Dr Agnes M. Piekacz
Agnes Piekacz is a cultural historian of the economic with a particular interest in African European entanglements in the 19th and 20th centuries.
I received my PhD in History from Bielefeld University in 2023 with a dissertation on the British-South African trade in second-hand military clothing between c.1870 and 1910. The study explores the emergence of the trade as a process of continuous negotiation and contested commoditization. My research was funded by the GHIL, the German Academic Exchange Service, and a fellowship by Leibniz-Institute for European History. Prior to joining the GHIL as a Research Fellow in Colonial and Global History in May 2026, I was a postdoctoral researcher at Bielefeld University and a Junior Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Research Group (IFG) 12 at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in in Africa (MIASA), Accra.
Research Project
‘Moving Monies’
Post Offices and (Post-)Colonial Money Mobility
Who could move money across distances and borders? The project centers on small-scale money transfers through postal networks in the British Empire and post-independence West African states from the 1890s to the 1990s. It examines how postal and money order systems shaped differentiated possibilities of economic agency and continuously affected—and were affected by—gendered spheres. By conceptualizing these systems as financial infrastructures, the research aims to bridge infrastructure, financial, and gender history.
Responsibilities at the GHIL
- Research Fellow in Colonial and Global History
Research Interests
- Capitalism and empire
- Global commerce
- Materiality and material culture
- Theories and methods in history
Education and Academic Background
| 2026– | Research Fellow, German Historical Institute London |
| 2025 | Junior Fellow, Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, Accra |
| 2022–2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Department of History, Bielefeld University |
| 2017–2023 | PhD in History, Bielefeld University |
| 2017–2021 | Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Department of History, Bielefeld University |
| 2012–2015 | MA in History, Bielefeld University |
| 2008–2012 | BA in History and Sociology, Bielefeld University |
Fellowships, Grants, and Scholarships
| 2025 | Junior fellowship, Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, Accra |
| 2023 | Workshop grant, Center for Theories in Historical Research, Bielefeld University |
| 2021–2022 | Fellowship for doctoral students, Leibniz-Institute of European History, Mainz |
| 2019 | Research grant, German Academic Exchange Service |
| 2018 | Research scholarship for postgraduate students, German Historical Institute London |
Honours and Distinctions
| 2024 | Dissertation Prize of the German Historical Institute London |
| 2016 | Gustav-Engel-Prize (MA thesis) |
| 2015 | Claudia-Huerkamp-Prize (MA thesis) |
Publications
Monographs and Edited Volumes
Contested Commoditization: The British-South African Second-hand Military Clothing Trade, c.1890–1910, Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London 95 (Berlin, forthcoming autumn 2026).
Articles and Chapters
‘Imagined Markets? Long-Distance Trade in the British Empire’, InterDisciplines, 9/2 (2018), 9–29.
‘Gebrauchte Dinge. Zum Umgang mit Gebrauchtem in der Nachkriegszeit’, Jahresbericht des Historischen Vereins für die Grafschaft Ravensberg, 102 (2017), 149–68.
Reviews and Miscellaneous Publications
Blog contributions:
‘Beyond “Reading” Materials: Trace (on Trace) and Value’, in Theory of History at Work/Geschichtstheorie am Werk, 7 July 2025 (Read here).