Dr. Ursula Münster

Academic Career

Since 2015
Academic Coordinator of the Environmental Studies Certificate Program

Since 2013
Senior Researcher (Habilitandin), Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich. Research project: In the Shadow of Extinction: Human-Wildlife Relations and the Cultural Politics of Conservation in South India

Since 2013
Visiting Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC), LMU Munich

10/2014 – 03/2015
Professor Interim (Vertretungsprofessur for Prof. Dr. Frank Heidemann; half position), Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich

08/2014 – 10/2014
Visiting Scholar, Department for Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM), University of California, Berkeley, USA

2013 – 2014
Habilitation Scholarship Holder, Bavarian Equal Opportunities Sponsorship, LMU Munich

2012 – 2014
Visiting Fellow, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, India

2012 – 2013
Research Fellow, Center for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, India

2010 – 2013
Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich,
Research project: Whose Forest Is It? The Political Ecology of Forest Conservation in Wayanad, Kerala, South India

2010 – 2013
Research Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC), LMU Munich

2010 – 2013
Mentee LMU Mentoring program within the framework of LMUexcellent, LMU Munich

12/2008 – 11/2009
Postdoctoral Scholarship Holder, Bavarian Equal Opportunities Sponsorship, LMU Munich

10/2008 – 12/2008
Lecturer, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich

2007 – 2008
Adjunct Lecturer (Lehrbeauftragte), Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich

Invited Lectures

• 2015 Der Elefant im Reisfeld: Konflikte zwischen Menschen und Elefanten in Südindien. Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, local branch, Oettingen, 10 March
• 2014 Tierische Beziehungen. Neuere Forschungen zu Mensch und Tier in der Ethnologie. Lecture and planning of the Ethnologischen Salon, Museum Fünf Kontinente (with Susanne Schmitt). Munich, 31 October
• 2014 Understanding Environment and Society through Anthropology. Lecture and podium discussion, "Environment & Society" Doctoral Students’ Day, Deutsches Museum, Munich, 15 October
• 2014 Ethics of Coexistence: Human-Elephant Conflict, Non-Human Personhood, and Environmental Justice in Kerala. ESPM, Society and the Environment Division, UC Berkeley, USA, 10 March
• 2013 There Is No Waste: Perspectives from the Grassroots Movement. Lecture and podium discussion, Center for Advanced Studies, LMU Munich, 5 December
• 2013 Human-Elephant Relations in Contemporary South India. Conference, "The Human Person and Nature in India: Representations, Reflections, Identities," Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, 15 March
• 2012 Environmental History 'From Below': Adivasi Laborers in the Nilgiri-Biosphere Reserve. Colloquium of Environmental History, University of Göttingen, 12 December
• 2012 Auspicious Agency: Re-Thinking Gender and Femininity in South India. Gender Colloquium, Department of Sociology, LMU Munich, 12 June
• 2011 Governing Nature: Recent Approaches in Environmental Anthropology. Colloquium of Anthropology, University of Bayreuth, Iwalewa Haus, 15 November
• 2011 The Political Ecology of Conservation. Global Environments Summer Academy 2011, Munich International Summer University, Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich, 19 August
• 2011 Cultural Politics of Biodiversity Conservation. "Biocultural Diversity: Concepts and Interdisciplinary Methods," 2011 Erasmus Intensive Programme, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, 10 March
• 2011 Anthropology and Political Ecology. Colloquium of Anthropology, LMU Munich, 7 February
• 2010 Whose Forest Is It? The Political Ecology of Forest Conservation in Wayanad, Kerala, South India. Lunchtime colloquium, Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich, 8 July

