New Publication on Monitoring as Knowledge Practice in a National Park

As global conservation policy focuses primarily on the expansion of protected areas, one may ask if and how protected areas contribute to the conservation of endangered species and habitats. The usual way to answer this question in the context of conservation is to regularly survey, or monitor plants, animals and ecosystems.

In a recently published contribution in the journal Social Studies of Science, Erik Aarden describes monitoring as a distinct knowledge practice in conservation and biodiversity research and thereby develops a novel perspective on a specific form of scientific research. On the basis of ethnographic research on soda lake, botanical and geese monitoring in Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park, the article describes how the possibility of surveying nature is shaped by organisational conditions, data collection instruments and routines, as well as human and non-human behavior.

The article thereby demonstrates, how monitoring does not just represent the national park, but enacts it in space and time, and how this perspective is meaningful for both a social science perspective on “field” research and area-based conservation.

The article is accessible (open access) via: https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127261442140

A Calm Sea? New Book about Feminist Activism in Latin America

Are youth feminisms in Latin America in retreat, or are they simply transforming? This question runs through the collective volume co-edited by Camila Ponce Lara. The book brings together ten research studies on activist experiences in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

¿Un mar en calma? Continuidades, transformaciones y desafíos de los activismos feministas jóvenes en América Latina (A Calm Sea? Continuities, Transformations and Challenges of Young Feminist Activisms in Latin America), edited by Camila Ponce Lara and Marina Larrondo, has just been published by CLACSO, The Latin American Council of Social Sciences.

The book examines young feminist activisms in the period following the fourth feminist wave, organizing its findings around three axes: the trajectories and internal tensions of these movements; educational spaces as territories of political dispute; and the intersections between youth activism and structures of inequality. Through qualitative methodologies, the studies address topics ranging from the biographical imprints of militant commitment to the emotional repertoires of activists, processes of political socialization, and the emergence of right-wing antifeminist counter-movements, including groups of women who claim a “true empowerment” from conservative frameworks.

Against readings that announce demobilization, the volume argues that feminist struggles are in a state of latency: their networks persist, their identities consolidate, and their political grammars continue to expand. This work is at once a contribution to academic debate and a tool for activists and educators. As a continuation of the volume published in 2019, it confirms the existence of a generation that maintains its transformative conviction and finds in feminisms a compass for navigating the complexities of the present.

The book is in Spanish and available online (open access).

New Book ‘Producing Citizenship in Medical Research Collections’

In his recently published book ‘Producing Citizenship in Medical Research Collections’ Erik Aarden addresses the question if and how tissue and data collections in medical resarch produces a public good, accessible to all. Studying examples of such collections in Europe, India, Singapore and the United States, he argues that particular forms of citizenship – individual and collective rights and responsibilities – are built into the collections, challenging the idea of a good for all. The book thereby provides a novel perspective on data infrastructures in the health domain. More information on the book can be found via: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-95-1707-7

Invitation to the lecture “Panda Heritage: Kinship Measurements and Life’s Value in Species Conservation” on 8 May (Dr. Christof Lammer)

Why are giant pandas considered a species worth protecting and a national treasure of China, while not all pandas are seen as equally valuable? Christof Lammer reports on his research into kinship measurements in species conservation and their political, economic, and ecological implications.

The Department of Society, Knowledge and Policy cordially invites you to the lecture “Panda Heritage: Kinship Measurements and Life’s Value in Species Conservation” by Dr. Christof Lammer. The event will take place on 8 May 2025 at 5 pm at S.2.05. We look forward to your participation and a stimulating exchange after the lecture.

Abstract: What makes certain species and individual animals worth protecting? Christof examines the iconic case of the giant panda – a global symbol of conservation efforts and a national treasure of the People’s Republic of China – and suggests that kinship measurements play a central role in species conservation. Kinship is measured using a wide variety of methods, technologies and forms of data. Indicators of kinship range from genealogical proximity to behavioural resemblance and from lived closeness to genetic similarity. Although measurements of human kinship are widely used, for example in decisions about citizenship and inheritance, they are rarely studied under one theoretical heading. Therefore, their political and economic consequences have often been overlooked, including in environmentalism. Measured animal kinship has been mobilized to claim the belonging of highly valued species and for making breeding decisions that affect not only individual animals but also the human institutions that keep them. In Christof’s talk, you will hear about palaeobiological measurements of animal remains found in Europe that were used to challenge claims about the Chineseness of the giant panda lineage, a genetic matchmaking algorithm for captive pandas that was criticized as reviving a ‘backward’ cultural tradition of arranged marriages, and biologists’ measurements of kinship as embodied maternal care that promise to enhance the value of pseudo-pregnant female pandas for preserving the panda heritage.

Christof Lammer is a social anthropologist based at the Department of Society, Knowledge and Politics at the University of Klagenfurt. As inherit fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin he pursued the project ‘Panda Heritage: Kinship Measurements and Life’s Value in Species Conservation‘ (2024-2025). He is the author of Performing State Boundaries: Food Networks, Democratic Bureaucracy and China (2024, Berghahn Books) and has co-edited special issues on Measuring Kinship: Gradual Belonging and Thresholds of Exclusion (2021, Social Analysis) and Infrastructures of Value: New and Historical Materialities in Agriculture (2024, Ethnos) and is also a co-organizer of the DFG Scientific Network ‘Anthropology and China(s)‘ (2021–2026).

The newspaper Tagesspiegel recently reported about his research:

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/berlin-bekommt-baren-zweiter-wahl-die-wissenschaft-hinter-chinas-panda-diplomatie-13512118.html