Institut für Europäische Ethnologie - HU Berlin

IfEE’s Laboratory Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations (LAEHR) warmly invites to the next event of our summer term 2026 series:

Talk & Paper Discussion:

“Recalling rains, unsettling waters: affective politics and the infrastructures of life in Jerusalem”

Emilie Glazer (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)
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This session will explore the politics of water in Palestine/Israel, with a focus on the falls of rain. Where water is governed by an occupying power, rain can index the extremes of infrastructural control, just as it can reveal its limits, holding possibilities beyond the state, recalling other ways. By following these waters, I will trace the forms of political violence and partial sovereignty that surface in the governance of life under intensifying settler colonial rule, in the shadow of genocide and ecocide, and unsettling seasonal rains, to consider overlooked nodes of accountability, political imaginaries, and practices of ongoing repair.

Moderation: Elisabeth Luggauer (IfEE, LAEHR) .luggauer

Thursday, July 2, 2026
10 - 11:30 am CEST
online only, we will meet on Zoom

This session is based on a paper, which will be shared upon request.
Participation is also welcome without preparation!

For further information, the reading materials, and the Zoom link, please write to Milena Bister ([email protected])

Everybody is very welcome to join!
The talks/inputs will be in English, and questions can of course also be asked in German!

For more information on the event series & the Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations, please see the website of the Lab: https://www2.hu-berlin.de/sts/

Research Workshop: ‚Global Perspectives on the Authoritarian Conjuncture‘

July 15th 10am - 5pm CEST
Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Anton-Wilhelm-Amo Str. 40/41, 10117 Berlin

The ascent of right-wing politics across the globe has become a common observation. From terms such as ‘far-right extremism’ or ‘right-wing populism’ in the 2000s and 2010s, the names for this phenomenon have moved towards the vocabulary of ‚fascism‘ – indicating a growing concern with the barefaced violence that dominates the contemporary moment. The escalation of the rightward drift has been accompanied by a row of global and planetary ruptures, from financial crashes to the pandemic, from inflation to war. The current conjuncture of authoritarianism responds to a period of converging and metastasizing crises. It prompts us to look for ‚global‘ perspectives, which can take into account the transnational, the multi-scalar and the latent qualities of authoritarian politics in the present.

On July 15th from 10am - 5pm, in collaboration with BIM and IRGAC, we will showcase and discuss ongoing research related to the global quality of current authoritarian dynamics, as well as the necessary analytical perspectives and political challenges that face us in the current moment. We are happy to welcome scholars, from Professors, Post-Docs and Phds to MA-Students interested in or working on similar issues.

For remaining free spots, please sign up at [email protected] until June 22th.

Reading & Discussion: „Struggling for Time. Environmental Governance and Agrarian Resistance in Israel/Palestine“, Stanford University Press 2024,
with author Natalia Gutkowski

We are very happy that Natalia Gutkowski herself will join the session and will also provide an intro to the book!

Struggling for Time examines how time is used as a mechanism of control by the Israeli state and a site of mundane resistance among Palestinian agriculture professionals. Natalia Gutkowski unpacks power structures to show how a settler society lays moral claim on indigenous time through agrarian environmental policies, science, technologies, landscapes, and bureaucracy. Shifting the analysis of Israel/Palestine from land and space to time, she offers new insight into the operation of power in agrarian environments and develops a contemporary framework to understand land and resource grabs under temporal justifications.

Moderation: Elisabeth Luggauer (IfEE, HU Berlin)

We are preparing this reading session as a collaborative effort and share reading impressions, comments, and questions in a joint pad.
Participation is, of course, also possible without preparation!

Everybody is very welcome to join!

For further information and access to the pad, the book, Zoom link, etc., please write to Elisabeth Luggauer ([email protected]).

Thursday, June 18, 2026
10 - 12 am CEST
room 212 & on zoom

The IfEE is accessible, the room can be reached by lift, and accessible bathrooms are available.

