C.V. | Current Project | Publications
Research Interests
Environmental anthropology – anthropology of ethics – STS – disaster studies – infrastructure studies
Research Area(s)
East India, Indian Himalayas, Europe
Departmental Activities
Working Group: Lived Utopias
Research Topic: Ecological Transformations
Profile
I am an environmental anthropologist and my research focusses on ethics, technologies and displacement against the background of environmental degradation and climate change. In my current project, I look at the idea and practice of regeneration as part of European climate activists’ attempts to secure less bad futures. For many years, I have explored coastal protection and forced migration on low-lying shores in East India.
My first monograph “Enduring Erosions – Environmental Displacement and Relocation on India’s Sinking Shores” (University of Hawai’i Press 2024) details how people live with shrinking islands in one of India’s climate hotspot. I show how anthropogenic sea level rise intersects with coastal development and the unruly nature of estuaries and divinities, resulting in distributed disasters sustained by recurring erosions, impoverishment and displacement.
I have published articles and special issues with American Anthropologist, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, Anthropology of Consciousness, Journal of South Asian Development, Global Environment and beyond.
Since 2022, I am book review editor at EASA’s journal Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale.
I serve as liaison officer of the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung.