maria sibylla merian centre
conviviality-inequality in latin america
maria sibylla merian centre
conviviality-inequality in latin america
Mecila Berlin Conference 2025
The challenges of living together in societies marked by growing inequalities and divisions appear even more pressing today than they did around eight years ago, when the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (Mecila) began its activities. Recent developments along three interconnected lines of conflict seem particularly challenging.
The first line of conflict is the climate emergency and the difficulties in implementing the policies and measures needed to mitigate it. On the one hand, the interdependencies between the various regions of the world in fields such as the economy, health, the environment and the climate have become even more evident and profound, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic. On the other hand, national and nationalist strategies for overcoming these challenges prevail.
The second line of conflict relates to new tensions at both levels: international and domestic politics. On the international stage, the realignment of political blocs within the context of multipolar globalisation, while challenging the unequal global order, gives rise to new imbalances and tensions, as starkly reflected in the outbreak of prolonged wars. In domestic politics, the advance of the far right and illiberal regimes in several countries has created serious uncertainties about the future of democracy.
The third major tension between conviviality and inequality that requires particular attention concerns the widening North-South asymmetries. In this field, our primary focus is on examining how the Merian Centres foster equitable interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration.
These three lines of conflict structure the proposed conference. The main objective of the conference is to present the progress made so far by Mecila, the social relevance of the knowledge developed, and the prospects for continuing the Centre’s research programme and its dissemination to academic and non-academic audiences in Latin America, in Germany, and internationally. Another key goal is to strengthen existing networks of cooperation and collaboration. Accordingly, other pertinent German joint projects and particularly the Merian Centres based in Accra, Delhi, Guadalajara, and Tunis as well as the DFG Humanities Centre of Advanced Studies Futures of Sustainability and the GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies will contribute to the conference programme.
Dates: 11-13 December 2025
Site: Henry Ford Bau, Freie Universität Berlin, Garystraße 35, 14195 Berlin
Registration: https://cloud.mecila.uni-koeln.de/index.php/apps/forms/s/x7jidrAerePZQ73DKZB3kCCY
Please note that registration closes on 5 December or earlier if all seats are taken.
We will offer simultaneous German–English–German translation on 11 December 2025 and simultaneous Spanish–English–Spanish translation on 13 December 2025. On 12 December 2025, presentations and discussions will take place in English without simultaneous translation.
Arrival and conversations between conference participants from abroad and pertinent interlocutors
Günter M. Ziegler, Freie Universität Berlin, President, Berlin University Alliance
Silke Launert, Parliamentary State Secretary of Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
Rodrigo de Lima Baena Soares, Ambassador of Brazil in Germany
Sérgio Costa, Freie Universität Berlin, Mecila’s Spokesperson
The primary objective of the Maria Sibylla Merian Centres for Advanced Studies initiative, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (formerly BMBF), is to establish sustainable partnerships between German research institutions and host institutions in different world regions. In addition to promoting the internationalization of the humanities and social sciences, and contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of societal transformations and planetary changes, the Merian Centres are particularly committed to addressing and mitigating asymmetries in the global production and circulation of knowledge. This roundtable will bring together representatives of the five existing Merian Centres to reflect on the contribution of the Merian Centres to foster innovative formats for academic internationalization and to promote academic freedom and knowledge diplomacy in a time marked by profund geopolitical uncertainty.
Martin Fuchs, University of Erfurt, Former Director of ICAS:MP
Olaf Kaltmeier, Bielefeld University, Former Director of CALAS
Susanne Klengel, Freie Universität Berlin, Mecila Prinicpal Investigator
Hans-Peter Hahn, Goethe University Frankfurt, Executive Council MIASA
Rachid Ouaissa, University of Marburg, MECAM’s Spokesperson
Moderation: Laila Abu-Er-Rub, Academic Coordinator of ICAS:MP
This roundtable brings together leading representatives of German-speaking higher education and research institutions to discuss strategies for fostering excellent interdisciplinary and international cooperation. The discussion will address how universities and Centres for Advanced Studies can strengthen synergies across disciplinary boundaries, promote global partnerships, and provide supportive institutional frameworks for innovative research. By drawing on the diverse experiences of university leadership, research councils and institutes, and Centres for Advanced Studies, the roundtable aims to explore ways of advancing academic excellence while responding to current political challenges and the increasing complexity of research questions.
