Institute of Geography

Group Portrait

Dr. Elisabeth Militz

Postdoc

Social and Cultural Geography

Phone: +41 31 631 86 05
E-Mail: elisabeth.militz@giub.unibe.ch
Office: 315
Postal Address: University of Bern
Institute of Geography
Social and Cultural Geography
Hallerstrasse 12
CH-3012 Bern
Consultation Hour: Monday, 15:30-16:30

Home

I am a feminist political and cultural geographer and explore affects and emotions. My research brings together feminist political geography, (queer) feminist theories of affect, geographies of the body and intimacy, digital geographies and empirical research in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

From an intersectional research perspective, I want to understand how spaces of intimacy, emotions, and everyday experiences of identity politics such as nationalism are interwoven. In my doctoral work ( 2017 ) I developed the concept of affective nationalism and examined how feelings of national belonging arise in banal everyday encounters between different bodies, objects, practices and places. The concept of the "global intimate" (Mountz & Hyndman 2006), which means that intimate bodily and life experiences and global flows of bodies, technologies and knowledge are interconnected, inspires my current research on digital geographies of intimacy. In this research, for example, I investigate the role of affects/emotions in the creation of knowledge spaces about the intimate body on social media.

I also like to experiment with qualitative and ethnographic research methodologies in geography. I am particularly interested in the limits, possibilities and challenges of affectual methodologies and feminist-geographic online research.

CV

Fields of Research

Emotions and affects
Geographies of the body
Digital geographies
Geographies of sexuality
Global intimate
Affective nationalism
Feminist methodology

Education

2019	Visiting scholar at the Central Asian Studies Insitute of the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek
since 2018	Postdoc in Social and Cultural Geography, University of Bern
2018	Postdoc with the Feminist Geography Collective, University of Texas at Austin
2017-2018	Postdoc at Transcultural Studies, University of St. Gallen
2015	Visiting PhD candidate at the Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington
2013-2017	PhD at the Geography Graduate School Zurich, University of Zürich
2005-2006	Exchange student University of Massachusetts, Boston
2003-2010	BA and MA in geography (minors: sociology, anthropology, biology), Heidelberg University

Professional career

since 2018	Research assistant and lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography, University of Bern
2016-2018	Research assistant and lecturer at Transcultural Studies, University of St. Gallen
2013-2016	Research assistant at Space & Organization, University of Zürich
2011-2013	Research assistant and lecturer in Economic Geography, University of Jena
2012	Visiting Scholar at the Azerbaijan Tourism Institut, Baku
2010-2011	Lecturer of the Robert Bosch Foundation, State Agricultural University of Azerbaijan
2010	Lecturer at the Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg

Affiliations and memberships

ASG Themengruppe „Feministische Geographien“
AK Feministische Geographien (VGDH)
American Association of Geographers
DFG Netzwerke Feministische Geographien des Neuen Materialismus
MitOst

Twitter: @ElisabethMilitz

Publications

2019

Militz, Elisabeth, Faria, Caroline and Carolin Schurr. ‘Affectual Intensities: writing with resonance as feminist methodology’, online first, Area, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12584

Militz, Elisabeth. Affective Nationalism. Bodies, Materials and Encounters with the Nation in Azerbaijan. Zürich: LIT Verlag.

Militz, Elisabeth. "Towards affective Nationalism." Gender, Place and Culture, 26 (2): 296-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1484704.

Militz, Elisabeth, und Karine Duplan. „A Space for Feminist Geographies at the 16th Swiss Geoscience Meeting“. GeoAgenda 2019, Nr. 1 (2019): 26–29.

2018

Schurr, Carolin, and Elisabeth Militz. ‘The Affective Economy of Transnational Surrogacy’. Environment and Planning, 50(8): 1626-1645. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X18769652.

Militz, Elisabeth. ‘Feministische Geographien: Ankommen, Wohlfühlen und Weiterkommen.’ Feministisches Geo-RundMail 77 (Oktober 2018). http://ak-geographie-geschlecht.org/rundmail.

Klosterkamp, Sarah, and Elisabeth Militz, eds. ‘Feministische Politische Geographie’. Feministische Geo-RundMail 75 (April 2018). http://ak-geographie-geschlecht.org/rundmail/.

