She continued her education at the University of Göttingen, undertaking her postgraduate studies in agricultural sciences in the tropics and subtropics at the 'Department of Rural Development' (now called 'Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development'), with social anthropology and agricultural sociology as her subsidiary subjects. In 1985, she completed her Master of Science in Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture; two years later, Lentz received her PhD in sociology from the University of Hannover.[5] See also:[3] In the years that followed, she worked as research assistant of the regional group 'Africa and Europe' at the Institute of Anthropology, Free University of Berlin.[6] Between 1992 and 1995, Lentz conducted her habilitation research, supported by a scholarship by the German Research Foundation.[6] In May 1993, she held a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities, Northwestern University (Illinois, USA). In 1995–96, Lentz deputized for a chair of social anthropology at the Department of Historical Ethnology at Goethe University, Frankfurt.[6] After completing her habilitation at the Free University of Berlin in October 1996, she worked as university professor for social anthropology with a focus on the social anthropology of Africa at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, a position she held until 2002. In 2000–01, Lentz was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences,[7]Wassenaar.[6] During her time at the University of Frankfurt, she participated in the SFB special research unit 268 'West-African savannah' working in particular to promote and organize academic exchange with the partner university in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.[8]
Thematically, Lentz' research focuses on ethnicity, nationalism, the politics of memory, land rights, land disputes, colonial history, the anthropology of the state, elite biographies, the emergence of African middle class, qualitative research methods and anthropological theories of culture.[17] Her regional focus is West Africa, in particular Ghana and Burkina Faso.[17] After conducting fieldwork in Bolivia and Ecuador (1980), and again in Ecuador on Indian labour migration and changing indigenous identities (1983–1985), Lentz began her research in West Africa.[5] Between 1987 and 1996, she regularly conducted fieldwork in North-Western Ghana (altogether eighteen months) on topics such as ethnicity, the emergence of elite(s) and middle class, labour migration (gold mines), colonial history, and the history of chieftaincy.[5] In December 1996, she monitored the parliamentary and presidential elections in Ghana as a member of an election observer team sent by the Federal Foreign Office.[6] Lentz also has a special interest in Burkina Faso. Between 1997 and 2005, she regularly conducted fieldwork in Southern Burkina Faso, exploring topics including settlement history, land rights, ethnicity and the politics of belonging with the aim to do comparative research with North-Western Ghana.[6] From 2005 onward, Lentz conducted further fieldwork in Ghana in the context of the research project 'States at Work', funded by Volkswagen Foundation.[18] In 2006, she supervised the fieldwork of a group of Master's students on work at police stations, courts and schools in Upper West Region, Ghana. In that context she also conducted her own research on the history and the contemporary situation of educational elite(s) and the newly emerging middle class in Northern Ghana.[19] Between 2009 and 2013, Lentz coordinated a doctoral research group that explored the politics of memory and national-day celebrations in Africa as part of the programme 'PRO Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften 2015' at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz.[6] In addition, Lentz supervised the fieldwork of a group of Master's students on African national-day celebrations, initiated in 2010. Between 2013 and 2019, she continued research on the politics of memory, national-day celebrations, nation-building and the performance of the nation and subnational differences in Africa in the context of a follow-up project that was part of the research unit Un/Doing Differences, funded by the German Research Foundation.[20]
Moreover, Lentz has served as editor and reviewer. She was a member of the academic advisory councils of, among others, the journals Food and Foodways, Africa, Ethnos, African Affairs, Africa Spectrum, de:Paideuma,[21] and de:Zeitschrift für Ethnologie.[22] She was co-editor of the series Mainzer Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung.[23] as well as of the series African Social Studies issued by Brill, Leiden.[24] She was also a member of the board of trustees of the Heckmann Wentzel Foundation and a member of the academic advisory council of the Einstein Chronoi Center.[6] In 2020, Lentz has been elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, serving as expert in the section cultural sciences.[16] As president of the Goethe-Institut, she currently holds membership in several partner organisations. She is, for example, member of the advisory committee of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, permanent guest of the DAAD's executive committee and member of the board of trustees of the foundation Stiftung Lesen (i. e. the 'Reading Foundation').[25]
1998. Die Konstruktion von Ethnizität. Eine politische Geschichte Nord-West Ghanas, 1870–1990. Köln: Köppe (Studien zur Kulturkunde 112), ISBN3-89645-207-X
1988. 'Von seiner Heimat kann man nicht lassen'. Migration in einer Dorfgemeinde in Ecuador. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus, ISBN3-593-34019-4 (revised vision of the doctoral thesis submitted in 1987 at University of Hannover; Spanish translation 1997: Migración e identidad étnica. La transformación histórica de una comunidad indígena en la Sierra ecuatoriana. Quito: Abya Yala, ISBN9978-04-198-2).
