Place-based Ecologies

View of the Watzmann. Photo Credit: Günter Seggebäing, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48562061.

The place-based workshop is one of the Environmental Studies Program’s most important yearly events. This year, Environmental Studies students will have the opportunity to explore and compare two different landscapes from interdisciplinary perspectives: The contested conservation ecologies of the Berchtesgaden National Park in Bavaria, and the agricultural landscape of the Allgäu, a region near Munich.

During the excursions, we will address the following: What types of questions do botanists, environmental historians, geologists, geographers, and anthropologists ask when exploring the naturecultures of these places? How do their perspectives differ from those of farmers, hunters, park rangers, tourists, or environmentalists? What insights can we gain by going out into landscapes? How does a landscape—mountain regions, farms and forests, and the animals, plants, fungi and bacteria that live there—shape its people and their practices? How does the “Anthropocene” manifest in these place-based ecologies? How might the future of the landscape look?

Students planting potatoes at Allgäu region near Munich. Photo Credit: Ursula Münster.

Dates:

From 8 June to 10 June 2018, we will explore agricultural alternatives in the Allgäu region near Munich. We will visit different farms, and Jochen Koller, diploma permaculture-designer and director of the “Forschungsinstitut für Permakultur und Transition” (FIPT), will provide insights into the practices, ethics, and design principles of permaculture.

A preparatory meeting for this event will take place on 3 May 2018, 15:00 to 16:00, 4th-floor conference room, RCC

From 30 June to 2 July 2018, we will look at the Berchtesgaden National Park from different disciplinary perspectives. The workshop features an interdisciplinary team of teachers, including Dr. Andreas Gröger (head conservator and botanist, Botanical Garden, Munich), Dr. Ute Hasenöhrl (environmental historian, Innsbruck University), Dr. Simon Kübler (paleoseismologist and tectonic geomorphologist, LMU Munich), and Dr. Ursula Münster (social and cultural anthropologist, RCC, LMU Munich).

A preparatory meeting for this event will take place on 3 May 2018, 16:00 to 17:00, 4th-floor conference room, RCC

The place-based workshops, limited to 15 students each, can be attended together or as two separate events. Students who attend both place-based workshops can gain 6 ECTS credit points. If you can only participate in one event, you will get 3 ECTS. Please register for both events via LSF.