2017

Militz, Elisabeth. ‘Affective Nationalism: Bodies, Materials and Encounters with the Nation in Azerbaijan’. PhD dissertation, University of Zurich, 2017.

Militz, Elisabeth. ‘On Affect, Dancing and National Bodies’. In Everyday Nationhood: Theorising Culture, Identity and Belonging after Banal Nationalism, edited by Michael Skey and Marco Antonsich, 177–95. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57098-7_9.

Militz, Elisabeth, and Diana Griesinger. ‘Book Review: Visuelle Geographien: Zur Produktion, Aneignung Und Vermittlung von RaumBildern’. Geographica Helvetica 72, no. 1 (22 March 2017): 137–40. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-72-137-2017.

2016

Militz, Elisabeth, and Carolin Schurr. ‘Affective Nationalism: Banalities of Belonging in Azerbaijan’. Political Geography, Special Issue: Banal Nationalism 20 years on, 54 (1 September 2016): 54–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.11.002.

Militz, Elisabeth. ‘Public Events and Nation-Building in Azerbaijan’. In Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New Tools and Approaches, edited by Rico Isaacs and Abel Polese, 176–94. Post-Soviet Politics. London, New York: Routledge, 2016.

Projects

Sex, shame and (insta-)stories: digital geographies of intimacy
Duration	2019
Funding	Faculty of Science of the University of Bern (field research 2019)
Description	Digital spaces of social media become places where globally circulating intimate body knowledge is produced and negotiated in socio-spatial contexts of tabooing and stigmatization of female and LGBT sexualities. As places of encounter between online and offline everyday worlds and differently positioned users, technologies, objects, stories and perspectives, digital spaces of social media offer possibilities for resistance and solidarity against the social normalization and stigmatization of female and LGBT sexualities. By creating an anonymous intimacy, partially anonymized forums and hashtag structures involve users in the continuous production and negotiation of body knowledge, thus enabling independence from hegemonic knowledge about sexual practices, identities and norms. At the same time, the powerful emotions and affects circulating in and through digital spaces of social media also regulate who, when, how and where helps to shape knowledge about intimate bodies and sexualities, and who does not. The research project asks about the role of emotions/affects in the emergence and mobilization of digital knowledge spaces in predominantly Russian-language forums and accounts on social media of users* from Kyrgyzstan. The aim of the research project is to develop a digital geography of intimacy.
Collaborators	Central Asian Studies Insitute (AUCA) Novi Ritm Aida Niyazbek

Becoming a virgin: bodies, technologies and affectual geographies of the reconstruction of the hymen

Duration

2017-2018

Description

The project hypothesizes hymen repair as an emergent transcultural phenomenon that reproduces female virginity as a global commodity. It explores how technologies of hymen surgery produce corporeal geographies, putting sexualized organs and bodies into circulation as commodities in the global reproductive economy. Specifically, the project is interested in unraveling the different emotional and affectual mechanisms substantiating powerful narratives around virginity, femininity, female sexuality and pleasure.

Collaborators

Novi Ritm

Clad in hope: affective geographies of the bridal dress
Duration	2018
Funding	SNF Scientific Exchange
Description	Despite an observed decline in marriage rates, the heterosexual wedding remains popular around the world. While many communities grant the status of an adult only after consummating a heterosexual wedding, marriage also seems to promise future happiness. The white bridal dress, in particular, plays a key role in attracting feelings of hope, desire and joy during wedding celebrations. This project aims to develop a critical understanding of the affective dynamics at play in conflating marriage with happiness.
Collaborators	Prof. Dr. Caroline Faria, University of Texas at Austin Dominica Whitesell, University of Texas at Austin
Links	https://universityoftexas.wixsite.com/femgeogcollective