Günter M. Ziegler, Freie Universität Berlin, President, Berlin University Alliance
Friederike Pannewick, University of Marburg, Forum Transregional Studies, Wissenschaftsrat (German Science and Humanities Council)
Robert Folger, University of Heidelberg, Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies, Director
Karin Harrasser, University of Art and Design Linz, International Research Center for Cultural Studies, Director
Sérgio Costa, Freie Universität Berlin, Mecila’s Spokesperson
Moderation: Verena Blechinger-Talcott, Freie Universität Berlin, Vice-President
This panel explores how diverse forms of knowledge—academic, artistic, and experiential—can move beyond interdisciplinary dialogue toward genuinely transdisciplinary engagement. The contributions examine a wide range of contexts: climate-related mobility in the Andean; Tunisian Sufi poetry; artistic practice in Africa as memory work; and reconfigurations of “atmosphere” in the Anthropocene. Taken together, these perspectives demonstrate how knowledge emerges not only from scholarly expertise but also from lived experience, cultural practice, and creative expression. The panel highlights both the challenges and the transformative potential of transdisciplinary research for addressing contemporary crises and reimagining convivial futures.
Gioconda Herrera, FLACSO Ecuador, Director, CALAS Principal Investigator, Mecila Advisory Board Member
Transdisciplinary approaches to Migrations and Climate Crises. Reflections from the Andean Region
Awadhendra Sharan, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies – Delhi, ICAS:MP
The Atmosphere in the Shadow of the Anthropocene
Sela Adjei, University of Media, Arts and Communication – Ghana, 2025 MIASA Artist in Residence
Fragments of Conviviality: Art, Memory, and the Unequal Politics of Repair
Cyrine Kortas, University of Gabes – Tunis, Postdoctoral Researcher at MECAM
Toward a Transdisciplinary Reading of Tunisian Sufi Poetry
Moderation: Julius Dihstelhoff, MECAM Director ‘Germany’
Gioconda Herrera, FLACSO Ecuador, Director, CALAS Principal Investigator, Mecila Advisory Board Member
Transdisciplinary approaches to Migrations and Climate Crises. Reflections from the Andean Region
This presentation discusses a research project that combined various forms of knowledge developed by social and political actors regarding the relationship between different types of mobilities and climate crises in the Andean region. The aim is to examine how a transdisciplinary perspective—one that takes into account the ways of knowing and doing (practices) of the actors involved —was essential in deepening the project’s exploration of the connections between mobility and various kinds of climate crises: droughts, floods, landslides. By considering different ways of being, knowing, and moving, this project seeks to fulfill the promise of knowledge grounded in situations and negotiations, beyond academia.
Awadhendra Sharan, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies – Delhi, ICAS:MP
The Atmosphere in the Shadow of the Anthropocene
‘In the North, global warming is largely framed by technology, economics and science; in the South, the same phenomenon is conceived of in terms of disparities of power and affluence that can all be traced back to the geopolitical inequities established in the era of colonialism.’ (Amitav Ghosh, Wild Fictions, 2025)
The pandemic and the climate crisis are connected phenomena. One could say that they both speak of Anthropocene times. The story of rapid global economic growth—the history of capitalism in all its different varieties, imperial, liberal and neoliberal—is common to narratives that underpin discussions on both crises. (Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘The Chronopolitics of the Anthropocene’, 2022)
Drawing upon the above two epigraphs I wish to explore a framework for theorising atmospheres that moves from an interdisciplinary bringing together of distinct spheres of expertise towards a transdisciplinary reconfiguration that is attentive to the lived experience of people across different geopolitical regions and to the issue of justice that exceeds the search for ‘solutions’. In doing so, I would suggest that people in the global South are simultaneously experiencing multiple ‘atmospheres’ – from global warming and extreme weather events to the re-emergence of pandemics and air pollution – that necessitates going beyond the teleological narrative of colonial modernity. I would underline how this configuration of the atmosphere today, simultaneously about climate change, the global travel of viruses and the breathing of toxic air, both builds upon, but is different from, the configuration of climate determinism, germ theory and smoke pollution, as these first emerged towards the closing decades of the nineteenth century.
