NaturenKulturen Vortragsreihe Universität Bremen, Sommersemester 2015 www.NaturenKulturen.de Beekeeping in the age of the Anthropocene: Lessons for inheriting a crisis of inhabitation / 21. April / Nick Bingham, Open University // This talk works between Geography, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Animal Studies to do two things. First, to explore how a distributed group of beekeepers are seeking to respond to the bee crisis by inventing a new version of beekeeping adequate to the challenges of a world increasingly inhospitable to these and other pollinators. And second, to take this case as a provocation to thinking why and how the ways that we think about care and living with other entities more generally might need to be refigured for living through the crisis of inhabitation that has been termed the Anthropocene. / Living with flooding: Science, democracy and the redistribution of environmental expertise / 28. April / Sarah Whatmore, University of Oxford // 2014 heralded the latest in a series of severe flood events in the UK, this time concentrated in southern England. Media coverage of these events and subsequent public debate has focussed on the growing frequency of extreme weather events, cuts in government flood defence budgets and the cost-benefit calculations that govern where limited public monies are spent on flood defences. However, little attention has been given to an equally important dimension: how to involve communities living with flood risk in better understanding local flood dynamics and designing more resilient and cost-effective flood management interventions? Drawing on pioneering research by a team combining natural and social scientists working in collaboration with flood affected communities in various parts of the UK, the lecture will explore the challenges and contributions of public engagement as a neglected but critical component of improving policies and practices of flood resilience. / Pathogenicities and the spatialities of disease situations / 05. Mai / Steve Hinchliffe, Exeter University // Emerging infections are naturecultures in which the intensities and arrangements of bodies, species and economies shape disease events. Using the current volatile world of influenza viruses (WHO, 2015), the talk describes recent challenges to contagionist thinking posed by avian influenza disease situations. In contrast to the topographical mapping of disease, which invites a technology of separation, the talk uses resources from STS, as well as work with virologists, to trace a topological approach. The talk ends by questioning the extent to which such an approach can or even should re-frame what it means to be bio-secure. / Is My Flesh Not Public? Thinking of bodies and ‚the public‘ through water / 12. Mai / Owain Jones, Bath Spa University // This talk will offer some account of my family background (and loss of place/landscape); my research work in relation to narratives of nature-culture – trees, tides, floods, water; my journey to becoming the first professor on Environmental Humanities in the UK; and my take of the central importance of the environmental humanities to sustainable futures. It will discuss issues of nature-culture, ecological citizenship, ecocide and the multi-partner Large Research Grant Towards hydrocitizenship. Connecting communities with and through responses to interdependent, multiple water issues. / Vom Natur- zum Klimaschutz: Dingpolitik an der Nordseeküste / 26. Mai / Werner Krauß, Exzellenzcluster ‚Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction‘‚ (CliSAP), Universität Hamburg // Die deutsche Nordseeküste ist wie geschaffen um Latours Konzepte von Dingpolitik und Actor-Network-Theory zu illustrieren. Hier sind die Grenzen zwischen Land und Meer genauso fließend wie die zwischen Natur und Kultur; sie verschieben sich ständig und sind immer wieder Verhandlungssache zwischen menschlichen und nicht-menschlichen AkteurInnen. Derzeit vollzieht sich an dieser Küste der Übergang vom Primat des Naturschutzes hin zum Klimaschutz. Am Beispiel von Deichen, Ringelgänsen und Windrädern zeige ich, wie in dieser Landschaft Dingpolitik‚ immer wieder Anpassung und Innovation durch Konflikt ermöglicht. / Whose technology for whose development? / 02. Juni / Melanie Stilz, TU Berlin // Who should legitimately participate in technical decision-making? The solution to scientific and technical controversies rests mostly on judgements by experts and these judgements depend on the context, the environment and, thus, also the location of expertise rather than on any formal