Short Biography

I studied social and cultural anthropology, history of art, Indonesian philology and philosophy in Karlsruhe, Cologne and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. From 2003 to 2006, I worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, where I completed my PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology in 2009 as part of the interdisciplinary research project Making Local Government more Resposive to the Poor: Developing Indicators and Tools to Support Sustainable Livelihood under Decentralisation. Since 2007 I am working as assistant professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and since 2015 as senior researcher at the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne.

My research focuses on social, ecological economic and political transformations in the Global South, environmental anthropology, inequality, gender, marginalisation and development. My regional focus is on Southeast Asia, Indonesia and in particular on the island of Borneo where I have been conducting research since 2000.

My publications cover the following topics: resource perception and land rights, poverty and wellbeing, decentralisation, marginalisation, oil palm expansion in Indonesia, the gendered impacts of environmental and economic change, and future making.

In teaching, I represent the subject areas of research methods, environmental anthropology, socio-economics, political ecology, legal anthropology and anthropological gender studies.

Academic Memberships

• Senior Researcher at Global South Studies Center Cologne (GSSC)
• Mitglied des UoC Forum for Plant Biology and the Politics of Nutrition (BiPoN) 
• Mitglied und Sprecherin (2015 - 2019 zusammen mit Kristina Großmann und Katharina Schneider) der Regionalgruppe Südostasien der DGSKA
• Gründungsmitglied der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Umweltethnologie der DGSKA
• Mitglied der European Association of Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS)
• Mitglied der European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA)
• Mitglied des Netzwerkes Environment and Anthropology der EASA
• Mitglied des DFG-Netzwerks "Plurale Ökologien im Widerstreit. Ethnologische Perspektiven auf Südostasien" (2016-2019)

Thematic Interests and Regional Focus

I am interested in the complexly interwoven social, ecological, economic and political transformations in the Global South, environmental anthropology, inequality, landrights, natural resource management, political ecology, gender and the emerging field of an anthropology of the future.

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Borneo

Courses and Seminars (Selection)

SoSe 2021 Empirical Application of Anthropologcial Research Methods

WS 20/21 Empirical Application of Anthropologcial Research Methods 

WS 2019/20 The Societal Relevance of Anthropology

WS 2019/20 The Political Ecology of Palm Oil

SoSe 2019. Empirical Application of Anthropologcial Research Methods 

SoSe 2018. Empirical Application of Anthropologcial Research Methods 

SoSe 2018: Master Course: Participatory Methods

WS 2017/18: Introduction to the Anthropology of Development: Anthropology, Development and Development Cooperation

WS 2017/18: Gender & Economic and Ecological Change

Courses and Seminars (Complete)

Workshops, Lectures, and Outreach

Publications (Selection)

2020    Framing the Future through the Lens of Hope: Environmental Change, Diverse Hopes and the Challenge of Engagement. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie ZfE/JSCA 145, S. 71–92

2020    (zusammen mit Kristina Großmann und Timo Kaartinen) Introduction: Frontier Temporalities: Exploring Processes of Frontierisation, Defrontierisation and Refrontierisation in Indonesia and Africa, Paideuma 66, pp. 171-182

2020   (zusammen mit Fabienne Braukmann, Katja Metzmacher und Rosalie Stolz) (eds). Being a Parent in the Field: Implications and Challenges of Accompanied Fieldwork. Bielefeld: transcript.

2018    Claiming Rights to the Forest in East Kalimantan: Challenging Power and Presenting Culture. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 33(2), pp. 341-361

2018    (zusammen mit Sara de Wit und Arno Pascht) Translating Climate Change: Anthropology and the Travelling Idea of Climate Change. Introduction to the Special Issue. Sociologus 68 (1), pp. 1-20.

2018   (zusammen mit Kristina Großmann) Gender and Environmental Change: Recent Debates and New Perspectives in Anthropological Research. Introduction to the Special Focus: Gender and Environmental Change. Antropologia 5(1), pp. 7-21.

2018    Eine Zukunft ohne Wald? Indigene Perspektiven auf Umweltveränderungen, Waldverlust und Entwicklung in Kalimantan. Geogrphische Rundschau, 4/2018, pp. 32-38.

2017    Men, Women and Environmental Change: The Gendered Face of Development in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies (ASEAS), pp. 29-46.

2017   (zusammen mit Martin Rössler und Anna-Teresa Grumblies) (eds). Rethinking Power Relations in Indonesia: Transforming the Margins. London [u.a.]: Routledge.

2017    (zusammen mit Martin Rössler und Anna-Teresa Grumblies) Introduction: Contesting and Reformulating Power Relations in Indonesia`s Outer Islands. In: Michaela Haug, Martin Rössler and Anna-Teresa Grumblies (eds). Rethinking Power Relations in Indonesia: Transforming the Margins. London [u.a.]: Routledge, pp. 1-25.

2017    Rich Regency – Prosperous People? Decentralisation, Marginality and Remoteness in East Kalimantan. In Michaela Haug, Martin Rössler and Anna-Teresa Grumblies (eds). Rethinking Power Relations in Indonesia: Transforming the Margins. London [u.a.]: Routledge, pp. 132-149.

2017    (together with Martin Rössler and Anna-Teresa Grumblies) Concluding Remarks. In Michaela Haug, Martin Rössler and Anna-Teresa Grumblies (eds). Rethinking Power Relations in Indonesia: Transforming the Margins. London [u.a.]: Routledge, pp. 150-159.

2017    (zusammen mit Cathrin Arenz, Stefan Seitz und Oliver Venz) (eds). Continuity under Change in Dayak Societies. Wiesbaden: Springer.

2017    (zusammen mit Cathrin Arenz, Stefan Seitz und Oliver Venz). Introduction: Dayak Societies in Transition - Balancing Continuity and Change. In Cathrin Arenz, Michaela Haug, Stefan Seitz und Oliver Venz (eds). Continuity under Change in Dayak Societies. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp.13-43.

2014.   Resistance, Ritual Purification and Mediation: Tracing a Dayak Community's Sixteen- Year Search for Justice in East Kalimantan. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15(4), pp. 357-375.

2014.   Disputed Normativities and the Logging Boom in Kutai Barat: Local Dynamics During the Initial Phase of Regional Autonomy in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Paideuma 60, pp. 89-113.

2014   (zusammen mit Deasy Simandjuntak). Doing Anthropological Fieldwork with Southeast Asian Characteristics? Identity and Adaptation in the Field. In: Mikko Huotari, Jürgen Rüland und Judith Schlehe (Hrsg). Methodology and Research Practice in Southeast Asian Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 67-90.

2014.   What Makes a Good Life? Emic Concepts of ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘Illbeing’ among the Dayak Benuaq in East-Kalimantan, Indonesia. In: Thomas Stodulka and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler (eds). Feelings at the Margins: Dealing with Violence, Stigma and Isolation in Indonesia. Frankfurt and New York: Campus, pp. 30-52.

2012   (zusammen mit Cathrin Bullinger). In and Out of the Forest: Decentralisation and Recentralisation of Forest Governance in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies (5)2, pp. 243-262.

2010. Poverty and Decentralisation in East Kalimantan: The Impact of Regional Autonomy on Dayak Benuaq Wellbeing. Centaurus: Freiburg.

Complete List of Publications (04/2021)