Sela Adjei, University of Media, Arts and Communication – Ghana, 2025 MIASA Artist in Residence
Fragments of Conviviality: Art, Memory, and the Unequal Politics of Repair
Drawing from my recent MIASA Artist in residence exhibition (FRAGMENTS) and two decades of research on African visual cultures, this talk reflects on how artistic practice can operate as a form of transdisciplinary knowledge production within social contexts marked by inequality. Working at the intersections of heritage restitution, decolonial critique, and community-based creativity, I explore how artistic production can hold space for contested memories while advocating renewed relational ethics between Europe and Africa. The FRAGMENTS series, grounded in archival research and field encounters in the Volta Region of Ghana, reassembles dispersed narratives of dispossession—colonial, environmental, and epistemic—into tactile forms (paintings) that invite dialogue across disciplines and geographies. In conversation with the Mecila theme, I argue for art’s role in moving from extractive knowledge regimes to collaborative, reparative frameworks that bridge Africa–Europe asymmetries and unsettle inherited hierarchies. Such artistic interventions make visible the political stakes of conviviality in times of social crisis and postcolonial transition.
Cyrine Kortas, University of Gabes – Tunis, Postdoctoral Researcher at MECAM
Toward a Transdisciplinary Reading of Tunisian Sufi Poetry
Though there were attempts to explore Sufi poetry from different perspectives in addition to the traditional theological reading, they were essentially limited and disconnected. There was a serious lack of synchrony between approaches such as history, literature, theology and sociology. The propelling aim of this study is to turn from this limitation of disciplinary boundaries to a more holistic understanding of Sufism and Sufi art and explore their lingering influence in today’s world. Embedded in a rich interplay between a symbolic language and collective performance, Tunisian Sufi poetry serves as a connecting ground between literary adept, devotional practice and a reservoir of a collective memory and therefore identity. By exploring Tunisian Sufi poetry from a transdisciplinary perspective, this study seeks to bridge the gap between literary analysis, spiritual philosophy, architecture, choreography, sociological study of gender rules. This endeavor aims to argue not only for the devotional potential of Sufi poetry but also for its ability for social commentary in shaping national narrative.
This panel examines the entanglements of climate change, social transformation, and multispecies conviviality across diverse contexts. The presentations range from human – non-human relations in Maroon communities in the wake of the Plantationocene and conceptual inquiries into the idea of “nature” to toxic agricultural practices in the Global South and to the structural limits of the “decarbonisation state”. Together, these contributions highlight how multispecies perspectives unsettle inherited categories of nature, society, and the state, while also pointing to the challenges and possibilities of convivial futures under conditions of climate change and socio-ecological transformation.
Olivia Gomes da Cunha, University of Rio de Janeiro, Mecila Advisory Board Member
Fugitive Relations: Living with others in Plantationocene Worlds
Frank Adloff, University of Hamburg, DFG Humanities Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Futures of Sustainability’, Co-Director
Natures: objects outside or members of society?
Maya Manzi, Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia, Former Mecila Postdoc
Conflicts over water contamination by pesticides: multispecies conviviality and the erosion of freedom and the Commons
Ulrich Brand, University of Vienna, DFG Humanities Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Futures of Sustainability’, Former Fellow
Structural limitations of the decarbonisation state, prospects of a transformation state and implications for conviviality
Moderation: Manuel Santos Silva, Freie Universität Berlin, Mecila Principal Investigator
Olivia Gomes da Cunha, University of Rio de Janeiro, Mecila Advisory Board Member
Fugitive Relations: Living with others in Plantationocene Worlds
A central theme in the anthropology of the Amazonian region, particularly in studies of indigenous and traditional populations, perceptions on different forms of transformation reveal how humans and non-humans are interconnected in multispecies relationships, whether in the display of their bodies, in movements of flight, and in the uses of materialities that create myriads of forms of being and existing worlds. From the Guianese Maroons’ viewpoint, rather than a set of events or a socioeconomic process involving other agents that happens ‘out there’, the idea of transformation (kenki) captures unique ways in which humans and non-humans have been engaged with the earth and the forest beings. The presentation aims to explore how Maroons who came from refugee camps in French Guianese territory and arrived in Eastern Suriname during the first half of the 1990s have been transforming sacred and colonial landscapes in territories and socialities both created by and shaped through human and non-human presences. The paper revolves around ethnographical data about the presence of the Maroon Cottica Ndyuka families in Moengo, Marowijne District – a Surinamese settlement constructed by a post-colonial modern, urban US factory-based bauxite project at the start of the twentieth century – to inquire within different “existential spaces” affected by logging, mining, and the plantationocene extractivism. The presentation seeks to explore how the earth, in the Maroon ontology, a sacred entity and dwelling of gods and spiritual forces, made possible the existence of the first runaways and their descendants, by keeping the ancestors’ memory and history, providing food, and knowledge needed to create life out of the violence and destruction.
Frank Adloff, University of Hamburg, DFG Research Group ‘Futures of Sustainability’, Co-Director
Natures: objects outside or members of society?
