The institute was founded in 1946 as the Department of Anthropology (Institute für Ethnologie) when the Johannes Gutenberg University was re-established . From 1947 to 1956, it was headed by Adolf Friedrich; his assistant was Erika Sulzmann. Between 1951 and 1954, Sulzmann conducted one of the first German ethnographic research trips after the Second World War, carrying out fieldwork among the Ekonda and Bolia in the Belgian Congo (today Dem. Rep. Congo). She developed both the library and the ethnographic collection and ensured the continuity in African research at the institute during the many personnel changes in the following years. After Friedrich’s death in 1956, Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann, who had held an adjunct professorship (“Diätendozentur”) for Sociology and Ethnic Psychology at the Institute since 1950, took over the management of the institute in 1957.

Mühlmann left the institute in 1960 to take up a professorship in Heidelberg. His was succeeded by Karl Jettmar, whose regional focus was on Asia. Only three years later, in 1964, Jettmar followed Mühlmann to Heidelberg. It was only after this that African Studies developed into a key focus in Mainz. Eike Haberlandinitially initially became head ofthe institute, but in 1968 he accepted a professorship in cultural and ethnological studies at the University of Frankfurt am Main, along with the directorship of the Frobenius Institute. In 1969, Ernst Wilhelm Müller, who had participated as a student in Erika Sulzmann’s Congo expedition and later completed his habilitation with Mühlmann in Heidelberg, was appointed to a professorship in Mainz and became head of the institute. In the same year, the “Chair of Comparative Cultural Studies” at Johannes Gutenberg University was converted into a “Professorship for Culture and Society in Africa” and integrated into the Department of Anthropology. From 1974, this professorship was held by sociologist Gerhard Grohs, who further developed the sociological orientation initiated by Mühlmann. After Grohs retired, Thomas Bierschenk was appointed to the professorship in 1997, now renamed “Professorship for Cultures and Societies in Africa.”

Following Müller’s appointment, the institute was named the “lnstitut für Ethnologie”. In 1975, it was renamed the “Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien” (Department of Anthropology and African Studies) to reflect the presence of a second discipline at the institute: African Languages and Linguistics (formerly African Philology). In 1984, the institute was expanded once more with the addition of a new professorship, to which Ivo Strecker was appointed. In 1987 Karl-Heinz Kohl succeeded Müller. When Kohl transferred in 1996 to the Institute of Historical Ethnology and the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt, the position was temporarily filled until Carola Lentz was appointed as his successor in 2002. She held the professorship in Anthropology until her retirement in 2019. The position was then converted into a junior professorship in Anthropology with a focus on Political Anthropology (tenure track), to which Franziska Fay was appointed in 2021.

The position held by Ivo Strecker was converted into a professorship in “Anthropology and African Popular Culture”, after his retirement, and has been held by Matthias Krings since 2005. In 2016, Heike Drotbohm was appointed to a Heisenberg Professorship in Anthropology with a focus on “African Diaspora and Transnationalism” and in 2019, following the retirement of Thomas Bierschenk, she succeeded him. The professorship in Anthropology with a focus on “Aesthetics,” newly established in 2017, was filled by Markus Verne.

The teaching of African Languages and Linguistics in Mainz began in 1946 with Eugen Ludwig Rapp, Professor of Christian Oriental Studies at the Protestant Theological Faculty. However, a separate professorship at the Department of Anthropology was only institutionalised after Rapp’s retirement in 1972 – at that time under the name “African Philology”, which was filled by the Bantuist Leo Stappers in 1974. Following his death in 1977, Paul de Wolf (Bantu and Sudanic languages, orature) succeeded him in 1978 and held the position until 1982. His successor, Norbert Cyffer, held the professorship for ten years, from 1984 to 1994, before accepting an appointment in Vienna. From 1996, the position was held by Raimund Kastenholz (Mande, Adamawa), who retired in 2018. The renaming of the chair to “African Languages and Linguistics” took place with the appointment of Nico Nassenstein (Bantu) in 2017. While Kastenholz focused on typology and functional grammar, Nassenstein primarily works in sociolinguistics, giving African Linguistics in Mainz a new direction.

Within the framework of the Rhine-Main Universities Alliance (RMU), which includes the African Studies institutes at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and Technical University Darmstadt, Nico Nassenstein, in cooperation with Axel Fleisch, who has held the professorship in African Studies at the Frankfurt institute since 2018, has developed a new B.A. programme in African Languages, Media, and Communication. By combining the courses of the two institutes, it is possible to provide a broader range of African languages and content (sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics). However, empirical linguistics remains a core competence taught to the students.