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Prof. Ulrich Demmer
As an anthropologist and activist I am engaged in the anthropology of socio-ecological movements and transformation processes towards strongly sustainable "good" ways of living and societies. I am researching, teaching/facilitating courses, and writing with, in and for what is called the „pluriverse“: the multitude of movements and projects for socio-ecological transformation worldwide - such as Degrowth in Europe, Radical Ecological Democracy (India), Buen Vivir (Ecuador), community gardening, solidary economies, communal housing projects etc..
In particular I am interested in concepts and practices of a ’good life', that is the ethics and politics of strongly sustainable economies, also with theorizing and practicing activist or performative anthropology, or what is called the ’ontological politics of science’. I am an active member of the Degrowth movement, it's working group on "Degrowth and Research" and I am also engaged in grass-roots Degrowth initiatives (e.g. communal housing, food-coop), in the organization of Climate-Camps and in the Degrowth Summer Schools in Germany.
Until 2010 I did longterm fieldwork over 12 years in South India, with and among a group of Adivasi indigenous people called Jenu Kurumba. I studied the egalitarian, non-hierarchical social organization, the non-capitalist sharing economy, the ethics of a good life, and the poetcis and rhetorics of ritual performances among the community in relation to the state and to other people in the region, thus situating my research in the increasingly globalized locality marked by intersectional power relations among Adivasi people, the state, and translocal actors and agencies. One major insight of that work, described in my book „Towards Another Reason“ was the importance of practical reason for people/communities striving for a good life, for the ethico-politics of communities or the state, and also for anthopological theory and approaches to the cultural value - oriented dimensions of a good social life.
Since 2011 these insights on the importance of ethical practical reason for promoting/building strongly sustainable societies - along with other political motives - let to my current present day concern with the ‚Pluriverse‘ and the way we do (or fail to) shape social life in qualitative ethical terms of a good life for all. Empirically after more than a decade of fieldwork in South India I am now working predominantly in Europe.
I teach at the LMU Munich, (and also taught as director of the Institute at Leipzig University), both at the Institutes of Social and Cultural Anthropology, with a focus on courses such as "The anthropology of the pluriverse (Parts I, II, III)" and "Activist Research/Engaged Anthropology". (see below), anthropological knowledge production, socio-ecological movements and ethical anthropology.
2006 Rhetorik, Poetik Performanz: Das Ritual und seine Dynamik bei den Jēnu Kurumba (Südindien). Mit interaktiver Multimedia CD‑ROM. Berlin. Muenster, London: LIT Verlag.
Edited book
Articles, bookchapters, podcasts
2022. What does it mean to politicize the Good Life?: Strong Sustainabilty and the Socio-Ecological Transformation. Unpublished ms. (forthcoming. Abstract available on demand. Please contact the author).
2013 'Agent Plus' and 'Practical Reasoner'. A comparative study of the ethical Person. Ethnos. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00141844.2013.817461
2013 Text, Drama und performativer Diskurs. Ethnologische Ritualtheorien der Gegenwart. In Iris Gerlach und Dietrich Raue (Hrsg.), Sanktuar und Ritual. (Menschen — Kulturen — Traditionen. Studien aus den Forschungsclustern des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 10.). Rahden/Westfalen, 247-259.
2012 Jēnu Kurumba (Religion). In Paul Hockings (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Nilgiri Hills. New Dehli: Manohar.
2012 Jēnu Kurumba (Society). In Paul Hockings (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Nilgiri Hills. New Dehli: Manohar.
2010 Social Representations ‘In Between’: Concepts of Society and Community in Orissa and Beyond. In H. Kulke and G. Berkemer (eds.), Centres out There? Facets of Subregional Identities. New Delhi: Manohar. Pp. 419-439.
2009 Models of Social Life in Tribal India. In G. Pfeffer und D. K. Behera (eds.), Structure and Exchange in Tribal India and Beyond. Contemporary Society Tribal Studies. Vol. 8. New Delhi: Concept Publishers. Pp. 266-281.
2008 Contested Modernities in the “Tribal Zone”: The Post-Colonial State, Adivasi Politics and the Making of Local Modernity in the Northern Nilgiris (South India). Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Bd. 133 (2): 257-282.
2007a The Power of Rhetoric: Persuasion and Dialogue in the Healing Rituals of a South Indian Community. In U. Demmer and M. Gaenszle (eds.), The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance. LIT Verlag: Berlin, Münster, London. pp. 26-54.
2007b 'Introduction' (mit M. Gaenszle). In U. Demmer and M. Gaenszle (eds.), The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance. LIT Verlag: Berlin, Münster, London. pp. 1-24.
2006a An Sanesvaras Schrein. Lokale Modemität und Adivasi ‑ Politik in den nördlichen Nilgiris (Südindien). Journal Ethnologie 5 (www.journalethnologie.de).
Ethics and the Ontological Politics of Engaged (Social/Cultural) Anthropology:Activist Research in Climate Justice Movements. Invited talk at 'Ethics Seminar Series', Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology & University of Leipzig. 25th November 2019.
Nation-State and Local Cultures: Political Imagination and Social Praxis. Summerterm 2005 (LMU)
Courses/seminars/classes (after 2012 only, selected), at the Institutes of Cultural/Social Anthropology at LMUniversity Munich & University of Leipzig.
Collaborative Knowledge Production: Collectives, Epistemologies, Ontologies.
| Methods in Anthropology: Activist Research | SS 2021, Institute of
Social Anthropology, University of Leipzig. |
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Anthropology in the Anthropocene
The Anthropology of the 'Pluriverse', Part
I. 4.
The Anthropology of New Social Movements.
What is a good life (for all)? Anthropological Perspectives and Case Studies. Anthropology of socio-ecological Movements. Part I: Ethics/Values, Solidary Economy & the Politicisation of Sustaninbility.
The Anthropology of the 'Pluriverse': Part 1, 2, and 3. Socio-ecological
movements, transition discourses & grass-roots transformations.
Activist Research and socio-ecological
movements/transformations.
After Geertz: Kulturkonzepte der
Gegenwart.
Ethnographien Politischer Ökologie.
Ethnologie der Ethik (Systematik)
| SS 2020, Institute of
Social Anthropology, University of Leipzig.
SS 2020, Institute of
Social Anthropology, University of Leipzig
SS 2020, Institute of Social/Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich.
WS 2019/20, Institute of
Social Anthropology, University of Leipzig.
WS 2019/20 Institute of Social/Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich.
WS 2018/19 Institute of
Social Anthropology, University of Leipzig.
2016-2017, Institute of
Social/Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich& Rachel Carson Centre, Munich.
WS 2016/17; Institute of Social/Cultural
Anthropology, LMU Munich.
SS 014
WS 2013/14 WS 2012/13
WS 2011/12
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