Conflicts over Human-Wolf-Coexistence in Northern Germany - The Role of Technologies, Knowledge and Interactions

• Applicant: Dr. Julia Poerting
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 446600467

This project aims to examine attempts of technological mediations for a human-wolf-coexistence in Northern Germany. It hereby focuses on three aspects; (1) the use of different technologies to produce knowledge on wolves, (2) the mobilization of this knowledge within (societal) conflicts and how the (material and discoursive) space of wolves is debated within society, and (3) the materialization of knowledge in the form of fences, laws and protected areas. The project thereby aims to contribute to an integrative perspective of animal geographies, STS and posthuman approaches in order to understand better conflicts over the coexistence of humans and wildlife. Animal geographies offer approaches to understand what happens when wolves’ mobilities challenge human orderings of space, when animals do not answer human expectations on them and what value different actors attribute to them. STS scholarship has shown that technologies have specific socio-cultural contexts and posthuman approaches remind us that technologies rearrange human-animal-relationships via categories or visualizations. This project thereby contributes to the underexplored field of human-animal-technology interactions within nature and biodiversity conservation. It analyzes how technologies and technologically produced knowledge is mobilized within polarized and emotional debates surrounding the (im)possibilities of a human-wolf-coexistence. Within this area of conflict, conflicts over human-wolf-coexistence conflates with other topical debates over rural areas: controversies over wolves in rural landscapes seem to become mobilized for bigger debates over questions of belonging (invasive/native), value (wildlife/livestock) and political marginalization (urban-rural conflicts). On the one hand, the qualitative research design focuses on rural Brandenburg and Lower Saxony. On the other hand, research institutes as well as various government agencies and organizations represent central places for this project, where knowledge on and technologies for wolves are being developed and applied. The project aims to focus both on interactions between humans and wolves as lively, material beings in cultural landscapes as well as on the circulation of parts of his body and his (discursive) representations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants