Team
Philipps Universität Marburg (UMR) Germany
Ernst Halbmayer
TEAM LEADER
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Professor for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. He has extensively researched Carib and Chibchan-speaking groups in northern South America and southern Central America, especially among the Yukpa (Venezuela/Columbia). His research interests include post-natural anthropology, anthropology of conflict, Indigenous modernities, and transformation processes of world conceptions and social relations. Among his recent books are “Creation and Creativity in Indigenous Lowland South America” edited with Anne Goletz (2023), “Amerindian Socio-Cosmologies between the Andes, Amazonia and Mesoamerica: Toward an Anthropological Understanding of the Isthmo-Colombian Area” (2020) and “Indigenous Modernities in South America” (2018).
Alessio Thomasberger
INVESTIGATOR
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Doctoral candidate at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. In his PhD, he is working with the Harakbut people to discuss their self-determination ontologically. He asks what role REDD+ Indigena Amazonico, the counter-proposal to the global conservation initiative REDD+, plays in this. His broader interests include solution mechanisms in the context of climate change, conservation and the rights of nature. Alessio studied Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna (BA), at the University of Leiden (MA) and for a trimester at URACCAN (University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast).
Anne Goletz
INVESTIGATOR
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Researcher at the Philipps-Universität Marburg since 2013. She is a social and cultural anthropologist involved in research projects on graphic communication systems in the Indigenous Americas and the everyday relevance of narratives. She has specialised in trans-specific communication. Since 2014, she has researched and collaborated with the Indigenous Sokorhpa-Yukpa in Colombia. Her research interests include local knowledge systems, relationships between human and more-than-human beings, the Isthmo-Colombian Area, and ethnolinguistic and collaborative methods. Her latest publication is “The Maize Bringer’s Creative Potentials” (2023).
Christiane Clados
INVESTIGATOR
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Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Philipps University Marburg, where she has been teaching since 2012. She completed her doctorate at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research interests lie in visual studies, ranging from theory to methods of analysis. Her work focuses specifically on graphic pluralism in the Americas, with particular emphasis on visual anthropology, art history, and graphic communication systems of the Central Andes and Isthmo-Colombian Area. She has collaborated actively with researchers in the specific disciplines of archaeology, museology, and digital heritage.
Eriko Yamasaki
INVESTIGATOR
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Social anthropologist specializing in biocultural diversity in Latin America. Her research interests include Indigenous languages, human-environment relations, food studies, globalization, and digital activism. She received her Ph.D. (Dr. phil.) in Anthropology of the Americas from the University of Bonn, Germany, in 2019. Her dissertation examined globalization and the maintenance of Yucatec Maya in Mexico. She currently teaches and conducts research at the University of Marburg, Germany. Her recent postdoctoral project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), explored Indigenous engagements with agrobiodiversity and language maintenance in Yucatán, Mexico.
Jenny García Ruales
INVESTIGATOR
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PhD candidate at Philipps University of Marburg and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. A doctoral fellow of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, she previously specialized in anthropological expertise at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador. Her research explores the intersection of the rights of Nature, Indigenous jurisprudence, and ecosystems as legal subjects. Using a militant juridical anthropology approach, she actively supports the Original Kichwa People of Sarayaku and engages in rights of Nature initiatives in both Ecuador and Europe. Her recent collaborative publications include Rights of Nature in Europe and Derechos de la Naturaleza y Territorio en Ecuador. Her upcoming project, Amazon of Rights, is a collaboration with the University of Erfurt, La Trobe University, and the RIFS Potsdam.