Luděk Brož
Luděk Brož
QUALIFICATIONS
2008 PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK
2003 MPhil. in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK
2002 MA in Ethnology, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
Veterinary Anthropology, Hunting, More-Than-Human Sociality, Anthropology of Religion, Science Studies, Anthropology of Knowledge, Perception of Archaeology, Suicide
RESEARCH PROFILE
In my current work I focus on what I coined ‘veterinarization of society’ and the way it shapes joined human-porcine futures. My ambition is to contribute with the BOAR project to better understand the role of veterinary expertise in contemporary societies—in human-animal relations and beyond—thus helping to build the emerging field of veterinary anthropology.
My previous area of expertise and long-term interest has been Siberia, namely the Republic of Altai, where I conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork. I was fascinated by the predicament of living in – and off – land that is animated by numerous non-human agencies, but is simultaneously home to world-famous archaeological heritage and a fallout zone for second stages of Baikonur rockets. Drawing on science and technology studies, I traced how the contested negative externalities of both archaeological work and the space industry feature in local explanatory economy and identity politics.
Research output
Books
2024 Evil Spirits and Rocket Debris: In Search of Lost Souls in Siberia. New York: Berghahn.
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
2023 Veterinary Anthropology: Samples from an Emerging Field. Research topic of Frontiers in Veterinary Science. (co-editors Keck, Frédéric – Weich, Kerstin)
2015 Arctic Mobilities. Special section of Mobilities 10(4). (co-editor Habeck, Joachim Otto)
2015 Symetrická antropologie [Symmetrical Anthropology]. Special issue of Cargo: časopis pro kulturní / sociální antropologii. 1-2. (co-editor Stöckelová, Tereza)
2015 Suicide and Agency: Anthropological perspectives on self-destruction, personhood and power. Farnham: Ashgate. (co-editor Münster, Daniel)
(re-published by Routledge; paperback 2020)
Journal Articles
2025 The Many Boar Identities: Understanding Difference and Change in the Geographies of European Wild Boar Management. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 68 (3): 728–750. (co-authors von Essen, Erica – O’Mahony, Kieran – Szczygielska, Marianna – Gieser, Thorsten – Vaté, Virginie – Arregui, Aníbal Garcia)
2023 Veterinary Anthropology: Samples from an Emerging Field. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10:1053256. (co-authors Keck, Frédéric – Weich, Kerstin)
2021 Wild Boar Events and the Veterinarization of Multispecies Coexistence. Frontiers in Conservation Science 2:711299. (co-authors O'Mahony, Kieran – Arregui, Aníbal Garcia)
2018 The culture of orphaned texts: Academic books in a performance-based evaluation system. Aslib: Journal of Information Management, 70 (6): 623-642. (co-author Stöckelová, Tereza)
2018 Le fantôme et les autres. Commensalités dangereuses et devenirs compromis en Sibérie méridionale. Terrain: Anthropologie & Sciences Humaines 69: 59-75.
Ghost and the other Dangerous commensalities and twisted becomings (ENG version)
2015 Siberian Automobility Boom: From the Joy of Destination to the Joy of Driving There. Mobilities 10 (4): 552-570. (co-author Habeck, Joachim Otto)
2015 Introduction: Experience and Emotion in Northern Mobilities. Mobilities 10 (4): 511-517. (co-author Habeck, Joachim Otto)
2015 Přísliby a úskalí symetrie: sociální vědy v zemi za zrcadlem (The Promises and Difficulties of Symmetry: Through the Looking-Glass and What the Social Sciences Found There). Cargo – journal of socio-cultural anthropology 1,2: 5-33. (co-author Stöckelová, Tereza)
2012 When Good Luck is Bad Fortune: Between too Little and too Much Hunting Success in Siberia. Social Analysis - The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice 56 (1-2): 73-89. (co-author Willerslev, Rane)
2009 Substance, Conduct and History: “Altaian-ness” in the 21 Century. Sibirica: Journal of Siberian Studies 8 (2): 43-70.
2007 Pastoral Perspectivism: A View from Altai. Inner Asia 9 (2): 291-310.
Book Chapters
In press A Fence in Time: Chrono-Material Ecologies of Decay, Governance, and Knowledge. In: M. Eilenberg & A. P. Harrisson (eds.): Fences and Biosecurity: The Politics of Governing Unruly Nature. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. (co-author Pohl Harrisson, Annika)
2019 Holiday Convergences, Holiday Divergences: Siberian Leisure Mobilities Under Late Socialism and After. In: J. Habeck (ed.): Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, pp. 131-166. doi:10.11647/OBP.0171 (co-author Habeck, Joachim Otto)
2015 The anthropology of suicide: Ethnography and the tension of agency. In: L. Broz & D. Münster (eds.): Suicide and Agency: Anthropological perspectives on self-destruction, personhood and power. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 3-23. (co-author Münster, Daniel)
2015 Four Funerals and a Wedding: Suicide, Sacrifice and (non-)Human Agency in a Siberian Village. In: L. Broz & D. Münster (eds.): Suicide and Agency: Anthropological perspectives on self-destruction, personhood and power. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 85-102.
