Geographisches Institut

Gruppenportrait

Dr. Alexander Vorbrugg

Senior Researcher / SNF Ambizione

Kritische Nachhaltigkeitsforschung

Telefon
+41 31 684 33 23
E-Mail
alexander.vorbrugg@unibe.ch
Büro
104
Postadresse
Universität Bern
Geographisches Institut
Hallerstrasse 12
CH-3012 Bern

Curriculum Vitae

I am a senior researcher in the Critical Sustainability Studies working group. Before joining the Institute of Geography in Bern in March 2018, I gained a PhD in Geography from Goethe University Frankfurt. I held visiting research fellowships at the New School in New York, the Department of Geography and the Institute of Advanced Studies, both at University College London (UCL). I am a co-editor of Geographica Helvetica, co-editor of the book series Kritische Landforschung/ Critical Rural Studies, co-chair of the Geography section of the German Association for East European Studies (DGO), co-initiator of the research network "War Effects on Food Systems and Environment", and co-coordinator of the working group "Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-Use Change Phenomenon" with the Global Land Programme. My work has been published in English, German, Ukrainian, French and russian.

My research focuses on three domains:

Rural change and agricultural land: Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, I have studied and theorized complex forms and temporalities of rural change and dispossession in contemporary Russia. I am finalizing a monograph on this theme, entitled "Dispersed Dispossession. Disintegration and the Appropriation of Liminal Land" (forthcoming, University of Georgia Press).

The political ecology of forest transitions: I am interested in how resources are being made, reframed, and governed in the context of environmental change. In my ongoing project “Russia’s New Forests”, I examine how trees growing on abandoned agricultural land are currently being turned into objects of knowledge, governance, economic and environmental interest in fundamentally new ways. The project is funded through a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione grant. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, part of this project is dedicated to the study of land abandonment in Ukraine that results from the war.

Collaborative methodologies: I engage in projects on ethnographic collaborative research and the politics of fieldwork; artistic and visual forms of research and science communication (mLAB); and interdisciplinary collaborations around questions of forest transitions, reforestation, and environmental politics.

Forschung

Research and Teaching Interests

  • Agrarian political economy and critical rural studies, rural dispossession
  • Political ecology of forest transitions
  • Economic and resource geographies in the context of global change
  • Environmental politics (with a particular focus on Eastern Europe)
  • Social theory (critical, feminist, materialist theories; environmental theories)
  • Qualitative research (ethnography, visual methods, materialist methods)

 

Projects

  • Russia’s New Forests: Assembling and Governing a Resource Frontier (ongoing, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF)
  • mLAB (ongoing)
  • Dispersed Dispossession. Rural Change in Contemporary Russia (ongoing)
  • Property Rights and Communal Services: The Implementation of Local Self-Government in Rural Russia (funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), with P. Lindner and A. Nikulin, completed)
  • Governing through civil society? The work of German political foundations in Ukraine (funded by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation, completed)

Lehre

Gerne betreue ich Abschlussarbeiten im Bereich meiner Forschungsthemen.

Mitgliedschaften & Engagement

Mitglied des mLAB

Mitherausgeber der Geographica Helvetica

Mitherausgeber der Buchreihe Kritische Landforschung

Sprecher der Fachgruppe Geographie, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde (DGO)

Mitkoordinator der Arbeitsgruppe Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-Use Change Phenomenon, Global Land Programme

 

Aktive Mitgliedschaften:

  • AK Klimakrise & Gesellschaftliche Transformation, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geographie (DGfG)
  • AK Feminisische Geographien (DGfG)
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde e.V. (DGO)

Publikationen

Journal Articles

Vorbrugg, Alexander; Bluwstein, Jevgeniy (2022): Making sense of (the Russian war in) Ukraine: On the politics of knowledge and expertise. In Political Geography, p. 102700. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102700.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2022): Ethnographies of slow violence: Epistemological alliances in fieldwork and narrating ruins. In Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, pp. 1–16. DOI: 10.1177/2399654419881660.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2020): Этнографии медленного насилия: исследование последствий разрушения сельской инфраструктуры. In Russian Peasant Studies 5 (1), pp. 31–52. DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-1-31-52.

Thieme, Susan; Eyer, Phillip; and Vorbrugg, Alexander (2019): Film VerORTen: Film als Forschungs- und Kommunikationsmedium in der Geographie, Geogr. Helv., 74, pp. 293–297. DOI: 10.5194/gh-74-293-2019.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2019): Not about land, not quite a grab: dispersed dispossession in rural Russia. In Antipode 51 (3), pp. 1011–1031. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12523.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2018): Не только о земле и о ее захватах: дисперсное лишение прав в сельской России. In Крестьяноведение - Russian Peasant Studies 3 (3), pp. 19–47. DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-3-19-47.

Hoppe, Katharina; Klingenberg, Darja; Thompson, Vanessa Eileen; Trautmann, Felix; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2018): Worüber wir reden, wenn wir mit jemandem nicht reden wollen. Zum Spannungsverhältnis von Rassismuskritik und Meinungsfreiheit an der Universität. In: movements: Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies 4 (1), S. 167–177.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2015): Governing through civil society? The making of a post-Soviet political subject in Ukraine. In Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33 (1), pp. 136–153. DOI: 10.1068/d13055p.

Lindner, P.; Vorbrugg, A. (2012): Wiederkehr der Landfrage. Großinvestitionen in Russlands Landwirtschaft. In Osteuropa 62 (6-8), pp. 325–344.

