Kathrin Eitel

Exploring climate futures, urban life and political transformation

I am an interdisciplinary researcher working across anthropology, feminist STS and public engagement. My work explores climate change, waste infrastructures, and urban transformation in Southeast Asia and Europe.

ABOUT ME

PUBLICATIONS

About

Why this work matters

Climate change is not only an environmental issue, and technology alone will not solve it.

From flooding and air pollution to waste management, environmental challenges are reshaping cities, infrastructures, inequalities, and everyday life. My research explores how these transformations shape urban futures and how people navigate them politically and socially.

My goal is to connect academic knowledge with public and policy conversations. Through storytelling, collaborations, and consultancy work, I make complex environmental challenges tangible beyond academia.

What If Climate Change Isn't One Crisis? On Thinking in the Elsewise

Climate change is often described as the defining crisis of our time. The singular matters here. The climate crisis. A planetary condition presumed to be shared, even if unevenly experienced. From scientific reports to policy frameworks, climate change frequently appears as a common problem demanding common solutions, a global emergency requiring coordinated action before it is too late. Yet the longer I worked ethnographically with communities navigating environmental uncert

Circular Researching - Why I Followed Trash Around Phnom Penh (and What It Taught Me About the City)

On Sept, 11 I gave a talk on "Circular researching. A method to make sense of the sociomateriality of the urban fabric". The keynote was in the framework of the workshop "Repurposing Phnom Penh: Built Forms and Infrastructure as Archive" by Dr. Stephanie Benzaquen-Gautier at the Center for Khmer Studies in Phnom Penh. The talk revolved around a method I have developed through years of research in Cambodia's vibrant, complex, and often overlooked recycling economy: circular re

Ethnographic Cli-Fi: The Book

The German-speaking Anthology "Klimageschichten"(Climate Stories), published with edition assemblage, offers a kaleidoscope of stories from

Who Gets to Be Responsible for Waste?

In contemporary waste governance, responsibility is often treated as something self-evident. When waste accumulates in streets, rivers, and landfills, responsibility appears to offer a clear answer. Citizens should recycle more. Households should separate their waste. Consumers should make better choices. Governments should educate the public. Environmental problems, in turn, appear solvable through the responsible conduct of individuals. But what if responsibility is not nea

Current Research

Projects

Radical Resilience - Urban Flood Prevention

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.