Dr. habil. Steffen Wippel has been conducting research on qualification processes in viticulture in Arab countries in the Human Geography working group since October 2025. He studied economics and Islamic studies at Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg im Breisgau and Université Aix-Marseille II and received his doctorate in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. Steffen Wippel taught and habilitated at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, represented the Chair of Economic and Social Geography of Arab Countries at the Oriental Institute of Leipzig University, and was a visiting professor in Contemporary Middle East Studies at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. His professional career also took him to relevant regional research centres such as the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO) in Berlin, the Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at Philipps University Marburg, the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) in Tunis, and the Leibniz Institute for Global and Regional Studies (GIGA) | GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) in Hamburg.

Since completing his studies, Dr. Wippel’s research has focused on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with a particular emphasis on Egypt, Morocco, and Oman. His main research interests have evolved from Islamic economic and welfare institutions to economic and cultural regionalisation processes to issues of current neoliberal and postmodern urban development in the Gulf region and the Maghreb. He advocates transdisciplinary and transregional research perspectives and a social constructivist approach. Across his various research topics, he has also maintained a continuous interest in branding strategies for cities, nations, companies, and products, which most recently resulted in an edited volume on the MENA region published in 2023. More recently, Mr Wippel has turned his attention to the food geographies of chocolate and wine in the region.

CV

• Since 12/2024 Associate, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) | GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES), Hamburg
• Since 12/2024, 5/2020–2/2022 Associate Researcher, Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS), Philipps University of Marburg
• 8/2023–11/2024 Senior Researcher, GIGA | IMES, Hamburg: Publications Manager for the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), Tunis (third-party funding from the BMBF)
• 3/2022–2/2023 Senior Researcher, Philipps University of Marburg: Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Fellow Group IV ‘Resources and Sustainability’ at the MECAM, Tunis (BMBF)
• 9/2015–1/2019 Research associate in the research network ‘Re-Configurations: History, Memory and Transformation Processes in the Middle East and North Africa’ at the CNMS, Philipps University of Marburg: Project ‘Tangier as a hub in transregional entanglements: Economic and urban transformation processes in intertwined spatial perspectives’ (BMBF)
• 8/2014–7/2015 Full Professor in Contemporary Middle East Studies at the Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies, Department of History, University of Southern Denmark in Odense (visiting professorship)
• Since 1/2014 Member of the Centre for Mediterranean Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• 10/2011–12/2013 Senior researcher at the Centre for Modern Orient Studies (ZMO), The GWZ – Humanities Centers Berlin e.V.: Continuation of the project ‘Tangier - Salalah: Two “regional cities” on the rise’ (BMBF)
• 2011–2016 Associate researcher at the Laboratoire ESO-Rennes, Université Rennes 2: Research programme ‘Geographies of Globalisation: Emergence of a Regional System in the Middle East’ (SYSREMO) (Agence Nationale de la Recherche/ANR)
• 10/2010–9/2011 Senior researcher in the Department of Economic and Social Geography of Arab Countries, Oriental Institute, University of Leipzig: Continuation of the project ‘Between the Arab World and the Indian Ocean: Oman’s regional economic orientations’ (DFG)
• Summer semester 2010 Acting Professor of Arabic Studies: Economic and Social Geography of Arab Countries at the Oriental Institute of the University of Leipzig
• 2/2010 Habilitation (Dr. habil.) and appointment as private lecturer (Privatdozent) in economics at the Faculty of Philosophy and Department of Theology at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg
• 8/2008–3/2010 Senior researcher at the ZMO, Berlin (part-time): project ‘Tangier - Salalah: Two “regional cities” on the rise’
• 4/2008–3/2010 Senior researcher in the Department of Economic and Social Geography of Arab Countries, University of Leipzig (half-time position): project ‘Between the Arab World and the Indian Ocean: Oman’s Regional Economic Orientations’
• Summer 2006–Winter 2009/10 Lecturer in the Department of Contemporary Orient Studies at the Institute of Economics, Faculty of Philosophy I, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg
• 10/2005–8/2008 Habilitation candidate at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg with the topic ‘Territorialisation and regionalisation in north-western Africa – Economy, politics and space in Moroccan-Mauritanian relations’
• 2005 Commissioned works for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin, and the Euro-Mediterranean Study Commission (EuroMeSCo), Lisbon
• 7/2003–3/2008 Fellow at the ZMO, Berlin
• Summer 2000, Winter 2000/01 Lecturer at the Department of Economics, Free University of Berlin
• 1/1998–6/2003 Research associate at the ZMO, Berlin (2000–2003: head of the project group ‘Trans-Saharan Relations between Morocco and Sub-Saharan Africa: Reshaping and Revitalising Transregional Connections’): 2000–2003 project ‘Morocco’s Foreign Relations with Sub-Saharan Africa at the End of the 20th Century: Material and Cognitive Aspects of Regional Consolidation’ (DFG); 1998–2000 project ‘Perceptions of “Europe” by Arab Muslims – Case study: Reactions of Moroccan party representatives to cooperation with the EC/EU and to European integration from the 1970s to the mid-1990s’ (DFG)
• Autumn term 1996 Lecturer in Administrative Business Management in the model degree programme ‘External Opening’ at the University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration (FHöV) Brandenburg in Bernau
• 4/1996–10/1997 Lecturer in the Economics course, special programme for the further qualification of Brandenburg teachers (wbl) in cooperation with the University of Potsdam in Cottbus, Brandenburg an der Havel, Frankfurt an der Oder, and Neuruppin
• 1/1996 Doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin with the dissertation topic ‘Islamic Economic and Welfare Institutions in Egypt’
• 10/1989–9/1994 Research assistant in the Department of Middle Eastern Economics, Institute for World Economics, Faculty of Economics, Freie Universität Berlin
• 5/1988 Master’s degree (Diplom) in economics; topic of the MA thesis: ‘Islamic economic systems: theory and reality’
• Winter 1985/86–Summer 1988 Continued studies at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau
• Academic year 1984/85 Studies in the BA (Licence) programme in Economics (with a focus on development economics) at the University of Aix-Marseille II
• 7/1984 Bachelor (Zwischenprüfung) in Islamic Studies
• Summer 1982–Summer 1984 Supplementary studies in Islamic Studies (as a double degree) at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau
• Winter 1981/82–Summer 1984 Studies in Economics
• 6/1981 High school diploma (Abitur) from Humboldt Gymnasium in Karlsruhe
   

