Melina Rutishauser is a PhD candidate and project assistant at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Basel, Switzerland. Her PhD is part of the research project “Participation in Social Health Protection. An Anthropological Case Study in Tanzania” led by Prof. Dr. Brigit Obrist and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Her PhD research aims to gain insights into the diverse forms of participation in the emergent field of social health protection in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. The focus lies on people's everyday engagement in saving and supporting mechanisms to protect their own and their family's health, as well as to improve their life condition.

In April 2016 she received a start-up scholarship from the Graduate School of Social Sciences (G3S) of the Department of Social Sciences from the University of Basel and is since then a member of the G3S.

Melina studied Social Anthropology and Sociology (MA, 2013) and Social Anthropology and Media Sciences (BA, 2009) at the University of Basel as well as Social Anthropology and French at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (February - June 2008, Swiss Mobility Program). From 2013 until 2015 she was living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she organized two collective photography exhibitions and engaged in a photography degree programme at the University Candido Mendes, which she concluded with a work on women’s relation to their haircuts and hairstyle.

Field research:
Tanzania (March 2017 – January 2018)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (July – August 2011, January – June 2015)
Switzerland (February 2010 – April 2011, January – July 2012)

• Health
• Participation
• Agency
• Gender
• City
• Social Health Protection
• Insurance

• East Africa
• South America
• Switzerland

2016 – 2020 “Participation in Social Health Protection. An Anthropological Case Study in Tanzania”, funded by funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNF (PhD thesis)
2015 “Mil e um Fios (Tausend und ein Haar)” (MAS thesis)
2012 “Reisende Migrantinnen. Mobilität und Migration in der Sexarbeit. Eine ethnographische Analyse” (MA thesis)
2011 “NGOs as Agents of Development. Agency, Participation and Representation the case of Gerando Vida in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil” (MA Research Training Course)
2010 – 2011 “Integration zwischen doppelter Abwesenheit und doppelter Freiheit” (Student research group)