The Department of Ecological Anthropology invites you to the upcoming seminar talk ‘Tuning into the garden’s rhythms amidst the climate crisis?: A temporal ethnography of a community garden in Berlin‘ by Jan van Duppen, an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin. The talk will be in English. Please find the abstract and author biography below 

 

The lecture will take place on Thursday 10.4.2025 at 14:00 (CET) in the seminar room of the Institute of Ethnology CAS, Na Florenci 3, Prague 1. To attend in person or online, please register here.

Abstract: This paper develops an alternative qualitative concept of temporality as it aims to counter quantified notions of time and abstract models of the planet heating up and attempt to ‘save time’ from the tentacles of capitalism. Based on ethnography, it grapples with the supposedly distant and long-term idea of climate change and the immediate everyday challenges of living in a city heating up. Through discussing the site of a community garden project in Berlin, a conflictual, embodied and situated notion of the climate crisis is presented.

 

Bio: Jan van Duppen is an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin. His work stretches across cultural geography and urban studies and weaves together the themes of the commons and the multispecies city, play and work, and mobility and travel. Jan holds a PhD in Geography from the Open University (UK). Recent publications: ‘Caring for Foxes at the Allotment’ (Urban Natures, 2023), ‘Leaks and Rumblings’ (2023) in Mediapolis, and ‘Seeing Patterns on the Ground’ (2020) in Open Arts Journal.