The Department of Ecological Anthropology invites you to the last seminar in our 2024 series. This talk, given by Markéta Zandlová, is entitled "Facing Climate Crisis: The productive connectivity of drought" (see the abstract below). The event will take place in Prague on Thursday, November 14, 2024, commencing at 14:00 (CET) in the conference room on the fifth floor at the Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences. You are welcome to attend in person at the IE CAS, or online via Microsoft Teams. To register for the seminar, please click here.

 

Abstract:
Severe droughts are amongst the much-discussed impacts of the climate crisis. If we look for a definition of drought, we find that by the 1980s, over 150 definitions had been published (Wilhite and Glantz, 1985), attempting to capture both its natural and socio-economic dimensions. Drought has apparently resisted efforts to be categorized as either social or natural, forcing scholars to accept its socio-natural qualities, long before the concepts of naturecultures, socio-nature, or the Anthropocene emerged.

In my presentation, I will elaborate on the notion of drought as a relational socio-natural phenomenon. Drought will serve as an “interscalar vehicle … a tool and object of analysis” (Hecht 2017), allowing me to travel across spatial and temporal scales and unpack the material, political, and epistemological connections it creates and simultaneously makes visible. ‘Thinking with drought’, I argue, offers an analytical perspective and a practical stance in a world facing multiple crises.

Markéta Zandlová is an environmental anthropologist based at Charles University.

We hope to see you in Prague or online!