Current and Recent Projects (Externally Funded)
Changing Environments, Changing Childhoods
This five-year research project (2025–29) investigates the impact of environmental changes on the moral development of children in three Indigenous societies. It is funded by an ERC Starting Grant and carried out by a team of international researchers at the RCC under the direction of Dr. Jan David Hauck.
Communicating Planetary Health
The aim of this project is to support the permanent institutionalization at LMU of the Environmental Humanities (EH). It receives funding from the Volkswagen Foundation.
(Dis)Empowered Communities: A Comparative Study of Decommissioning Nuclear Sites
The project sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation will investigate the socioecological and economic implications of nuclear decommissioning sites in Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the United States.
Epochal Life Worlds: Humans, Nature, and Technology in Narratives of Crisis and Change
The Rachel Carson Center is one of six partners of the Joint Center for Advanced Studies “Worldmaking from a Global Perspective: A Dialogue with China,” a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Foraging at the Edge of Capitalism
The objective of this project is to work process a comprehensive political ecology of foraging in the Anthropocene. The project (2022–26) is funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant.
Fostering the Health-Nutrition-Ecology Nexus: Organic Farming Practices and Household Resilience in Rural Bangladesh and Thailand
The objective of this project is to reveal the links between natural resource use and the human health and nutrition perspective, and to eventually derive a conceptual model of the health-nutrition-ecology nexus. The project is funded by a DFG research grant for 36 months.
Fragments of the Forest
“Fragments of the Forest: Hot Zones, Disease Ecologies, and the Changing Landscape of Environment and Health in West Africa” is a research project supported by an ERC Advanced Grant (2021–2026). It deals with a multi-perspective view of pandemic threats.
Greening Military? On the Transformation of the Armed Forces in the Context of the “Zeitenwende” and Climate Crisis
“Greening Military? On the Transformation of the Armed Forces in the Context of the ‘Zeitenwende’ and Climate Crisis” examines the tensions between Germany's climate goal and its defense budget increase. The project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
Human-Wildlife Conflicts in China
This project focuses on human-wildlife conflicts in China and aims at drawing public attention to this issue.
International Doctorate Program "Rethinking Environment"
This program invites graduate students from a broad range of fields to explore the topic “Rethinking Environment: The Environmental Humanities and the Ecological Transformation of Society” in an intellectually inspiring environment in collaboration with Augsburg University.
Learning Nature(s): A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Children and Nature(s)
This project is the first large-scale comparative study to examine how specific practices of socialization, material engagements, and direct and indirect interactions with natural entities shape children's understandings and relationships with the nonhuman world. It is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
Rethinking Wetlands (ReWet)
“Rethinking Wetlands (ReWet): An Environmental Anthropology of Wetlands“ is a DFG-funded project led by Paolo Gruppuso (2024–27).
Social Impact Mechanisms and Solutions to Human-Wildlife Conflicts in National Parks—Comparing International Experiences
This project is a collaboration between Tongji University, Shanghai, China, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at LMU Munich, Germany, and the Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald, Germany, funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Speak4Nature
The Rachel Carson Center is a part of a new multi-year, international, and interdisciplinary project that focuses on understanding ecological interdependence and the Rights of Nature.
Strengthening the Environmental Humanities
The aim of this project is to support the permanent institutionalization of the Environmental Humanities (EH) at LMU. It receives funding from the Volkswagen Foundation.
Textile Waste in Emerging Economies: Management and Governance Toward a Circular System
“Textile Waste in Emerging Economies” is the project of Humboldt Fellow Anwesha Borthakur. She works on the project between April 2024 and November 2025.
Vanport, Oregon: Environmental Justice, Displacement, and the Reconstruction of a “Lost City”
This project traces the history of Vanport, a wartime housing project built near Portland, Oregon, in 1942–43 which now stands as a symbol of resilience against racism, adversity, and environmental injustice. The project is led by Prof. Dr. Uwe Lübken.