Ecological and Economic Fracture Lines in Africa

Sandra Calkins studied Arabic Studies, Journalism, and Indology at Leipzig University, where she completed her PhD in Anthropology in 2014. Her anthropological dissertation explored how people in Sudan deal with existential uncertainty. She then took up a postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, where she developed a research project on science in the Global South. Her work focused in particular on molecular biology lab work and plant research in Uganda, examining how these are embedded in global scientific networks.

In 2018, she was appointed to the Free University of Berlin, where she served as Junior Professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and established the research area “Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Environmental Anthropology”. Before her appointment in Bayreuth, she was Associate Professor of Environment, Technology and Decolonial Knowledge at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, where she continued her research on environmental and justice issues.

“In my research, I am particularly interested in how knowledge about the environment and the economy is generated, circulates, becomes politicised, and shapes the conditions of collective life,” says Calkins. She plans to continue her research into environmental and justice-related questions at the University of Bayreuth, collaborating, for example, with colleagues in the Cluster of Excellence Africa Multiple or the Ecological-Botanical Garden. “The University of Bayreuth offers a modern and internationally connected research profile in social and cultural anthropology, with outstanding focus areas in African studies and ecology. It’s a great match for my own research interests,” says Calkins.

In Bayreuth, she aims to establish a research area at the intersection of economic anthropology, environmental anthropology, and science and technology studies, in order to explore ecological and economic fracture lines in African contexts and their impact on local populations.