Presentations

• 2017 Holy Cows and Demonic Species: Cattle and the Naturecultures of Belonging in South India (with Daniel Münster). Conference, German Anthropological Association (DGV). Berlin, Germany, 5 October
• 2016 The Limits of Care: Elephant Wellbeing and Herpes in Times of Extinction (with Celia Lowe). 14th EASA Biennial Conference, Milano, Italy, 21 July
• 2016 Ethics of Coexistance: Multispecies Justice in the Context of Human-Elephant Conflicts in Kerala, South India, at the Political Ecologies of Conflict, Capitalism and Contestation Conference (PE-3C), Wageningen, Netherlands, 9 July
• 2016 Matters of Care in Violent Environments: A Relational Political Ecology of Conservation in South India. Undisciplined Environments (ENTITLE) Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 23 March
• 2015 "Contagious Becomings: Elephants and Their Companion Pathogens in Times of Extinction" (presented by co-author Celia Lowe). Conference of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Denver, Colorado, USA, 20 November
• 2015 Naturalcultural Conflict Zones: Living with Elephants in an Ecology of Crisis. Animals in the Anthropocene Conference, Stavanger, Norway, 19 September
• 2014 Ethics of Coexistence: Human-Elephant Conflict, Non-human Personhood, and Environmental Justice in Kerala. ESPM, Society and the Environment Division at UC Berkeley, USA 3 October

• 2013 Interspecies Labor: Humans and Elephants in South India's Wildlife Conservation. Annual conference, American Anthropological Association (AAA) Chicago, USA, 24 November
• 2013 From Involved Commitment to Critical Distance: Reflections on Fieldwork in South India. Conference, German Anthropological Association (DGV), Mainz, 5 October
• 2012 Subjected to Threat: Subject Formation through Violent Animal Encounters at a Wildlife Sanctuary in South India. Annual conference, American Association of American Anthropologists (AAA), San Francisco, USA, 14–18 November
• 2012 Governing the Wild: Saving Elephants in the Forests of Kerala, India. Conference, "Uncertainty and Disquiet," European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Nanterre University, France, 11 July
• 2012 Working for the "Forest": Adivasi Laborers, Forest Governance, and the Local Production of Environmental Knowledge in Wayanad, Kerala, South India. Conference, Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, 6 April
• 2011 Human-Animal Conflicts in Kerala: Elephants and Ecological Modernity on the Agrarian Frontier in South India (with Daniel Münster). Conference, German Anthropological Association (DGV), Vienna, Austria, 15 September
• 2011 The Land of Forests, Tribals, and Tourists: The Politics of Conservation in Kerala, South India (with Daniel Münster). Conference, "Nature™ Inc? Questioning the Market Panacea in Environmental Policy and Conservation," International Institute of Social Sciences, The Hague, Netherlands, 2 July
• 2011 The Political Ecology of Wildlife Conservation in Kerala, South India. Conference, European Society of Environmental History, Turku, Finland, 28 June
• 2011 Contentious Diversities and Dangerous Species: Human-Animal Encounters in a "Diversity Hotspot" of South India. Workshop, "Why Do We Value Diversity? A Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Biocultural Diversity in Global Context," Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich, 4 June
• 2010 Contested Conservation: The Night Traffic Ban and Kerala's Development Regime. European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS), Bonn, 27 July
• 2009 Environmental Conservation and Resistance in Kerala, South India. Conference, German Anthropological Association (DGV), Frankfurt, 29 September
• 2009 Political Ecology of Forest Use in Wayanad, Kerala, South India. Colloquium, Department of Anthropology, LMU Munich, 13 July
• 2007 The Good Wife: High-Caste Femininity in Tamil Nadu, South India. Institutskolloquium Ethnologie, LMU Munich, 12 November
• 2007 Gender Studies in India: Defining a Position. Conference, German Anthropological Association (DGV), Halle, 2 October

Organised Workshops and Conferences

• 2017 Multispecies Belonging. Panel at the conference of the German Association of Anthropology (DGV), Berlin, Germany, 05 October

• 2016 Key Debates in Environmental Anthropology (with Rebecca Hofmann und Carsten Wergin), opening conference of the Working Group Environmental Anthropology, German Association of Anthropologists, RCC/LMU, 26–27 October, Conference Report

