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About
Projects
I am a cultural anthropologist and a feminist STS scholar and I am fascinated by the various ways life takes in conjunction with others - be it waste, technological megaprojects, or novel ecosystems. Of particular interest to me is the role of knowledge, resilience strategies, and uncertainties in times of urgent climate change that can that can shed light on how we shape our planet now for the future.
I am also an editor for the S&TS journal and Kulturanthropologie Notizen
Research Projects
Coastal cities are particularly affected by climate change due to flooding and rising sea levels. In this context, the project aims to understand the multiple connections between local and gender-specific practices of flood control, the power of (traveling) knowledge productions and flood policies that are based on satellite data.
Radical Resilience - Urban Flood Prevention
Climate Speculations - Surviving with Mangroves, Phytomining and Marshes
In light of the escalating climate crisis, a growing array of nature-based solutions (NbS) and emerging technologies—such as mangrove restoration, engineered phytoplankton, marshland revival, and phytomining—are being promoted as tools to "repair" ecological damage. While these interventions aim to capture societal waste like CO₂ and environmental toxins, this research project asks: How do these future-oriented sustainability visions reshape the forms, spaces, and meanings of political participation in society? Who gets to define the problems, propose the solutions, and participate in shaping ecological futures?
Recycling Infrastructures in Phnom Penh
This research unpacked a different circular economy and infrastructure model that focuses on the way waste circulates through what I call ‘infracycles’, in the light of daily urban life, postcolonial assumptions of wealth and waste and clandestine and ephemeral constellations with materials that challenge the existent capitalist system with the creation of new tropes of freedom, working autonomy and the will to survive.
Teaching
I am a passionate lecturer, regularly teaching BA and MA courses in Cultural Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies.
Click on the images below to learn more about my teaching subjects.
Teachings
Contact: kathrin.eitel[at]posteo.de
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