What are you going to work with at IFIKK?
I am a postdoctoral researcher with the Dynamic Territory ERC-project. The project is led by Prof. Alejandra Mancilla, with Patrik Baard also working as a Postdoc and a PhD student, respectively working on different aspects of the project. The core idea of the DynamiTE project is the conceptualisation of territory as dynamic, which is relevant for different research themes such as migration, resource use and so on. In my own sub-project as part of this project, I am particularly interested in the relationship between different notions of land, different conceptualisations of sustainability, nature conservation and (non-anthropocentric) justice. Within this matrix we can find many conflicts of interest pertaining to land-use, which are becoming more common not just due to conditions of environmental change but also due to the demands of the sustainability transition.
Can you tell us a bit about your research interests?
I am specialised in environmental and political philosophy, and I have been working on different themes that fall into the overlap between these two fields. Recently, I have been more focusing on the political theory side of things, such as the role of sustainability and resilience in political theorising, problems of responsibility and burden-sharing for biodiversity protection and so on. But I have also worked on themes that fall more into the remit of environmental ethics, such as on the moral standing of nonhuman beings (e.g., biocentrism, microbes as problem-cases, the notion of natural otherness), the biodiversity concept and the ethics of species extinctions. One consistency throughout has been my interest in interspecies justice – that is, non-anthropocentric theories of justice – and its theoretical relevance for political thought and its practical relevance for nature conservation.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
In the summer I spend a lot of time outdoors, but I turn more towards indoor hobbies such as baking in the winter.