Maike Melles
Maike Melles
QUALIFICATIONS
2023 Dr. phil., Social and Cultural Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt
2017 M.A., International Studies/Peace and Conflict Research, Goethe University Frankfurt
2015 B.A., Political Science and Economics, Münster University
2012 B.A., German Studies and Social and Cultural Anthropology, Münster University
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
Landscapes; Environmental Anthropology; Cultural Heritage; Sustainability; Socioecological Transformation; Anthropology of Resources; Moral Economy; Environmental Memory; Southern Europe (Spain); Central Europe (Netherlands)
RESEARCH PROFILE
My research pursues two major strands. My first and ongoing focus on landscapes emerges from my PhD research on the Spanish dehesa. Having conducted more than one year of fieldwork in southern Spain, I am fascinated with the sheer multiplicity of landscapes: They are sites of everyday and ritual practice, have aesthetic value, interact with cultural interests and ideas, provide a source of belonging, are legal spaces with moral and economic charge and as such may reflect historically grown inequalities, become contested as objects of power relations, bundle multiple temporalities, and are constituted by more-than-human relations.
My second research focus has evolved in the context of the RESOURCE project, which studies the frugal use of resources in Czechia and the Netherlands. Through the lens of practices around food waste and drinking water in Dutch households, I seek to find out more about people’s efforts and strategies to avoid waste, and how they perceive and relate to these vital resources in their everyday lives. Another interest lies in the everyday and more institutionalised constructions of waste and of other categories related to resource use, such as freshness and cleanliness.
