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Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesFuture-Making, Environmental Change and Socio-economic Transformations in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Presentations & Conference contributions

    • Environmental Anthropology and the challenge of imagining and shaping alternative futures
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug at the inaugural meeting of the EASA Environment and Anthropology Network "Perspectives and stories in a world of facts and figures? Exploring the potential of anthropology in tackling environmental issues", Cologne, December 12-13, 2019
    • https://gssc.uni-koeln.de/31992.html

    • Social negotiations along frontiers: dynamics, limitations and closures

    • Framing the future through the lens of hope: Environmental change, diverse hopes and the challenge of engagement

    • Future-Making along Southeast Asian frontiers

    • Understanding rural change in Asia today
    • Panel at the 11th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), Leiden, July 16-19, 2019
    • Conveners: Michaela Haug together with Gerben Nooteboom, John McCarthy and Takeshi Ito

    • Aspiring self-determined lives: Rural transformations as expressions of Future-Making
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug for the panel Understanding rural change in Asia today at the 11th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), Leiden, July 16-19, 2019

    • Hopes for economic development, fears of ecological devastation: Indonesia’s new, “green” capital and its influence on the East Kalimantan hinterland
    • Presentation by David Meschede for the Panel Sustainable Urban Regions: Synthesizing Current Research Endeavours In East And South-East Asia at the DGA Conference on Contemporary Asia, March 12, 2021.
    • http://dga-conference.de/panels/009a/ 

    • Creations of the Catastrophes: Imagining Hopeful and Hopeless Futures in a Collapsing World

    • Imagining the Future in a Doomed Environment: Aspirations and Worries of Dayak Youths in East Kalimantan, Indonesia
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug for the Panel Creations of the Catastrophes: Imagining Hopeful and Hopeless Futures in a Collapsing World at the Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA), April 2, 2021
    • https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/asa2021/paper/60766

    • Indigenous Peoples and their Role as “Bearers of Hope” in the Anthropocene: Critical Reflections from Indonesian Borneo

    • The resource frontier and Future-Making practices in the Mahakam Ulu regency in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

    • Moving the Indonesian capital: Environmental impact and effects on livelihoods and future-making practices of East Kalimantan's Dayak
    • Presentation by David Meschede at the DGSKA-Conference 2021, September 28, 2021

Workshops & Outreach activities

Publications

  • HAUG, Michaela (2018): Eine Zukunft ohne Wald? Indigene Perspektiven auf Umweltveränderungen, Waldverlust und Entwicklung in Kalimantan. In: Geographische Rundschau, 4/2018, pg. 32-38.
  • HAUG, Michaela (2018): Claiming rights to the forest in East Kalimantan: Challenging power and presenting culture. In: SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 33(2), pg. 341-361.
  • HAUG, Michaela (2020): Frontier temporalities: exploring processes of frontierisation, defrontierisation and refrontierisation in Indonesia and Africa. In: Paideuma, 66, pg. 171-182.
  • HAUG, Michaela (2021): Framing the Future through the Lens of Hope: Environmental Change, Diverse Hopes and the Challenge of Engagement. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie / Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 145, 1, pg. 71-91.

Reading Group

Our project runs a regular reading group at the Cologne University, discussing a specific topic or chosen literature related to future anthropology in each session: 

  • November 18, 2019: Looking at recent publications about future anthropology, we compared the introductory chapters of two volumes:

    • BRYANT, Rebecca / Daniel M. KNIGHT (2019): The Anthropology of the Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    • SALAZAR, Juan Francisco / Sarah PINK (2017): Anthropologies and Futures: Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

  • December 2, 2019: We took a detailed look at the concepts of expectation, speculation, potentiality and hope as presented in BRYANT / KNIGHT's volume.
  • December 16, 2019: Continuing from the last session, we looked at BRYANT / KNIGHT's take on the concepts of imagination, anticipation and destiny, especially in comparison to APPADURAI, Arjun (2013): The Future as cultural fact: Essays on the global condition. London, New York: Verso.
  • January 13, 2020: We looked at two important articles regarding the anthropology of time:

    • MUNN, Nancy D. (1992): The Cultural Anthropology of Time: A critical essay. In: Annual Review of Anthropology, 21, pg. 93-123.
    • HODGES, Matt (2008): Rethinking time’s arrow: Bergson, Deleuze and the anthropology of time. In: Anthropological Theory, 8, 4, pg. 399-429.

  • January 27, 2020: We continued to discuss HODGES' use of the la durée concept from the previous session and expanded our view to the practice-theory-oriented approach of timespace outlined by Ted Schatzki in the following chapter:

    • SCHATZKI, Ted (2009): Timespace and the organization of social life. In: SHOVE, Elizabeth et al. (eds): Time, consumption and everyday life: Practice, materiality and culture. Oxford, New York: Berg, pg. 35-48.

  • February 10, 2020: Concluding our ongoing discussion of temporality and the Anthropology of time, we took a close look at the following article:

    • RINGEL, Felix (2016): Beyond temporality: Notes on the anthropology of time from a shrinking fieldsite. In: Anthropological Theory, 16, 4, pg. 390-412.

