Research group for the ethnographic inquiry into ecologies, infrastructures, bodies and knowledges
Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations

Anja Klein

Bllack and white headshot of Anja Klein, smiling slightlyI am a postdoctoral researcher at the college for Social Sciences and Humanities with the research professorship Curating Digital Objects of Cultural Knowledge and Memory (Tahani Nadim) in Bochum. Before, I worked as a research associate in a DFG-funded project at HU Berlin and TU Munich and studied social and cultural anthropology at HU Berlin, FU Berlin andAix-Marseille Université, France.

In November 20205 I defended my PhD thesis “Doing difference, materiality and complexity with simulation models: An ethnography of modeling social-ecological relations in interdisciplinary sustainability research”. In the thesis I explored the epistemological, ontological, and ethical dimensions of modelling in interdisciplinary sustainability research as a set of iterative and entangled material-semiotic knowledge practices. This was grounded in ethnographic fieldwork on the construction and use of statistical and numerical models of social-ecological relations in two research groups in Stockholm and Accra. I contributed to the ethnography of modeling and explored the collaborative and co-laborative potential of connecting ethnography and simulation modeling in research on social-ecological relations in ways that do not reduce ethnographic data to modeling input. One important output was the developmentof a framework for doing Situated Modeling together with modelers and non-modelers. I argue that this engagement is necessary for anthropology in the Anthropocene in order to grasp and navigate the deep, dynamic and cross-scale social-ecological changes more-than human life on Earth needs to face, and work towards just sustainability transformations.

I continue to be interested in these kinds of collaboartions and deeply enjoy working in and communicating across interdisciplinary contexts. In my postdoctoral research, I am working with an interdisciplinary team in France, Tunisia, Sweden and the Netherlands towards developing multispecies concepts and methodologies to understand causalities and temporalities of biodiversity decline in two Mediterranean case studies. We will use fieldwork, participatory methods, simulation modeling and archival research to trace the impact on social-ecological relations of the blue crab in the Gulf of Gabès and of salinization in the Camargue and work towards relational governance approaches. More information can be found here.

Contact: anja.klein-c7l [at] ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Find me also at:  IRI THEsys ResearchGateCECO (Code Ethnography Collective) | ORCiD | LinkedIn

 

Publications

2025

Krystin Unverzagt, Tobias Krueger, Anja Klein, Rossella Alba, Márk Somogyvári

Situating Bayesian Knowledge: A Case Study of Modelling Pollutant Transfers from Land to Water Journal Article

In: Computational Culture, 2025.

Links

Maja Schlüter, Tilman Hertz, Anja Klein, Nanda Wijermans

Disentangling the entangled in productive ways: modelling social–ecological systems from a process-relational perspective Journal Article

In: Sustainability Science, vol. 20, pp. 793-815, 2025.

Links

Tilman Hertz, Anja Klein, Maria Mancilla Garcia, Maja Schlüter

Transforming a world that never stands still Journal Article

In: Ecosystems and People, 2025.

Links

2024

Anja Klein, Catharina Lüder, Britta Acksel

Changing toolkits in sustainability research – a perspective on transformative and transforming methods Online

2024, visited: 23.12.2024.

Links

Anja Klein, Krystin Unverzagt, Rossella Alba, Jonathan Donges, Tilman Hertz, Tobias Krueger, Emilie Lindkvist, Romina Martin, Jörg Niewöhner, Hannah Prawitz, Maja Schlüter, Luana Schwarz, Nanda Wijermans

From situated knowledges to situated modelling: a relational framework for simulation modelling Journal Article

In: Ecosystems and People, vol. 20, iss. 1, pp. 2361706, 2024.

Abstract | Links

2021

Patrick Bieler, Lauren Cubellis, Jonna Josties, Anja Klein, Jörg Niewöhner, Christine Schmid

Ethnografische Theorie ko-laborativ fügen Journal Article

In: Hamburger Journal für Kulturanthropologie (HJK), vol. 13, pp. 522-555, 2021.

Links

2019

Jörg Niewöhner, Patrick Bieler, Milena Bister, Janine Hauer, Maren Heibges, Jonna Josties, Martina Klausner, Anja Klein, Ruzana Liburkina, Julie Sascia Mewes, Christine Schmid, Tim Seitz (Ed.)

After Practice. Thinking through Matter(s) and Meaning Relationally. Volume I Collection

Panama Verlag, Berlin, 2019.

Jörg Niewöhner, Patrick Bieler, Milena Bister, Janine Hauer, Maren Heibges, Jonna Josties, Martina Klausner, Anja Klein, Ruzana Liburkina, Julie Sascia Mewes, Christine Schmid, Tim Seitz (Ed.)

After Practice. Thinking through Matter(s) and Meaning Relationally. Volume II Collection

Panama Verlag, Berlin, 2019.

Sabine Biedermann, Patrick Bieler, Milena Bister, Sascha Cornejo Puschner, Adina Dymczyk, Dennis Eckhardt, Janine Hauer, Maren Heibges, Dženeta Hodžić, Jonna Josties, Martina Klausner, Anja Klein, Céline Lauer, Ruzana Liburkina, Jörg Niewöhner, Stefan Reinsch, Christine Schmid, Tim Seitz, Itzell Torres, Krystin Unverzagt, Jorge E. Vega-Marrot

Current work in the Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations: Doing research in a more-than-thought collective Journal Article

In: EASST Review, vol. 38, no. 2, 2019.

Links

Sabine Biedermann, Patrick Bieler, Milena Bister, Sascha Cornejo Puschner, Adina Dymczyk, Dennis Eckhardt, Janine Hauer, Maren Heibges, Dženeta Hodžić, Jonna Josties, Martina Klausner, Anja Klein, Céline Lauer, Ruzana Liburkina, Jörg Niewöhner, Stefan Reinsch, Christine Schmid, Tim Seitz, Itzell Torres, Krystin Unverzagt, Jorge E. Vega-Marrot

From the Collaboratory Social Anthropology & Life Sciences to the Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations Journal Article

In: EASST Review, vol. 38, no. 2, 2019.

Links

2018

Anja Klein

Knowledge Practices in the Modelling of "Socio-Ecological Coevolutions": On Simplification, Experimentation, Visualization and Alignment Masters Thesis

Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, 2018.

Abstract | Links

Patrick Bieler, Jonna Josties, Ruzana Liburkina, Julie Sascia Mewes, Martina Klausner, Anja Klein, Jörg Niewöhner, Christine Schmid, Tim Seitz

Assembling Comparators – Assembling Reflexivities Journal Article

In: Science as Culture, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 563-568, 2018.

Abstract | Links