Urgency Amplifiers

My research on "Urgency Amplifiers: Futuring Ecological Repair in Late Industrial Sicily", is about questioning how different economic, social, and political actors in Sicily are responding to climate urgency in the context of years of fossil fuel exploitation on the island and how and in which ways these are working creatively towards an ecological future. This research is highly needed to understand energy policy developments and alternative receptions and counter-narratives in Sicily in particular and in Europe in general. As part of a critical and necessary reflection on hegemonic productions of knowledge about climate change and urgency, this research aims to focus on local and young knowledge and networks, making a significant anthropological contribution to engagement, understanding, and addressing climate change. This research will start from different levels of actors in order to work with local activists, political and economic actors in the broadest and at the same time ethnographically in-depth spectrum possible. The theoretical foundation will be a critical interrogation of the notion of urgency through which temporal and moral levels of negotiation will be focused, interrogated, and interrelated.

Doctoral Candidate: Luisa Mohr

​​I am a PhD candidate at University Catania, focusing on futuring ecological repair in the late industrial context of Sicily, under the supervision of Prof. Mara Benadusi and Luca Ruggiero (University Catania). My academic background is primarily in Social and Cultural Anthropology. After my BA in Political Science and Ethnology at University Halle I had the chance to not only deepen my knowledge in Social and Cultural Anthropology in my Master at University Bayreuth, but also to gather experiences in doing fieldwork in Southern Italy because of its research orientation and focus on an ethnographic praxis. I have always been involved in civil society and activist groups in addition to my studies in order to personally live this connection between science and engagement and hope to further deepen this ambition in my PhD. The idea of an engaged and public anthropology is the way I want to work in the long-term scientifically. I believe that anthropology and a collaborative ethnographic approach to climate change are enriching and necessary in understanding its deep causes and political effects.