2015 Vom Himmel gefallen: Auf dem Weg zu einer symmetrischen Anthropologie der Raumfahrtindustrie. In: P. W. Stockhammer & H. P. Hahn (eds.): Lost in Things: Fragen an die Welt des Materiellen, ihre Funktionen und Bedeutungen. Münster: Waxmann, pp. 81-103.
2010 Spirits, Genes and Walt Disney’s Deer: creativity in identity and archaeology disputes (Altai, Siberia). In P. Fortis & I. Praet (eds.): The Archaeological Encounter: Anthropological Perspectives. St Andrews: CAS, pp. 263-297.
2009 Conversion to Religion? Negotiating Continuity and Discontinuity in Contemporary Altai. In M. Pelkmans (ed.): Conversion After Socialism: Disruptions, Modernities and the Technologies of Faith.Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 17-37.
Complete Bibliography (PDF)
Ongoing Projects and Grants
2020–2025 Veterinarization of Europe? Hunting for Wild Boar Futures in the Time of African Swine Fever (BOAR). The European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 866350). Principal Investigator.
Past Projects and Grants
2018-20 TANDEM - The Czech Academy of Sciences and CEFRES/CNRS (Co-PI)
2013-15 Postdoctoral research grant, Czech Science Foundation. Principal Investigator.
Editorial Work
2022-now Editorial board member of the Czech Sociological Review. ISSN 0038-0288 (print), e-ISSN 2336-128X (online)
2007- now Editorial board member and book series editor, SLON (Sociology Press), since 2021 imprint of Karolinum Press, Prague, Czech Republic
1999-2003 Co-founder and editorial board member, Cargo - journal of socio-cultural anthropology. ISSN 1212-4923 (print), e-ISSN 2336-1956 (online)
2001-2002 Book series editor, Cargo Publishers, Prague, Czech Republic
Board Memberships
2023- Board of doctoral studies – Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University
2023- Scientific board member, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
2023- Advisory board member, Formas funded project BIOrdinary, Stockholm University, Sweden
2021- Board of doctoral studies – General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University
2008-2015 Member of Executive Committee of the Czech Association for Social Anthropology
External Reviewing
Project Evaluation: Czech Science Foundation GACR (Member and a vice-chair of a panel 2014-17), ERC (Remote Expert Referee for starting, consolidator, advanced levels)
Book Proposal and Manuscript Evaluation: Berghahn Books
Journal Articles Manuscript Review: American Anthropologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Annals of the Náprstek Museum, Biograf: Journal for Qualitative Research, Český lid, Cultural Anthropology, Czech Sociological Review, Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, History and Anthropology, Inner Asia, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Mobilities, Oxford University Press, Religio: Revue pro religionistiku, Science Technology and Human Values, Sibirica: Journal of Siberian Studies, Traditions
Invited Talks, Public Lectures or Roundtables
2024 April, 15. Out of Africa 2.0: Following African Swine Fever. Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, Sweden
2023 June, 15. Keynote lecture: Beyond the Farm and Back Again? African swine fever between domesticated forests and wild pork markets. Conference: Epizootics Beyond the Farm: Historical and Ethnographic Approaches. University of St Andrews, UK
2020 October, 8. Keynote lecture: Veterinarization of the Future and its Zoonotic Limits. Conference: Doing Animal Health in more-than-human Worlds.
Messerli Research Institute, University of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna & University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria
2019 April,18. Bewildering Boar: Changing Cosmopolitics of the Hunt in Europe and BeyondMusée du quai Branly, Paris, France. (co-panelist Virginie Vaté).
2019 April, 16. The Trojan Boar: Biosecuritization and/of Hunting in Europe. Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Hamburg University, Germany
Conference and Workshop Organisation
2024- Co-organiser of the Department of Ecological Anthropology seminar series, Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. (6 seminars in the first year, hybrid format with speaker present in person, more than 400 subscribers worldwide.)
2022 November, 27-30. Co-organiser of the workshop What is Hunting? Anthropological perspectives on (pig) hunting, Czech Academy of Sciences, Třešť, Czech republic.
2020 August, 18-21. Member of the local organising committee - EASST/4S conference – Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and agency of STS in emerging worlds, Prague, Czech Republic.
2019 September, 10-11. Co-organiser of the workshop Emigrating Animals and Migratory Humans: Belonging, Prosperity and Security in More-Than-Human World, Czech Academy of Sciences and CEFRES, Prague, Czech Republic.
2016 March, 19-20. Co-organiser of the conference Suicidology’s Cultural Turn, and Beyond. Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic.
Public Outreach
2024 Expert collaboration with HaDivadlo on the theatre adaptation of Anastassija Martin’s In the Eye of the Wild (https://www.hadivadlo.cz/en/hra/verit-v-selmy/)
2023 Metabolické intimity a Africký mor prasat. Academix Revue - Biosociální metabilismus 7: 46-49.
2016 Ze života jednoho kafemlejnku. Lidové noviny – Orientace VIII: 26.
2016 Otázka života a smrti. Lidové noviny – Orientace VI: 24-25.
