How do we cohabit in troubled planetary ecologies? How to do environmental anthropology amid troubled ecologies and global struggles for democracy? And how can ethnographic film serve as one possible device for a public and engaged environmental anthropology? We tackle these questions in the impulse talk “Ethnographic film as a …
Update: The program for our upcoming workshop ‘Impulses for a public and engaged environmental anthropology. Concepts, perspectives, and politics’ is ready! You can find it here (PDF). We are really looking forward to fabulous conceptual inputs on subjects like infrastructure, water, and city, and on concepts like ‘more-than-human urban imaginaries’, …
The first collaborative publication on Habitability, our joint subject over the past years, is released! Title: Habitability Authors: LAEHR, Britta Acksel, Petra Beck, Milena Bister, Carola von der Dick, Desirée Hetzel, Alexander W. Schindler, Fotini Takirdiki Published in the “Environmental Humanities Glossary” of the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, …
Organisation: Desirée Hetzel, Emilie Köhler, Elisabeth Luggauer, Arno Pascht (DGSKA, AG Umwelthnologie) & Milena Bister, Valeska Flor, Oliwia Murawska (DGEKW, Kommission Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen) 8.-9. Oktober 2026, LMU München * Deutsch siehe unten Despite the increased public focus on extreme weather events, issues such as ecology and nature conservation are, on the …
Cities and the activities urban infrastructures enable have long been noted for making demonstrable impacts on the surrounding atmosphere. Cities also provide unique social and political infrastructures, promoting particular forms of cohesion and fracture, including opportunities for promoting political consciousness and inspiring collective activism. This paper introduces the concept of …
This session will explore the politics of water in Palestine/Israel, with a focus on the falls of rain. Where water is governed by an occupying power, rain can index the extremes of infrastructural control, just as it can reveal its limits, holding possibilities beyond the state, recalling other ways. By …
On Thursday, June 18, 2026, 10 – 12 am CEST, we will meet for a reading & discussion session of Natalia Gutkowski’s amazing book “Struggling for Time: Environmental Governance and Agrarian Resistance in Israel/Palestine” (Stanford University Press, 2024). We are very happy that Natalia Gutkowski herself will join the session …
In the course of the workshop “Anthropocene Ruptures: Crossing Borders, Building Connections”, Milena Bister (IfEE, IRI THESys & LAEHR) organizes a Field Trip around the Institute for European Ethnology building, connecting Anthropocene debates and colonial legacies. The Workshop is co-organized by the Vienna Anthropocene Network, CTS at Charles University Prague, …
In this presentation, I discuss violence against animals in Mexico as part of a “violent machine.” I argue that by taking a serious look at violence against animals we can gain new insights into how violence in Mexico operates by analyzing how it is connected to other forms of violence …
