

A native of Göttingen, Germany, Ullrich Kockel was appointed Professor of Ethnology and Folk Life at the AICH in 2005. In the 1980s, following an earlier career in industry, he held research and teaching appointments at Hochschule Bremen, Leeds Polytechnic, University College Galway, the University of Liverpool and the University of Glasgow. He lectured at the University of Liverpool's Institute of Irish Studies and the Department of Geography at University College Cork between 1989 and 1999, when he was appointed to a Chair in European Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol, where he remains a Visiting Professor.

Professor Kockel is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and an active member of national and international scholarly associations in the fields of anthropology, ethnology and folk life.  

He has undertaken fieldwork across Europe, especially in Ireland, Britain, Germany, Finland, Spain and Lithuania. Working within an interdisciplinary framework, his main research interests include ecological ethnology, heritage tourism, reflexive traditions, counter-cultural movements, and intercultural philosophy. He is editor of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures and a member of the editorial board of Ethnologia Europaea – the two leading journals in his field. Author/editor of ten books, he has recently been commissioned to produce the volume on Europe for the prestigious Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series.

Notes for Editors

SIEF  was founded in Athens in 1964.  It was the successor to the Commission Internationale des Arts et Traditions Populaires, an international scientific organisation, which owed its origin to the Congres International des Arts Populaires held in Prague in 1928 under the auspices of the League of Nations. 

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