After a pandemic-related interruption of our activities, we restarted our reading group in virtual form as a bi-weekly video conference:

  • June 8, 2020: To restart our activities, we discussed the state of our research and the influence of 'future' concepts and the literature of our reading group on our works.
  • June 22, 2020: Expanding our scope on further future-oriented concepts, we discussed two introductory chapters dealing the concept of 'waiting':

    • HAGE, Ghassan (2009): Introduction. In: HAGE, Ghassan (ed.): Waiting. Melbourne: MUP.
    • BANDAK, Andreas / Manpreet K. JANEJA (2018): Introduction: Worth the Wait. In: BANDAK, Andreas / Manpreet K. JANEJA (ed.): Ethnographies of Waiting: Doubt, hope and uncertainty. London, New York: Bloomsbury, pg. 1-39.

  • July 13, 2020: Deepening our discussions about 'Waiting', we looked at HAGE's as well as other authors' take on 'Stuck(ed)ness':

    • HAGE, Ghassan (2009): Waiting out the crisis: On stuckedness and governmentality. In: HAGE, Ghassan (ed.): Waiting. Melbourne: MUP.
    • BENDIXSEN, Synnøve / THOMAS Hylland ERIKSEN (2018): Time and the Other: waiting and hope among irregular migrants. In: BANDAK, Andreas / Manpreet K. JANEJA (ed.): Ethnographies of Waiting: Doubt, hope and uncertainty. London, New York: Bloomsbury, pg. 87-112.
    • JEFFERSON, Andrew / Simon TURNER / Steffen JENSEN (2019): Introduction: On Stuckness and sites of confinement. In: Ethnos, 84(1), pg. 1-13.

  • July 27, 2020: We discussed the following text:

    • SCHIELKE, Samuli (2008): Boredom and despair in rural Egypt. In: Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim life, 2(3), pg. 251-270.

  • August 10 and August 24, 2020: Furthering our discussions on the concept of 'Hope', we took detailed looks at the following two articles:

    • WEBB, Darren (2007): Modes of Hoping. In: History of Human Sciences, 20(3), pg. 65-83.
    • JANSEN, Stef (2016): For a relational, historical ethnography of hope: Indeterminacy and determination in the Bosnian and Herzegovinian meantime. In: History and Anthropology, 27(4): pg. 447-464.

  • September 21, 2020: Swivelling towards more specific case studies, we discussed the topic of 'Rural Youth and Future' by looking at two examples from Kenya and Indonesia:

    • AFANDE, Francis Ofunya / William Nderitu MAINA / Mathenge Paul MAINA (2015): Youth engagement in agriculture in Kenya: Challenges and prospects. In: Journal of Culture, Society and Development, 7, pg. 4-19.
    • WHITE, Ben (2012): Indonesian rural youth transitions: Employment, mobility and the future of agriculture. In: BOOTH, Anne / Chris MANNING (ed.): Land, livelihood, the economy and environment in Indonesia. Jakarta: Yayasan POI, pg. 243-263.

  • October 5, 2020: We discussed the following book:

    • FERGUSON, James (1999): Expectations of modernity: Myths and meaning of urban life on the Zambian copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

  • October 19, 2020: Discussion part I of:

    • TSING, Anna (2015): The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton, Oxford: University of Princeton Press.

  • November 2, 2020: Discussion part II of:

    • TSING, Anna (2015): The mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton, Oxford: University of Princeton Press.

  • November 16, 2020: Discussion part I of:

    • HARAWAY, Donna J. (2016): Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chtulhucene. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

  • December 1, 2020: Discussion part II of:

    • HARAWAY, Donna J. (2016): Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chtulhucene. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

  • December 15, 2020: Discussion of:

    • HANNERZ, Ulf (2015): Writing futures: An Anthropologist's view of global scenarios. In: Current Anthropology, 56, 6, pg. 797-818.

  • January 12, 2021: Discussion part I of:

    • ADAMS, Barbara / Chris GROVES (2007): Future matters: Action, knowledge, ethics. Leiden: Brill.

  • January 26, 2021: Discussion part II of:

    • ADAMS, Barbara / Chris GROVES (2007): Future matters: Action, knowledge, ethics. Leiden: Brill.

  • March 9, 2021: Discussion of:

    • HAMANN, Byron Ellsworth (2016): How to chronologize with a hammer, or, the myth of homoegeneous, empty time. In: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 16, 1, pg. 261-292.

  • March 30, 2021: Discussion of:

    • HARRINGTON, Morgan (2014): Changing Exchanges: A modern Siang village amidst resource extraction in regional Indonesia. University of Melbourne, Chapter 5: Great potential: The contemporary future of Murung Raya, pg. 135-166.

  • April 20, 2021: Discussion of:

    • BJORK-JAMES, Sophie (2020): Lifeboat theology: White evangelicalism, apocalyptic chronotopes, and environmental politics. In: Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology.

  • May 18, 2021: Discussion of:

    • WIRTZ, Kristina (2016): The living, the dead, and the immanent: Dialogue across chronotopes. In: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 16, 1, pg. 343-369.

  • June 1, 2021: Discussion of:

    • SCHATZKI, Theodore (2010): The Timespace of human activity: On performance, society, and history as indeterminate teleological events. Lanham: Lexington Books, Chapter 1: The timespace of human activity.