Synthetic chemicals are ubiquitous. They circulate in large amounts turning organisms and their environments anthropogenic and constituting life as aftermath (Landecker 2025). Trying to understand life as aftermath challenges modern chemistry and the life sciences. I propose here to use relational-processual ontology, para-siting/parasighting, and anthropology’s anticipatory competences to develop in collaboration with chemistry situated and public chemical practices that are able to expand beyond their current progressive commitments to economic growth, molecular knowledge, and reductionist risk assessment and that are able to address life as aftermath. In a second step, I argue for a Wissenschaft after progress as a Wissenschaft able to address anthropocenic challenges, and I suggest the need for post-heroic, collective, and cooperative institutions as homes to a more-than-progressive Wissenschaft.

In this paper we extend the use of a relational approach to simulation modelling, a widely used knowledge practice in sustainability science. Among modellers, there is awareness that model results can only be interpreted in view of the assumptions that inform model construction and analysis, but less systematic questioning of those assumptions. Moreover, current methodological discussions tend to focus on integrating social and ecological dynamics or diverse knowledges and data within a model. Yet choices regarding types of modelling, model structure, data handling, interpretation of results and model validation are not purely epistemic. They are entangled with values, contexts of production and use, power relations, and pragmatic considerations. Situated Modelling extends a relational understanding of the world to scientific knowledge production and with that to modelling itself in order to enable a systematic interrogation of these choices and to research social-ecological transformations relationally. To make tangible the situatedness of simulation modelling, we build on existing practices and describe the situatedness of three distinct modelling approaches. We then suggest four guiding principles for Situated Modelling: 1. attending to the apparatus of knowledge production that is socially and materially embedded and produced by e.g. research infrastructures, power relations, and ways of thinking; 2. considering how agency is distributed between model, world, data, modeller in model construction; 3. creating heterogenous collectives which together occupy the formerly individualised subject position; and 4. using agonism as an epistemic virtue to retain and work with significant differentiations of social-ecological dynamics throughout the modelling process.

LinkLab is a newly established working group under the umbrella of German Committee Future Earth (DKN Future Earth). It opens up a space to discuss relevant connections and interfaces between real-world lab research and various scientific disciplines, exploring fruitful connections and pathways for mutual learning for future sustainability-oriented research.

Abstract The notion of infrastructure commonly refers to the networked technical support structures that facilitate the provision of services and the movement of goods, people, and ideas through space. In anthropology, the notion of infrastructure also designates an analytic. As such, infrastructure is sensitive to the constant interweaving of technical objects, social organization, knowledge practices, and moral orders. Three key perspectives have been formative for this analytic: historical materialism, the historical and social construction of technology, and the ethnography of infrastructure. The wealth of current infrastructure research revolves around the discussion of four current topics: technopolitics, poetics and promises, paradoxes, and thinking infrastructures. Infrastructure as a theoretical framework holds potential as a new Anthropocene anthropology through minor and terrestrial infrastructuring.

Dans cet article, je m’intéresse à la relation qu’une recherche interdisciplinaire sur les conséquences du changement climatique (ou « impacts climatiques ») entretient avec la politique du climat, en particulier en Allemagne. J’esquisserai d’abord le style de pensée dominant dans ce champ de recherche et montrerai comment l’accent mis sur la modélisation rend invisibles certaines différences (sociales) significatives. Sur cette base, et en prenant l’exemple allemand des comités d’experts, j’examinerai la manière dont l’action politique en contexte d’incertitude fait naître entre la science et la politique une relation qui conduit à un rétrécissement – toujours aussi d’ordre disciplinaire – de la pratique scientifique et à une dépolitisation du discours politique. J’opposerai à cette évolution une recherche sur les impacts climatiques qui soit publique, assume sa dimension politique, et s’engage avec tous ses modèles dans un processus de problématisation, dont l’objectif est la recherche d’un nouvel ordre moral qui respecte les limites planétaires.