• 2016 Living Well Together: Considering Connections of Health, Wellbeing and Work in the Lives of Humans and other Living Beings (mit Sara Asu Schroer), panel at the 14th EASA Biennial Conference, Milano, Italy, 21 July

• 2012 Asian Environments: Governing Nature, Negotiating Knowledge, Constructing Subjectivities (with Gunnel Cederlöf and Shiho Satsuka). International conference, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, 11 November–2 December. Program

• 2012 Biocultural Diversity? A Dialogue on the Definitions, Implications, and Uses of Biocultural Diversity (with Elise Demeulenaere and Gary Martin). Workshop, Congress of the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE), Montpellier, France, 26–27 May. Program

• 2011 Why Do We Value Diversity? A Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Biocultural Diversity in Global Context (with Gary Martin and Diana Mincyte). International conference, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, 4–5 June. Program

• 2011 Contested Environments: The Political Ecology of Agrarian Change and Forest Conservation (with Stefan Dorondel and Daniel Münster). Panel, biennial conference of the German Anthropological Association (DGV), University of Vienna, Austria, 15–16 September. Conference Report

Exhibitions

• 2017 Ecopolis Munich: Umweltgeschichten Einer Stadt. An Exhibition by the Students of the Environmental Studies Program at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at LMU Munich, Germany. Project management (with S. Gora, R. Holzer, C. Mauch, N. Möllers), main building LMU, 25–27 July

Teaching

Summer 2017
Environmental Studies: International Perspectives (seminar), RCC/LMU
Tuesday Discussion on Environmental Practice (with C. Mauch), RCC/LMU
Ecopolis: Understanding and Imagining Munich's Environments (exhibition seminar with N. Möllers), RCC/LMU

Winter 2016/17
Environmental Studies: International Perspectives (seminar), RCC/LMU
Tuesday Discussion on Environmental Practice (with C. Mauch), RCC/LMU
Research Design in Environmental Studies (workshop) RCC/LMU
Ecopolis: Understanding and Imagining Munich's Environments (exhibition seminar with N. Möllers), RCC/LMU

Summer 2016
Environmental Studies: International Perspectives (seminar), RCC/LMU
Tuesday Discussion on Environmental Practice (with C. Mauch), RCC/LMU
Introduction to Environmental Studies (seminar RCC/LMU)
Saline History, Alpine Geo-Ecologies and Contested Waterways, (interdisciplinary workshop, Berchtesgaden)

Winter 2015/16
Environmental Studies: International Perspectives (seminar), RCC/LMU
Tuesday Discussion on Environmental Practice (with C. Mauch), RCC/LMU
Research Design in Environmental Studies, (workshop) RCC/LMU

Winter 2014/15
Human and Animal: The Multispecies Turn in Anthropology, LMU Munich
Kolloquium for Bachelor candidates (with C. Lang), LMU
New Debates in Theory and Method (Master-course) LMU Munich

Winter 2013/14
Introduction to South Indian Anthropology, LMU Munich

Winter 2009/10
Introduction to South Asian Ethnography, LMU Munich

Summer 2009
Green Imperialism: Conservation and Resistance in India, LMU Munich

Fall 2008/09
Gender in India: Theoretical and Ethnographic Perspectives, LMU Munich

Fall 2008/09
Current Themes in South Indian Anthropology, LMU Munich

Fall 2008/09
The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Humans: Contested Environments and Resources, LMU Munich

Fall 2007/08
Theories of Gender in Anthropology, LMU Munich

Summer 2007
Interim Audit in Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich

Forschungsprojekte

• Encountering Wildlife: Conflicts, Care and Conservation in South India's Forests
• Whose Forest is It? Political Ecology of Conservation in Wayanad, Kerala, South India
• Die Gute Frau: Gender und Agency in Tamil Nadu, Südindien