Univ.-Prof. Dr. Michael Schnegg
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Every monday, 14-15 PM
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My work engages anthropology with a range of disciplines to better understand how people collectively enact and make sense of the world. Fors so doing, I combine long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico and Namibia with conceptual philosophical work. Recently, this research included two major themes: (1) investigating different ways of experiencing climate change and water scarcity and (2) understanding how it feels to live a rural life in an increasingly urbanizing world (including the experience of collective affectivities such as boredom, nostalgia, and loneliness).
In addition to mobilizing established insights from neighboring disciplines, I contribute to further develop them. In the field of phenomenological anthropology, a recent step in this direction was a workshop (with Th. Breyer at the HIAS) and a joint publication that broadens Stein’s notion of empathy for the study of multi-species worlds.
The results of my work have been published in the American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Current Anthropology, Anthropological Theory, Ethos, Ethnos, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Human Nature, World Development, Social Networks, Sustainability, Society and Ecology, Globalizations, Geoforum, International Journal of Modern Physics C, and other journals.
More specifically, my work traces:
Phenomenological Anthropology
Schnegg, Michael (2025) "Collective Loneliness. Theorizing Emotions as Atmospheres" Current Anthropology 66 (2) http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/734796
Schnegg, Michael (2024) Culture as response. Ethos.
Schnegg, Michael (2023) Phenomenological Anthropology: Philosophical Concepts for Ethnographic Use. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie/Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology 148 (1): 59–102.
Schnegg, Michael (2024) Rural boredom: atmospheres of blocked promises. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Schnegg, Michael (2023) The Un/Ethical Demand: A Responsive Approach to Sharing and Its Ethics. Ethnoscripts 25.
Climate change
Schnegg, Michael. 2021. Ontologies of Climate Change: Reconciling Indigenous and Scientific Explanations for the Lack of Rain in Namibia. American Ethnologist 48 (2):260-273.
Schnegg, Michael. 2021. What Does the Situation Say? Theorizing Multiple Understandings of Climate Change. Ethos 49 (2):194-215.
Schnegg, Michael, Coral I. O’Brian, and Inga J. Sievert. 2021. It’s Our Fault: A Global Comparison of Different Ways of Explaining Climate Change. Human Ecology 49 (3):327-339.
Schnegg, Michael. 2019. The Life of Winds: Knowing the Namibian Weather from Someplace and from Noplace. American Anthropologist 121 (4):830-844.
Emotions and affect
Schnegg, Michael, and Thiemo Breyer. 2022. Empathy Beyond the Human. The Social Construction of a Multispecies World. Ethnos: 1-22.
Schnegg, Michael. 2023. Affekträume: Gefühlvolle Begegnung von Menschen und Natur. In Anthropologie der Emotionen. Affektive Dynamiken in Kultur und Gesellschaft, edited by T. Stodulka, A. von Poser, G. Scheidecker and J. Bens. Berlin: Reimer Verlag.
Temporality
Schnegg, Michael. 2023. There was no future in the past: Time and the environment in rural Namibia. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 13 (1):146-158.
Schnegg, Michael. 2021. Eleven Namibian Rains: A Phenomenological Analysis of Experience in Time. Anthropological Theory 0:1-23.
Schnegg, Michael. 2023. Die Sorgen um das Klima von morgen. In Zeit und Sorge, edited by M. Bitzer, I. Bosbach, L. Brand, J. F. Burow, C. Ehrens, M. S. Hoffmann, J. John, O. Kedenburg, J. Sellig, L. Stiller, A. Henkel, I. Karle, G. Lindemann and M. Werner. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG.
Infrastructure and Institutional Governance
Schnegg, Michael, and Richard Dimba Kiaka. 2018. Subsidized Elephants: Community-based Resource Governance and Environmental (In)justice in Namibia. Geoforum 93:105-115.
Schnegg, Michael. 2018. Institutional Multiplexity: Social Networks and Community-Based Natural Resource Management. Sustainability Science 13 (4):1017-1030.
Schnegg, Michael, and Michael Bollig. 2016. Institutions Put to the Test: Community-based Water Management in Namibia During a Drought. Journal of Arid Environments 124:62-71.
Schnegg, Michael, and Theresa Linke. 2015. Living Institutions: Sharing and Sanctioning Water among Pastoralists in Namibia. World Development 68:205-214.
Sharing
Schnegg, Michael. 2021. Becoming a Debtor to Eat: The Transformation of Food Sharing in Namibia. Ethnos: 1-21.
Schnegg, Michael. 2015. Reciprocity on Demand: Sharing and Exchanging Food in Northwestern Namibia. Human Nature 26 (3):313-330.