The international Thyssen workshop “Disabled Bodies at Work: Utopias for Work Worlds Yet to Come” took place in the second week of July on a topic that will continue to preoccupy societies for years to come. How do people work in the face of rising rates of disability and chronic illness?

Join us on Monday, 6 July, for our twelfth and last lecture, “Parahuman Intelligence and Pedagogies of Refusal in the AI.POCALYPSE.” Nasima Selim (University of Bremen) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 29 June, for the lecture, “Reckoning during Geopolitical Shifts: Zambia’s Mining Industry, Swiss Commodity Trade, and their Interdependencies.” Rita Kesselring (University of St. Gallen) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 22 June, for our tenth lecture, “Becoming Island: Chiquitano Land Dispossession and Racialized Fire Politics in Lowland Bolivia.” Mareike Winchell (LSE) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Wir laden herzlich zur Antrittsvorlesung von Dr. Arne Harms im Rahmen des Habilitationsverfahrens ein! Dr. Arne Harms spricht zum Thema: „Die vielen Leben einer Kohlenstoffsenke: Umweltbeziehungen, Wald und Finanzialisierung im indischen Himalaya“.

Join us on Monday, 15 June, for the screening of “Waiting in a Platinum City” as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.” The film screening is followed by a Q&A with producer and director Joseph Mujere (University of York).

Join us on Monday, 8 June, for our eighth lecture, “Prefiguring Futures in the Ruins of Late Industrialism: Perspectives from the Central German Mining District.” Asta Vonderau (MLU Halle-Wittenberg) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 1 June, for our seventh lecture, “Extractive Lifeworlds: The Tin Mines of Laos.” Oliver Tappe (University of Cologne) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 18 May, for our sixth lecture, “Who Do You Call Complicit? Thoughts on Beneficiaries of War-Financing Gold from Sudan.” Enrico Ille (Leipzig University) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Check out the new special issue "Youths, Media and Performance: How young people remember violent pasts"! Anthropological Forum, Volume 35, Issue 2 (2025) Guest Editors: Sina Emde & Birgit Bräuchler Link (OPEN ACCESS): www.tandfonline.com/toc/canf20/3...

Join us on Monday, 11 May, for our fifth lecture “Extracting the Future: Lithium in an Era of Energy Transition.” Mark Goodale (University of Lausanne) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 4 May, for our fourth lecture “Green Energy Production Beyond the Double Bind? The Example of Geothermal in Kenya.” Clemens Greiner (University of Cologne) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 27 April, for our third lecture “Along the Seams of Extractivism: Tracing the Circuits of Post-Cyclone Reconstruction in Beira.” Jon Schubert (University of Basel) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Join us on Monday, 20 April, for our second lecture, “Labor on the Line: Justice at Work on Assam Tea Plantations.” Anna-Lena Wolf (MLU Halle-Wittenberg) will present as part of the lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures.”

Monday, 13 April, marks the start of our new lecture series "Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures"! The first lecture, "Mapping Petromodernities and beyond: Towards a Geoanthropological Understanding of Multi-Extractive Cultures", will be given by Benjamin Steininger (MPI Jena).

The Institute of Anthropology and the Institute of African Studies cordially invite you to our upcoming lecture series “Extractivism, Conflicts, and Desired Futures” at Leipzig University. ⏰ Mondays, 5-7 PM 📌 Lecture Hall 12 (Universitätsstraße 3) 💻 and live-streamed on Zoom

BOOK PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION: "Energy's History. Toward a Global Canon" by Daniela Ruß and Thomas Turnbull The book presentation is followed by comments by Benjamin Steininger and Alexander Klose. The session is chaired by Andrea Behrends.

OPENING RECEPTION January brings two special occasions to celebrate: Firstly, our institute is changing its name from “Ethnology” to “Cultural and Social Anthropology,” and secondly, we are honoring the project work of our students, which was created as part of the new degree program structure.

(New Publication Alert) 🧬❗ In this chapter, I discuss the intricate relationship between population genetics and politics in India, focusing on the making of the categories "Ancestral North Indian" (ANI) and "Ancestral South Indian" (ASI).

I highlight how recent population genetic research, while aiming to separate science from politics, can inadvertently reinforce existing inequalities and (Hindu) nationalist ideologies, urging for a more thoughtful engagement with these complex issues.

You can see the chapter in the open access book "The Order of People: Contesting Bio-Scientific Human Classifications" here: www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...

The Order of People

Human classifications: An examination of underlying epistemologies, ambiguities, and politics that reveals how concepts such as race, ethnicity, and ancestry are employed in the life sciences today.

transcript-verlag.de

JOB ADVERTISEMENT: 2 research assistants (doctoral candidates) 🔍To find out more about the available positions, please visit the following link: uni-leipzig.b-ite.careers/jobposting/2...

If you want to read the full essay, follow this link: allegralaboratory.net/alternatives...

JOB ADVERTISEMENT:

Our Staff at the DGSKA Conference An overview of the activities of our institute’s staff members at the conference of the German Association for Social and Cultural Anthropology, taking place in Cologne from September 29 to October 2, 2025.

BOOK DISCUSSION | Friday, 12. September, 18:30 | FHXB-Museum (& online) A Reading and Discussion of the Book “Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve” (2024), with authors Urmilla Deshpande and Thiago Pinto Barbosa, in conversation with Lisette Jong.

We cordially invite you to the workshop “Transnational Entanglements of Racial Anthropology: History and Legacy”, which will take place in Berlin and online on September 11-13, 2025. See program, more information and online attendance links in our institute’s website (link in bio).

Issue on Labor and Disability, guest-edited by Giorgio Brocco and Stefanie Mauksch in Anthropology of Work Review. The special issue “Laboring from Ex-centric Sites: Chronicity, Disability, and Work” explores the entanglements of health and labour from a cross-cultural perspective.

“Fragments of Leipzig – Visual Ethnographies in Urban Space” was the title of the student exhibition that opened on July 10 with a well-attended vernissage at Späti Bar Makan. The vernissage also served as the summer party of the Institute of Anthropology.

*Call for Papers* Submit a manuscript to the journal “Entrepreneurship & Regional Development” for a special issue on “Entrepreneurship meets Anthropology: investigating the intersections” ⏱️ Manuscript deadline: 01 July 2026