1986. Saisonarbeiter auf einer Zuckerrohrplantage in Ecuador. 'Buscando la vida...'. Auf der Suche nach dem Leben. Aachen: Edition Herodot, ISBN3-922868-76-2 (Spanish translation 1991: 'Buscando la vida'. Trabajadores eventuales en una plantación de azúcar. Quito: Abya Yala).
1985. Migrantes. Campesinos de Flores y Licto. Historias de vida (with Hernán Carrasco). Quito: Abya Yala.
2011. Carola Lentz and Godwin Kornes (eds.): Staatsinszenierung, Erinnerungsmarathon und Volksfest. Afrika feiert 50 Jahre Unabhängigkeit. Frankfurt a. M.: Brandes & Apsel, ISBN978-3-86099-717-8
2009. Carola Lenz (ed.): Gandah-Yir: The House of the Brave. The Biography of a Northern Ghanaian Chief (ca. 1872–1950), by S.W.D.K. Gandah (Research Review Supplement 20). Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, ISBN978-9988-1-2466-3
2008. Carola Lentz (ed.): The Silent Rebel: The Missing Years. Life in the Tamale Middle School (1940–47), by S.W.D.K. Gandah (Research Review Supplement 18). Legon: Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, ISSN0855-4412
2006. Anna-Maria Brandstetter and Carola Lentz (eds.): 60 Jahre Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien. Ein Geburtstagsbuch (Mainzer Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung 14). Köln: Köppe, ISBN3-89645-814-0
2006. Richard Kuba and Carola Lentz (eds.): Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa (African Social Studies Series 9). Leiden: Brill, ISBN90-04-14817-5
2003. Richard Kuba, Carola Lentz and Claude Nurukyor Somda (eds.): Histoire du peuplement et relations interethniques au Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala, ISBN2-84586-459-0
2001. Richard Kuba, Carola Lentz and Katja Werthmann (eds.): Les Dagara et leurs voisins. Histoire de peuplement et relations interethniques au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso. Frankfurt a. M.: SFB 268, ISBN3-9806129-4-5
with Andrea Noll: "Across regional disparities and beyond family ties: a Ghanaian middle class in the making (with Andrea Noll)". History and Anthropology, 2021
with Marie-Christin Gabriel and Konstanze N'Guessan: "Embodying the nation: the production of sameness and difference in national-day parades", Ethnography, 21(4): 506–536 (2020)
"Doing being middle-class in the global South: comparative perspectives and conceptual challenges". Africa, 90 (3): 439–69.2018
"Culture: the making, unmaking and remaking of an anthropological concept". Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 142 (2), 2017: 181–204 (2017)
"Ghanaian 'monument wars': the contested history of the Nkrumah statues". Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 227: 551–82 (2017)
"Tribalism' and ethnicity in Africa: a review of four decades of Anglophone research". Cahiers des Sciences Humaines, 31: 303–28. (1995)
"Home, death and leadership: discourses of an educated elite from northwestern Ghana". Social Anthropology, 2: 149–69 (1994)
"Feldforschung als Interaktionsprozeß – Erfahrungen in indianischen Dörfern in Ecuador". Sociologus, 39: 123–51. (1989)
"Zwischen 'Zivilisation' und 'eigener Kultur'. Neue Funktionen ethnischer Identität bei indianischen Arbeitsmigranten in Ecuador". Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 17: 34–46. (1988)
Jan Beek, Konstanze N'Guessan, Mareike Späth (eds.): Zugehörigkeiten. Erforschen, Verhandeln, Aufführen im Sinne von Carola Lentz (‚Affiliations. Exploring, negotiating, performing in the spirit of Carola Lentz')(= Mainzer Beiträge zur Afrikaforschung.42). Köppe, Köln 2019, ISBN978-3-89645-843-8
^Jörg Häntzschel: "Dekolonisierung – Die Ethnologin Carola Lentz wird Präsidentin des Goethe-Instituts". "Süddeutsche Zeitung", 1 October 2019
^Ursula Gaisa: "Welche Rolle kann Deutschland in der postkolonialen Welt spielen? Die Ethnologin Carola Lentz ist neue Präsidentin des Goethe-Instituts", "Politik & Kultur" 12/2021
