Forskarseminarium: "Creatures of the Lines: Engaging the Ecologies of..." med Heather Anne Swanson

Seminarium

Datum: måndag 10 februari 2025

Tid: 13.00 – 14.30

Plats: B600

Forskarseminarium: "Creatures of the Lines: Engaging the Ecologies of British Canals through an Art-Science-Anthropology Collaboration" med Heather Anne Swanson

Abstract:

This talk – based on collaborative work with London-based artist Sonia Levy – focuses on British inland transportation canals and the assemblages of species that now dwell within them, including a number of invasive species. These canals, which came to criss-cross England from the late 18th century onwards, were part of a vast project of ecological globalization. As arteries of the British Empire, the canals linked Indian cotton fields to domestic textile mills, facilitating vast ecological transformations from monoculture agriculture in the colonies to industrial discharges in England’s waters, soils, and air. Today, the canals continue to embody transnational connections, as they provide pathways and habitats for the growing number of non-native aquatic species brought to the region via industrial shipping lines.
Focusing on the material form of the canals, their entanglement with trade, and their ecological effects, this talk seeks to expand on efforts to build new “arts of living on a damaged planet” (Tsing et al 2017) that bring together the social and natural sciences. At the same time, it asks about the special challenges of bringing anthropologically inspired methods to aquatic spaces. To view canal infrastructure both as a geopolitical project and as lived by aquatic organisms below the waterline, the project combined field techniques such as underwater filming and aquatic insects and experimented with research presentation genres, including social science writing, a natural science journal article, and an artist film. This talk will feature elements of all three, including a screening of part of the film, as it grapples with larger questions about the possibilities, challenges, and uncertainties of “research impact” in environmental anthropology.

Bio:

Heather Anne Swanson is a professor of anthropology and the head of the Centre for Environmental Humanities (CEH) at Aarhus University who earned her PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2013. Through her work on environmental issues, interdisciplinary collaboration and more-than-human methods, she has become a leading figure in the field of environmental humanities. Her book, Spawning Modern Fish: Transnational Comparison in the Making of Japanese Salmon (2022), won the prestigious Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology.

BIOrdinary 2025 Seminar Series 

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