Postdoc.-Ass. Dr. Christof Lammer

Professional Experience

Biography

Since April 2019, Christof Lammer has been a postdoctoral researcher at at the Department of Science, Technology and Society Studies at the University of Klagenfurt. Combining his interest in political and economic anthropology, kinship studies, and science and technology studies (STS), his current projects ask how measurements, standards, and infrastructures are intertwined with belonging and value.

Two special issues emerging from this work were recently published:

Measuring Kinship: Gradual Belonging and Thresholds of Exclusion (with Tatjana Thelen, University of Vienna)

Infrastructures of Value: New and Historical Materialities in Agriculture (with André Thiemann, Czech Academy of Sciences)

Christof Lammer studied Social and Cultural Anthropology and China Studies at the University of Vienna, Tianjin University and Renmin University of China. Since 2011, he has conducted more than 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the People’s Republic of China.

As predoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna (2013-2017) and as fellow at the ZiF-Research Group 'Kinship and Politics' at Bielefeld University (2017) he wrote his doctoral thesis Performing State Boundaries: A Stategraphy of Citizen Participation in China (2018). He studies civic and governmental initiatives that promote ecological agriculture as well as the democratic administration of social policy. His research shows how the actors involved perform the boundary between state and non-state (e.g. family, community, civil society) differently and thereby gain or lose support for their projects. This analytical focus on the productivity, multiplicity, materiality, and temporality of performed boundaries opens up new perspectives in the anthropology of the state.

Positions

since 2019: postdoctoral researcher, Department of Science, Technology and Society Studies, University of Klagenfurt

August 2019: guest researcher, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale) 

2018: fellow and lecturer, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna

2017: fellow,  ZiF Research Group 'Kinship and Politics', Bielefeld University

2013-2017: predoctoral researcher, Department of Methods in the Social Sciences (Ethnography Group) and Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna

Memberships

American Anthropological Association (AAA) & Society for Economic Anthropology (SEA)

CaSt Research Network (Care and State)

German Anthropological Association (GAA/DGSKA) & Regional Group Anthropology of China

European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) & Network on Anthropologies of the State

LOST Research Network (Law, Organization, Science and Technology)

Postgraduate Supervision and Review

Fahimi, Miriam: “F:AI:R: An Ethnography on Constructing Algorithmic Fairness”, PhD thesis, University of Klagenfurt (co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda, current).

Malik, Julia: “Classifying Citizens, Updating the State: How Practicing Digital Welfare Shapes Statehood in Colombia”, PhD thesis, University of Klagenfurt (co-supervision with Prof. Dr. Daniel Barben, current)

Baltiņa, Reičela (2022): “Standardization of People and their Environment: Practicing Certified Green Care in Carinthia, Austria”, MA thesis, University of Klagenfurt (primary supervision, completed).

van Bree, Willem (2023): “From Preservation to Collaboration:
Unravelling the Dynamics of Community Engagement in Rewilding Perspectives and Projects”, ESST MA thesis, Maastricht University (review, completed).

De Pablos Sanz, Paula (2022): “Ethics of Care in Agro-Food Innovations: The Cases of Vertical Farming and Permaculture”, ESST MA thesis, Maastricht University (review, completed).

2018: PhD Social and Cultural Anthropology (with distinction, promotio sub auspiciis praesidentis: 12 March, 2019), University of Vienna

2014-2015: Rural Studies, Renmin University Beijing

2012: MA Social and Cultural Anthropology (with distinction), University of Vienna

2009-2011: all courses of the MA China Studies, University of Vienna

2009: BA China Studies (with distinction), University of Vienna

2006-2007: language studies (Chinese), Tianjin University