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For more information on the event series, the Zoom link, materials for preparation & the Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations, please see the website of the Lab: https://www2.hu-berlin.de/sts/

Guest Lecture in the Project Seminar “WestOst” by :

Čarna Brković (Professor ):

“Socialist Modernist Worldmaking: Yugoslav Interventions in the International Humanitarian Debates in the 1970s”

This talk explores a humanitarian imaginary inspired by the political vocabularies of socialism and the Non-Aligned Movement.

In the 1970s, the Red Cross of Yugoslavia initiated a series of actions to encourage the International Red Cross Movement to reconsider its humanitarian principles and include perspectives from the countries belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement. The Yugoslav proposal provoked discussion in the International Red Cross Movement over the meaning of “humanitarianism,” “neutrality,” and “peace.” The push for the perspectives of non-aligned countries to be better represented within the International Red Cross Movement resulted in an ambivalent humanitarian imaginary that both challenged and reproduced the premises of the humanitarian sector in the West.

This largely forgotten episode in the history of humanitarianism can best be understood as an attempt at worldmaking, not of a world free from the coloniality/modernity nexus, but of a socialist modernist world that was in many aspects different from the one that had been built since the 1970s.

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Prof. Dr. Brković studies how people cope with situations in which their agency is suspended; how they navigate ambiguity, uncertainty, and failure; and how power and inequality operate in the complex conditions that abound in Southeast Europe, a region undergoing multiple, simultaneous socio-political transformations. This has led her to ethnographically and historically research diverse fields such as clientelism, activism, social care, and humanitarianism. She is also interested in historically diverse projects of integrating the world differently, such as socialist humanitarianism and alternative forms of Europeanization.

June 11, 12:15–1:45 pm CEST
@ IfEE and via Zoom

For room & Zoom info, please contact: [email protected]

Everyone is welcome!

Buchpräsentation & - diskussion:

“Staatsfeinde. Rechte Subkulturen in Ostdeutschland seit den 1970er Jahren”, erschienen 2026 im Ch. Links Verlag .linksverlag

von Stefan Wellgraf (IfEE)

Stefan Wellgraf hinterfragt in seinem neuen Buch „Staatsfeinde. Rechte Subkulturen in Ostdeutschland seit den 1970er Jahren“ die gängigen Erklärungsmuster zur rechten Gewalt in Ostdeutschland. Anhand von Biografien ehemaliger Skinheads und Hooligans beleuchtet er, wie der Boden für den heutigen Rechtspopulismus bereitet wurde.

Mit Eric Angermann und Henrike Voigtländer diskutiert er über gewaltbereite Fußballfans, Frauen in der Neonazi-Szene und den Umgang der Stasi mit diesen.

Dr. Gerhard Sälter (Bundesarchiv – Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv) moderiert die Diskussion.

Der Eintritt ist frei. Eine Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich.

02. Juni | 18:30 - 20:00 Uhr

Stasi-Zentrale. Campus für Demokratie
Ruschestraße 103
”Haus 22“ 1.OG
10365 Berlin


Hier geht es zum Buch:
https://www.aufbau-verlage.de/ch-links-verlag/staatsfeinde/978-3-96289-237-1

IfEE's Laboratory Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations (LAEHR) warmly invites to the first event of our summer term 2026 series:

Talk & Discussion:

“A cog in the machine: violence against animals in Mexico”,

Iván Sandoval-Cervantes /
(University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

In this presentation, anthropologist Iván Sandoval Cervantes discusses violence against animals in Mexico as part of a “violent machine.” He argues that by taking a serious look at violence against animals, we can gain new insights into how violence in Mexico operates by analyzing how it is connected to other forms of violence and to changing ideas about justice.

moderation: Elisabeth Luggauer / .luggauer (IfEE)

Wednesday, June 3, 2026
6 - 7:30 pm CEST
@ IfEE, room 408 & on Zoom

Everybody is very welcome to join!

