Franziska Klaas

Background:

I hold a Bachelor in Cultural Anthropology and Islamic Studies (2013, Georg-August University of Göttingen) and a Master in Transcultural Studies (2016, University of Bremen). My Master Thesis explored competing waste and recycling infrastructures in Istanbul with a focus on power relations and ‘social struggles’. Before joining  the AnthroTox Project I was holding a pre-doc scholarship at the University of Bremen (Germany).

Project:

Doctoral Research Fellow participating in the AnthroTox

"Persistent Organic Pollutions in motion" (working title)

In my project, I explore the life of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in their residual capacity. Persistent Organic Pollutants, a group of chemicals regulated under the Stockholm Convention, are toxic, have the potential for long-range transport, persist in the environment, and share an ability to bio-accumulate/bio-magnify in food chains as well as in living beings. In my attempt to understand POPs in their multiplicity, I explore POPs in science, policy-making, and waste management (incineration) as three realms in which experts attempt to know and handle POPs. I set the pollutants as central in my exploration and try to think from and with them through the respective areas, focusing on emerging more-than-human relations and connecting Tanzania, Norway, and the in-between.

Academic Interests:

postcolonial and feminist science studies, anthropology of toxicity and the environment, bureaucracy, policy and regulation, multi species anthropology, waste, recycling and incineration, affect theory and posthuman theory, queer and feminist theory