Affective Nationalism: Bodies, Materials and Encounters with the Nation in Azerbaijan
Duration	2013-2017
Funding	Forschungskredit Universität Zürich
Description	The project unpacks the ways in which nationalism – understood as a feeling of national belonging and alienation – unfolds in moments of affective encounter between different bodies, objects, practices and places. Based on eight months of ethnographic field work in Azerbaijan, consisting mainly of observant participation within families, field notes from attendance at public holidays and commemoration ceremonies and qualitative interviews, the project develops the concept of affective nationalism - the banal affirmation of the national emerging in moments of encounter between different bodies, objects, practices and places. In times nationalist and populist narratives of good and evil, right and wrong and outside and inside gain ground, the project proposes to focus on moments of bodily encounter, on bodies’ different capacities to affect and to be affected and on the spatial and temporal contextualities of national becomings, in order to understand the persistence of nationalism.
Collaborators	Prof. Dr. Martin Müller, Université de Lausanne Prof. Dr. Anna Secor, University of Kentucky
Links	http://www.research-projects.uzh.ch/p21647.htm
Output	Militz, Elisabeth, Faria, Caroline and Carolin Schurr. ‘Affectual Intensities: writing with resonance as feminist methodology’, online first, Area, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12584 Militz, Elisabeth. Affective Nationalism. Bodies, Materials and Encounters with the Nation in Azerbaijan. Zürich: LIT Verlag. Militz, Elisabeth. ‘On Affect, Dancing and National Bodies’. In Everyday Nationhood: Theorising Culture, Identity and Belonging after Banal Nationalism, edited by Michael Skey and Marco Antonsich, 177–95. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57098-7_9. Militz, Elisabeth, and Carolin Schurr. ‘Affective Nationalism: Banalities of Belonging in Azerbaijan’. Political Geography, Special Issue: Banal Nationalism 20 years on, 54 (1 September 2016): 54–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.11.002. Militz, Elisabeth. ‘Public Events and Nation-Building in Azerbaijan’. In Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New Tools and Approaches, edited by Rico Isaacs and Abel Polese, 176–94. Post-Soviet Politics. London, New York: Routledge, 2016.

Spaces of freedom in Azerbaijan: an action-oriented network analysis of environmental NGOs
Duration	2009-2010
Funding	DAAD Hiele Stiftung
Description	The project focuses the practices, organisation and guiding narratives of environmental NGOs in the South Caucasus Republic of Azerbaijan. Drawing primarily on ethnographic and qualitative interview material from four month of field research, the study experiments with a qualitative network analysis and presents novel insights on civil society activities in the fields of nature conversation, ornithology and environmental justice in Azerbaijan.
Collaborators	Prof. Dr. Heiko Schmid †
Output	Militz, Elisabeth. ‘Zivilgesellschaftliche Freiräume in Umwelt-NGOs in Aserbaidschan: Eine Netzwerkanalyse’. In: Rückkehr zum Autoritarismus? Vormoderne, Moderne und Postmoderne im postsozialistischen Europa. Beiträge für die 19. Tagung Junger Osteuropa-Experten, edited by Apelt, B. & I. Hahn. Bremen: Forschungsstelle Osteuropa, 59-60, 2011. Militz, Elisabeth. ‘Spaces of freedom in Azerbaijan: an action-oriented network analysis of environmental NGOs’, Department of Geography, Heidelberg University, 2010 (unpublished diploma thesis).

Presentations

Selection since 2017

2019
September	„Jungfräuliche #Scham? Instagrams Räume des Widerstands gegen sexuelle Stigmatisierung“, DKG 2019, Kiel.
2018
October	“Affektiver Nationalismus: Reiseberichte aus dem Globalen Osten”, Vortrag im Murnau Club, Murnau a. Staffelsee
October	(mit Jasmine Truong) „Exploring feminist geographies of the global intimate, reproductive bodies and affects”, Vortrag im BHK 2018, Bern.
April	"Geographies of Beauty", AAG 2018 New Orleans
April	(with Carolin Schurr) “Complicating (Un)Comfortable Alliances in the Brave New World of Reproduction”, AAG 2018 New Orleans
2017
November	"Affektiver Nationalismus: Zur Entstehung nationaler Gemeinschaftsgefühle am Beispiel Aserbaidschans", Geography Colloquium, University of Münster
October	(with Carolin Schurr) "Transcorporeal Geographies", DKG 2017, Tübingen
September	(with Carolin Schurr) "Zugänge: Emotionale Geographie als Forschungspraxis", KKG 2017, Türbingen
April	"Close the gap: corporeal geographies of hymen reconstruction", AAG 2018 Boston

Conferences, Workshops and Sessions