For more information on the event series, the Zoom link, materials for preparation & the Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations, please see the website of the Lab: https://www2.hu-berlin.de/sts/ or write to [email protected]

Auf Exkursion in Eisenhüttenstadt: In Kooperation mit dem Museum
„Utopie und Alltag“ .utopie.und.alltag haben die Studierenden des BA-Projektseminars
„WestOst - Ethnografische Erkundungen von Differenzen in Deutschland“ bei Urmila Goel
die Stadt, das Museum und sein Depot erkundet. In der Dauerausstellung
haben sie fotografiert, was sie bemerkenswert fanden. Und anschließend
mit der Museumsleiterin Christine Gerbich .gerbich und Kurator Axel Drieschner
diskutiert. Ein spannender Austausch!
Vielen Dank an das Museum!

Wissenschaft gegen Faschismus! - Das IfEE macht mit!
*scroll down for English

Unter dem Motto “Verantwortung der Wissenschaft
in Zeiten der faschistischen Gefahr” rufen Studis gegen Rechts gemeinsam mit Unterstützer*innen in Forschung und Lehre zu einer bundesweiten Aktionswoche auf:

“Wissenschaft gegen Faschismus”, vom 01. - 07. 06. 2026

Mehr Informationen findet ihr unter diesem Link:
https://wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de/

Das IfEE beteiligt sich mit zahlreichen offenen Veranstaltungen! Alle sind herzlich eingeladen zu kommen und mitzudiskutieren!

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Action Week “Wissenschaft gegen Faschismus” – IfEE is participating!
Under the slogan “The Responsibility of Science in Times of Fascist Threat,” Studis gegen Rechts (Students Against the Right), together with supporters in research and teaching, are calling for a nationwide week of action titled “Wissenschaft gegen Faschismus” (Science Against Fascism) from June 1–7 2026.

More information can be found on this website:
https://wissenschaft-gegen-faschismus.de/

The IfEE is participating with several open events!
Everyone is warmly invited to come and join the discussions!

Woche der Studienorientierung - Komm, schau dir das IfEE & die Europäische Ethnologie an!

Du würdest gerne mehr drüber rausfinden, was eigentlich hinter dem Namen Europäische Ethnologie - oder auch Kulturanthropologie - steckt?

Und was sich so alles damit machen lässt?

Interessiert dich für Themen wie Migration, Klimawandel, Geschlechterverhältnisse, Kunst, oder einfach gesellschaftliche und politische Dynamiken?

Oder möchtest vielleicht einfach nur mal das Institut für Europäische Ethnologie (IfEE) von innen sehen?

Auch dieses Jahr freuen wir uns wieder auf den Besuch vieler Schüler*innen im Rahmen der HU-weiten “Woche der Studienorientierung” und laden herzlich zu einigen Veranstaltungen ein:

Mittwoch, 10.6.

13.30 - 14 Uhr Austausch über das Fach und seine Inhalte bei CafEE und Kuchen mit der Fachschaft und Lehrenden, Erdgeschoss

14.15 -15.45 Uhr „Seminar: Gender Matters“ bei Prof. Dr. Yv Nay ,
Raum 408 (auf deutsch)

14.15 -15.45 Uhr „Klimawandel“ bei Prof.Dr. Milena Bister, Raum 212

16.15 -17.45 Uhr „Art Matters“ bei Dr. Jonas Tinius , Raum 211 (auf
deutsch)

Donnerstag, 11.6.

14.15 -15.45 Uhr „Kulturtheorien Vorlesung“ bei Prof. Dr. Manuela
Bojadžijev und Dr. Sowmya Maheswaran (Bitte beachten: anderes
Gebäude! Hausvogteiplatz 4-7, Raum 0007 (auf der anderen Seite des
Hofs).

Mehr infos zur Woche der Studienorientierung gibt es hier: https://www.hu-berlin.de/studium/vor-dem-studium/woche-der-studienorientierung