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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
  • Contested Futures: Exploring environmental change and rural transformations on a Bornean resource frontier
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich, June 28, 2021
  • Green Futures: Anxieties, aspirations and emergent transformations
    • Panel at the 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), Kyoto, August 27, 2021
    • Conveners: Michaela Haug together with Gerben Nooteboom and John McCarthy
  • Contested Futures: “Green Development”, local aspirations, and environmental change in Indonesian Borneo
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug for the Panel Green Futures: Anxieties, Aspirations and Emergent Transformations at the 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), Kyoto, August 27, 2021
  • What’s next? Living incomes and living wages and a Good Life among the Dayak Benuaq in East-Kalimantan, Indonesia
  • Negotiations, violence and hope: Trajectories of resistance against oil palm in East Kalimantan
  • Making and un-making resource frontiers in Southeast Asia: State formation and the commodification of nature
  • The resource frontier and Future-Making practices in the Mahakam Ulu regency in East Kalimantan, Indonesia
  • Future Making - Future Taking
    • Panel at the conference Future: Anthropologies of the Future, the Future of Anthropology by the Società Italiana di Antropologia Culturale (SIAC), Rome, September 22-25, 2021
    • Organisation: Michaela Haug together with Felix Lussem
    • https://www.siacantropologia.it/p14/
  • Wishful Future-Making in the Anthropocene: Anthropological perspectives on sustainable development, green growth and peace
  • Moving the Indonesian capital: Environmental impact and effects on livelihoods and Future-Making practices of East Kalimantan's Dayak
  • Eine Zukunft mit dem Wald? Widersprüchliche Zukunftsvorstellungen, Umweltwandel und sozio-ökonomische Transformationsprozesse in Ost Kalimantan, Indonesien
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug as part of the lecture series Zukunft?! und globaler Wandel by the Gesellschaft für Geographie und Ethnologie in Freiburg, November 4, 2021
  • Future-Making, environmental change and socio-economic transformations in the Indonesian rainforest
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug at the interdisciplinary and international workshop Critical Junctures: Challenges and opportunities for a ‘Great Green Transformation’ by the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research and the Governance of Green Transition Network, December 6-7, 2021
  • From Fierce Resistance to Quotidian Ways of Everyday Politics: Environmental Change and Local Responses in Indonesian Borneo
    • Presentation by Michaela Haug for the lecture series Environmental Issues in Indonesia at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, January 3, 2022

Workshops & Outreach activities

  • Alternative Palm Oil Futures - Oil Palms as Part of Diversified Livelihoods?
  • Young Voices: Envisioning Sustainable Futures
  • Communities Experiencing and Responding to Covid-19
  • Just Transition in der Palmölindustrie — Eine erste Annäherung
    • Online Roundtable Discussion, November 22, 2021
    • Speakers: Michaela Haug and Oliver Pye, Moderation: Tina Goethe (Bread for All)
    • Commentators: Johanna Michel (Bruno Manser Fonds), Andreas Zorn (Nestlé), Julia Kaiser (Students for Future Leipzig & SDS Leipzig) und Marianne Klute (Rainforest Rescue / Rettet den Regenwald)
    • Participant organisation: Asienhaus foundation, Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity (TPOLS), Sawit Watch, Asienhaus AG Ressourcen
  • Just Transition in the palm oil industry
    • International Webinar, January 28, 2022
    • Speakers: Zidane "Hotler" Parsaroan (Sawit Watch), Fitri Arianti (Indonesian Rainforest Action Network) and Michaela Haug (Cologne University), Moderation: Rizal Assalam (TPOLS)
    • Commentators: Eko (FSBMM Federasi), Herwin Nasution, Isaac Rojas (Friends of the Earth International-Costa Rica), Yason Ngeli (West Papuan young activist / Lao-Lao Papua), and Prof. Dr. Pujo Semedi Hargo Yuwono (Gadjah Mada University, Department for Anthropology)
    • Participant organisations: Asienhaus foundation, Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity (TPOLS), Sawit Watch, Bread for All
    • Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmyNCFCickI

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

From November 2019 to August 2021, our project ran a regular open reading group at the Cologne University with, among others, PhD students from the CRC Future Rural Africa , discussing a specific topic or chosen literature related to Future Anthropology in each session. Until February 2020 the meetings were held in the university, later on they were held as online meetings via Zoom: 

  • November 18, 2019: Looking at recent publications on 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 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 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: Discussion of:
    • 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.
  • June 15, 2021: Discussion of:
    • BARNES, Jessica / Andrew S. MATTHEWS (2016): Prognosis: Visions of environmental futures. In: BARNES, Jessica (ed.): Environmental Futures. Chichester: Wiley, pg. 9-26.
  • July 13, 2021: Discussion of:
    • BARNES, Jessica (2016): Uncertainty in the signal: Modelling Egypt's water futures. In: BARNES, Jessica (ed.): Environmental Futures. Chichester: Wiley, pg. 46-66.
    • HÉBERT, Karen (2016): Chronicle of a disaster foretold: Scientific risk assessment, public participation, and the politics of imperilment in Bristol Bay, Alaska. In: BARNES, Jessica (ed.): Environmental Futures. Chichester: Wiley, pg. 108-126.
  • August 31, 2021: Discussion of:
    • CHOWDHURY, Nusrat Sabina (2016): Mines and signs: Resource and political futures in Bangladesh. In: BARNES, Jessica (ed.): Environmental Futures. Chichester: Wiley, pg. 87-106.
    • BOVENSIEPEN, Judith M. (2018): The promise of prosperity: Visions of the future in Timor-Leste. Acton: ANU Press. Chapter 1: Political and spiritual visions of the future.