Research Interests

• Development studies
• International environmental, climate, energy and resource politics
• Political Ecology, socio-ecological crisis and transformation
• Global political economy
• Democracy theory and politics
• Social movements studies and contentious politics
• Critical Agrarian Studies and rural transformation
• Regional focus: Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa

Past and current research projects

• 2014 – 2019 (completed): “GLOCON: Global change – local conflicts? Land conflicts in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in the context of interdependent transformation processes” (FU Berlin, with Prof. Bettina Engels). Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the Ministry's funding program “Junior Research Group Global Change 4+1”
• July 2009 to October 2013 (completed): “Fair-Fuels? - Between dead end and energy transition: A social-ecological multilevel analysis of transnational biofuel policy.” In partnership with the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW, Berlin) and the German Development Institute (DIE, Bonn). Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the framework of the Ministry's socio-ecological research (SÖF).

Academic Career

• 2020-2022 substitute professor at the Institute for International and Intersocietal Relations, Universität Kassel
• 2014-2019 Director of the Junior Research Group “Global change – local conflicts? Land conflicts in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in the context of interdependent transformation processes” (with Bettina Engels), Freie Universität Berlin
• 2013-2014 Fellow, ”International Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America“, desiguALdades.net, Ibero-American Institute - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut der Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz), Berlin
• 2009-2013 Postdoctoral Researcher and Co-Director of the Junior Research Group “Fair-Fuels? - Between dead end and energy transition: A social-ecological multilevel analysis of transnational biofuel policy.” (with Bernd Hirschl, Institute for Ecological Economy Research - IÖW)
• 2010 Ph.D. in Political Sciences, Universität Kassel, Subject of doctoral thesis: ”Complex vulnerabilities: Political and socio-ecological dimensions of climate-vulnerability”
• 2007 Predoctoral Researcher, Department of Social Sciences, Universität Kassel. Coordination of the PhD program "Global Social Policy and Governance“
• 2004-2007 Predoctoral Researcher at the Otto Suhr Institute (Otto-Suhr-Institut), FU Berlin. Research project “Global Governance and Climate Change: a multi-level analysis of the Conditions, Risks and Chances of Social-Ecological Transformations”
• 1998-2001 Studies in Sociology, Political Science and History, Universität Hannover
• 1993-2001 Studies in Landscape and Spatial Planning, Universität Hannover

Publications (link)