Awards & Scholarships

• 10/2024–11/2024 GIGA Anniversary Fellowship, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) | GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES), Hamburg
• 2010 Habilitation Award from the University Association (Universitätsbund) of Erlangen-Nuremberg
• 1984/85 Scholarship from the French government and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a year of study abroad in France

‘Qualification Processes in the Wine Industry in the Middle East and North Africa’

The research project examines contemporary viticulture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from a social and cultural science perspective, using Morocco, Tunisia, and Lebanon as case studies. All three countries have a long tradition of viticulture. More recent quality initiatives and approaches to innovation in the wine industry have been observed since around the 1990s/2000s. However, the wine industry in the region currently faces multiple challenges: quality deficiencies in mass production, the consequences of climate change, and a religious-political environment that has become more restrictive towards alcohol make it difficult for producers to operate successfully in the market. The main focus of the project is therefore on government and private sector efforts to ‘qualify’ the wine produced, i.e. to enhance its value by associating it with positive characteristics and to make it known and attractive to various customer groups and the wider public.

To this end, the research project combines overlapping conceptual considerations on the economies of singularities (Lucien Karpik) and of qualities (Michel Callon et al.) with those on image building and the branding of products, people, and places. With regard to late modern economy and society, the ‘singular’ and the ‘unique’ have increasingly become the subject of scientific consideration in recent decades (Andreas Reckwitz). Such work focuses on the question of the role and creation of quality at various stages of the value chain, with the wine industry serving as a particularly telling example. Branding, which turns its object into a positively connoted ‘brand’ associated with certain qualities, works with similar considerations and plays a prominent role not only at the final stage of processing.

In order to examine the qualification of wines in the MENA region, not only technical and organisational innovations that improve the physical and material properties of the final product are considered. In particular, the focus is on measures and processes that extrinsically attribute quality to the little-known and less-reputable wines and generate favourable attention among the target audience. The mediating instances of wine qualification and wine-branding measures include, for example, the design of bottles and labels, the organisation of events, media presence, participation in competitions, wine ratings to objectify quality, the promotion of wine tourism, and positioning in an aesthetic market with the help of art and architecture.

In addition to the positive associations that are being constructed, widespread dissociations (O. Ibert et al.) are also being incorporated. These dissociations exclude and conceal aspects that impair reputation and quality perception. In order to do justice to the region under investigation, the project considers specific political and socio-cultural conditions for viticulture, wine advertising, and consumption, which are of little importance in other studies on qualification and affect the application of certain qualification strategies. The concealment and invisibility of production contexts and the local presence of alcohol production and consumption are therefore of particular interest.

In line with the institutional affiliation and the disciplinary research context, the fundamentally interdisciplinary approach focuses in particular on the various inherent and constructed spatial contexts of the qualification processes. The comparative approach reveals clear differences in the initial conditions and developments among the countries in the region. In addition, it is particularly important to include spatio-temporal references in the qualification process, which may range from the local to the supranational level.

The project thus ties in with research conducted by the Human Geography Working Group at KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, in which the approaches to qualification have been further developed and applied to the cultivation and distribution of both premium and bulk wines (container wines). The research project therefore not only fills a gap in Middle Eastern wine research beyond the dominant historical studies and works on the topic of ‘Islam and alcohol,’ but also in the empirical application of conceptual considerations, which have so far concentrated on certain Old and New World wine-growing regions, mostly countries with rather liberal political and economic systems.

Thematic research priorities

• Regionalisation research: processes of institutional, economic, and mental regionalisation, including transregional entanglements and area studies issues
• Urban research: globalisation, neoliberalisation, and postmodernisation, especially of port cities and secondary cities
• Branding: processes of brand development for nations and cities, products and companies
• Wine research: qualification processes, marketing and branding, dissociations, political and socio-cultural constraints

Regional research focus

• North Africa/Maghreb, especially Morocco
• Gulf region, especially Oman
• Transregional areas, especially the Mediterranean, Sahara, Indian Ocean

Selection of publications and lectures

• Download ‘Publications’ as PDF
• Download ‘Paper presentations and conferences’ as PDF

For publications, see also https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steffen-Wippel and https://wippel.hier-im-netz.de/veroeff2.htm.