 

Monographs

Vorbrugg, Alexander (forthcoming): Dispersed Dispossession. Disintegration and the Appropriation of Liminal Land. University of Georgia Press, Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Series.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2017): Dispersed Dispossession. New Agricultural Players, Local Political Economies and De/Structural Violence in Rural Russia. Dissertation. Goethe Universität Frankfurt. Frankfurt/Main.

 

Edited Volumes and Issues

Autor*innenkollektiv Geographie und Geschlecht (Ed.) (2021): Handbuch feministische Geographien. Arbeitsweisen und Konzepte. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich.

Klosterkamp, Sarah; Vorbrugg, Alexander (Eds.) (2020): Feminist Research Practice in Geography: Snapshots, Reflections, Concepts. Feministische GeoRundmail (83). Bern.

 

Book Chapters

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2023, forthcoming): Ethnographisch forschen. In Eva Nöthen, Verena Schreiber (Eds.): Handbuch Transformative Geographische Bildung. Schlüsselprobleme, Theoriezugänge, Forschungsweisen, Vermittlungspraktiken. Berlin: Springer Spektrum, 189–195.

Vorbrugg, Alexander; Klosterkamp, Sarah; Thompson, Vanessa E. (2021): Feldforschung als soziale Praxis. Ansätze für ein verantwortungsvolles und feministisch inspiriertes Forschen. In Autor*innenkollektiv Geographie und Geschlecht (Ed.): Handbuch feministische Geographien. Arbeitsweisen und Konzepte. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich.

Schwiter, Karin; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2021): Ein Plädoyer für Slow Scholarship: Feministische Strategien für eine entschleunigte und bessere Wissenschaft. In Autor*innenkollektiv Geographie und Geschlecht (Ed.): Handbuch feministische Geographien. Arbeitsweisen und Konzepte. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich.

Vorbrugg, Alexander; Ouma, Stefan (2020): Große Transformationen des Ländlichen: Agrarwirtschaft in der globalen Marktgesellschaft. In Hans Gebhardt, Rüdiger Glaser, Ulrich Radtke, Paul Reuber, Andreas Vött (Eds.): Geographie. Physische Geographie und Humangeographie. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Spektrum, 926–937.

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2019): Ressourcen. In Jan Brunner, Anna Dobelmann, Sarah Kirst, Louisa Prause (Eds.): Wörterbuch Land- und Rohstoffkonflikte. 1. Auflage. Bielefeld: Transcript; transcript Verlag (Global Studies), pp. 272–278.

Thompson, V. E.; Vorbrugg, A. (2018): Rassismuskritik an der Hochschule. Mit oder trotz Diversity Policies? In M. Laufenberg, M. Erlemann, P. Lucht, M. Norkus, G. Petschick (Eds.): Prekäre Gleichstellung: Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, soziale Ungleichheit und unsichere Arbeitsverhältnisse in der Wissenschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.

Lindner, Peter; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2013): Die Transformation der Landwirtschaft in Russland. In Hans Gebhardt, Rüdiger Glaser, Sebastian Lentz (Eds.): Europa - eine Geographie. Berlin: Springer Spektrum, pp. 264–265.

Haide, E. v. d.; Vorbrugg, A. (2009): Frauen und Frauenprojekte im Kaschmirkonflikt: Beispiele von Gemeinwesenarbeit in einer Konfliktregion. In S. Elsen (Ed.): Gemeinwesen gestalten - Lernen für nachhaltige Entwicklung. Neu-Ulm: AG-SPAK-Bücher (218), pp. 175–189.

 

Working Papers, Electronic Journals (selection)

Vorbrugg, A. (2017): Not About Land, Not Quite a Grab: Rural Transformation and Dispersed Dispossession in Russia. Paper prepared for the 5th International Conference of the BRICS Initiative for Critical Agrarian Studies in Moscow.

Lindner, P.; Vorbrugg, A. (2011): Die russische Landwirtshaft im Privatisierungsprozess: Vom Kolchos- zum Investorenarchipel? In Russland-Analysen (229), pp. 2–6.

 

Miscellaneous (selection)

Vorbrugg, Alexander (2023): Black Earth, White Bread. A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food. In Europe-Asia Studies. DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2023.2191530.

Davydova, Angelina; Doose, Katja; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2022): Other casualties of Putin’s war in Ukraine: Russia’s climate goals and science. In The Conversation, 5/23/2022. Available online at https://theconversation.com/other-casualties-of-putins-war-in-ukraine-russias-climate-goals-and-science-182995

Davydova, Angelina; Doose, Katja; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2022): Les politiques climatiques, ces autres victimes de la guerre de Poutine en Ukraine. In The Conversation, 7/7/2022. Available online at https://theconversation.com/les-politiques-climatiques-ces-autres-victimes-de-la-guerre-de-poutine-en-ukraine-186255.

Davydova, Angelina; Doose, Katja; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2022): Арктика, «зеленый переход», СО2. Как война с Украиной бьет по климатическим проектам в России, которые важны для всего мира, 7/4/2022. Available online at https://republic.ru/posts/104348.

Bachmann, Veit; Mattissek, Annika; Ruppert, Linda; Stenmanns, Julian; Vorbrugg, Alexander (2020): Kritische Militärgeographie - Anliegen und Abgrenzungen. In Rundbrief Geographie (282), pp. 28–30.

 

 

 

Documentary Films

Women Between the Front Lines (2007). Co-directed with E. v. d. Haide and A. Khan. EVDH Production, Pullach, 2007. Website: https://womenbetweenthefrontlines.wordpress.com/.

No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from the Housing Struggles in Cape Town (2005). Co-directed with E. v. d. Haide. Indymedia Cape Town Production, Cape Town, South Africa, 2005.