This paper is concerned with emergent more-than-human eating practices and how they might challenge received understandings of bioand geopolitics.After a brief review of the anthropology of food and eating and how its concerns may have to be expanded in the Anthropocene, we briefly analyse three empirical cases of anticipatory more-than-human eating practices: a set of artistic anticipations of future eating; microbiome research and related biohacking practices; and research on future food security in the context of planetary boundaries. We discuss how all three cases make the boundaries between body|mind|environment porous. The ›I‹ of the embodied human subject emerges as multiple—colonised and accompanied by a panoply of microorganisms. How might such a collective be subject to governance and 'self‹-technologies? We close by pleading for an experimental para-sitic anthropology that critically addresses emergent forms of bio/geopolitics in the Anthropocene.

Wissen als Praxis zu begreifen, ist in der Europaischen Ethnologie heute selbstverstandlich. Erkenntnisse der Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung, feministischer Kritiken und praxistheoretischer Entwicklungen haben sich produktiv mit fachlichen Problematisierungen von Rationalitat, materieller und epistemischer Kultur verbunden. Im Zuge dieser Entwicklungen ist zunehmend die Performativitat von Wissenspraktiken betont worden, d. h. ihre notwendigerweise immer auch gestaltende Weltwirksamkeit. Dies wiederum hat Anthropolog*innen ermutigt, verstarkt mit ethnografischen Methoden zu experimentieren, um eben jene Weltwirksamkeit besser kontrollieren bzw. entfalten zu konnen. Konzepte von Wissenstransfer und mode 2 Wissensproduktion sind ersetzt worden durch Interventionen, Ko-Produktion/Kreation/Design, Kollaboration, experimental entanglement und Ko-Laboration. Uns interessiert in diesem Beitrag die Frage, was diese Entwicklung praktisch fur ethnografische Theorieproduktion bedeutet. Wir entwickeln unsere Argumentation an vier Forschungsfeldern, die derzeit in unserem Labor ethnografisch im Rahmen von fortgeschrittenen Dissertationsprojekten bearbeitet werden: Genesungsbegleitung in psychiatrischen Kliniken (Schmid), Praktiken des Plattformwirtschaftens in digitalen start-up Okosystemen (Josties), Offener Dialog in der Psychiatrie als prozessuale Therapieform (Cubellis) und Skalierung in Modellen fur Mensch-Umwelt Beziehungen (Klein). Wir legen besonderen Wert auf das gemeinschaftliche ›Fugen‹ von Theorie und Reflexivitat und beleuchten fallubergreifend drei Fragen genauer: Welche Konsequenzen hat die Verteilung von epistemischer Handlungstragerschaft fur ethnografische Theoriebildung? Wie mussen Differenzierungen in ko-laborativer Forschung kuratiert werden? Wo liegen Herausforderungen, Grenzen und Risiken dieser Herangehensweise?

Pressure ulcers (decubiti) are one of the most frequent side effects in the palliative care setting. Terminally ill and dying people have multiple comorbidities resulting in a high risk to develop pressure ulcers. These skin lesions are caused by pressure, friction and shearing forces in combination with several risk factors (e.g. moisture, tissue condition). People of all ages with reduced activity can suffer from decubitus ulcers. In palliative care, the treatment of symptoms to ensure the highest possible quality of life is of primary importance. Ethical controversies and difficult decision-making often lead to uncertainties and burdens for caregivers, patients and relatives. In the DekuProSys project, a decubitus prophylaxis system for inpatient and outpatient palliative care of people of all ages is being developed. The system will assist caregivers in patient care in multiple ways. It will capture and report risk factors for decubitus, assist at decision making and documentation. Furthermore, it will provide care information and instruction if needed. Aiming for an innovative and useful solution, the project follows a user-centered and interdisciplinary approach.

Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations*The Laboratory: Anthropology of Environment | Human Relations is a research and writing collective based at Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin’...