scientific method. Cozzens et al. (2008) suggest that by treating different forms of knowledge symmetrically, instead of valuing professional knowledge from the global North higher than local knowledge from the global South, an STS perspective helps draw attention to the asymmetries of power in decision making, which have been particularly strong with regard to technology transfer. Postcolonial Computing looks at the consequences of technology design, technology transfer and international development by combining an STS perspective with Postcolonial Theory. / Zwischen Natur und Kultur. Ethnographische Übersetzungsversuche einer meeresbiologischen Expedition in Papua Neuguinea / 09. Mai / Tanja Bogusz, HU Berlin // Der Vortrag basiert auf einer sechswöchigen Wissenschafts ethnografie einer ca. 130-köpfigen meeresbiologischen Expedition am Bismarckarchipel in Madang, Papua Neuguinea im Winter 2012/2013. Was passiert, wenn maßgeblich westliche WissenschaftlerInnen in einem Land forschen, von dem es heißt, es sei von der Moderne vergessen worden? Der Vortrag wird ethnographische Übersetzungsversuche zunächst nicht jenseits (Ph. Descola 2011), sondern zwischen Natur und Kultur unternehmen und zeigen, wie das doing biodiversity auch die Notwendigkeit zu einer Fremdbeschreibung okzidentaler natur- und sozialwissenschaft licher Erkenntnisproduktionen herausfordert. Es werden multiple Versionen von Biodiversität vorgestellt und der spezifisch sozialwissenschaftliche Beitrag für eine integrative Erforschung globaler Nachhaltigkeit diskutiert. / Der Kiwi und das Possum: Räume schaffen für Leben und Tod / 30. Juni / Michael Flitner, Universität Bremen // Neuseeland ist berühmt für seine Landschaften wie für seine Vielfalt an einzigartigen Lebewesen. Um diese Vielfalt zu erhalten, vor allem die charismatische Vogelwelt, erfahren heute auch die wildesten und verborgensten Arten eine intensive menschliche Unterstützung, die bis in die letzten Winkel des Landes reicht. Ein Kern dieser nationalen Sorge ist der andauernde Kampf gegen die Feinde der heimischen Tierwelt. Umfassender als in irgendeinem anderen Land arbeiten unterschiedliche Gruppen daran, Räume zu schaffen für das Leben bestimmter Arten und zugleich Angehörige anderer Arten durch Ausschluss oder massenhafte Tötung niederzuhalten. Der Vortrag erkundet die symbolische Organisation dieser radikalen Heterotopien im Blick auf die raumstrukturierenden Praktiken der beteiligten menschlichen AkteurInnen und ihrer tierischen Mit- und Gegenspieler. / Wild experiments: Rethinking environmentalism for the Anthropocene / 07. Juli / Jamie Lorimer, University of Oxford // The diagnosis of the Anthropocene would seem to mark a public end to the idea of Nature as a pure place removed from society and revealed by natural science. This problematic idea has been central to wildlife conservation and Western environmentalism more generally. This lecture evaluates new forms of environmentalism that need not make recourse to Nature. It focuses on recent enthusiasms for rewilding in European conservation and an example of a wild experiment in conservation at the Oostvaardersplassen – a polder landscape in the Netherlands. Examining the multiple natures that feature in this story, tracing the emergence of a novel mode of nature development that aims to nurture ecological processes in manufactured landscapes. / Experiments in Environmental Public Health: Scientific, Political, Ethnographic, Digital / 14. Juli / Kim Fortun, Renssealer Polytechnic Institute // In this presentation, I will share the work of The Asthma Files (TAF), a collaborative ethnographic research project designed to advance understanding and efforts to address environmental public health challenges around the world. The Asthma Files runs on a open-source digital platform designed especially for the project. Methodologically, the project models and advances understanding of the work processes and digital infrastructure needed to support collaborative research in the social studies of science. The digital platform build for The Asthma Files has now evolved into the Platform for Experimental and Collaborative Ethnography, available for use by diverse research groups. / Zeit / Veranstaltungsort / Dienstags, 18-20 Uhr (ct) / Universität Bremen / Rotunde (Cartesium) / Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 5 / 28359 Bremen Kontakt / Universität Bremen / Institut für Ethnologie und Kulturwissenschaft / Friederike Gesing / E-Mail / [email protected] / Telefon / +49 (0) 421 / 218 676 41 Institut für Ethnologie und Kulturwissenschaft