The talk delves into the complex relationship between societies and natures, underscoring the crucial need to recognize and appreciate nature’s contributions. It goes beyond market-based instrumental values, advocating for a shift towards embracing relational values and a caring attitude towards nature. I introduce the concept of nature’s gifts and emphasize the significance of reciprocity in human-nature relationships. Furthermore, I advocate for a methodological animism approach towards natures in (also in Western) societies, by which non-humans can be perceived as quasi-subjects, fostering a deeper sense of interconnectedness. If time permits, I would emphasize the legal and political implications of acknowledging nature’s gifts through granting rights to nature. This paradigm shift challenges the conventional view of nature as mere property and advocates for recognizing natures as entities deserving of inherent rights.
Maya Manzi, Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia, Former Mecila Postdoc
Conflicts over water contamination by pesticides: multispecies conviviality and the erosion of freedom and the Commons
The indiscriminate use of agrochemicals by the agrobusiness sector in Brazil and their socioenvironmental impacts on traditional communities are among the most important causes of current agrarian conflicts in Western Bahia. These conflicts are generally multifaceted as they tend to involve struggles around territorial, environmental, health, and livelihood rights. In this presentation, we focus on the relationship between pesticide use and traditional livelihood practices. We explore the intersection between multispecies relations and land property relations in the context of an environmental and territorial conflict over contaminated water by pesticide use in the community of Cacimbinha, a traditional community of « geraizeiros » that has been fighting for decades against illegal land appropriation by the Brazilian Company “Condomínio Estrondo”. Preliminary research results based on community fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with community leaders and members show that conviviality between humans and animals have played a significant role in safeguarding traditional value systems, conceptions of land property and everyday land use practices. More specifically, we argue that the historical relationship of conviviality between herders and their cattle in Cacimbinha, despite having originated in the context of land dispossession and oppression, has been reconfigured into an important livelihood practice that have contributed to preserving traditional values such as freedom and common property use. We show how these values systems and practices are progressively being eroded by water contamination from indiscriminate use of pesticides by a company that has illegally and violently occupied the community’s territory with large plantations of soy, cotton and corn leading to the enclosure of people and their animals.
Ulrich Brand, University of Vienna, DFG Humanities Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Futures of Sustainability’, Former Fellow
Structural limitations of the decarbonisation state, prospects of a transformation state and implications for conviviality
To achieve net-zero climate targets, many states have ramped up ambitions to decarbonize their economies. Despite these aspirations, the emerging decarbonization state faces a serious implementation gap between ambitious targets and actual policies, intensified by climate backsliding pressure. This paper argues that a deeper understanding of the prevalent model of the liberal capitalist state and its basic functions (that is, ensuring economic growth, maintaining legitimacy and providing security) can help to explain this gap. It conceptualizes the nascent decarbonization state as increasingly aiming to shift from fossil fuels towards renewable energy rather than merely improving existing technologies. This transformation of the state, however, challenges basic functions of the underlying liberal capitalist state model. Its analysis implies analytical and normative avenues for future research.
This roundtable brings together perspectives from government agencies, international cooperation, and academia to discuss the political, social, and epistemic disputes that shape contemporary environmental and climate debates. While global efforts to mitigate climate change increasingly emphasize technical and market-based approaches, social and institutional realities reveal complex interconnections between environmental degradation, extractivist economies, and social inequalities. The discussion will highlight how environmental and climate policies intersect with broader governance challenges — including issues of security, development, and justice — and how these intersections affect policy implementation in both the Global North and the Global South. The roundtable seeks to illuminate the diverse rationalities and power relations that shape environmental and climate policymaking.
Dirk Messner, Umweltbundesamt (German Federal Environment Agency), President
Marta Machado, Ministry of Justice, Brazil, National Secretary for Drug Policy and Mecila Principal Investigator on leave
Sarah David, GIZ, Head of Global Partnership on Drug Policies and Development (GPDPD)
Guilherme Bianchi, University of São Paulo, Former Mecila Fellow
Moderation: Barbara Göbel, Ibero-American Institut Berlin, Director, Mecila Principal Investigator
This panel addresses the multiple pressures currently confronting democratic regimes in Latin America and beyond, situating these challenges in relation to broader global transformations. The contributions address various political settings, ranging from Brazil’s far-right actors and the construction of migrants as public enemies to discussions on the erosion of the political and the colonial legacy. Taken together, the panel’s contributions highlight how democracy at the crossroads must be understood not only in terms of institutional resilience, but also in relation to multiple crises and transnational governance challenges.
Marcos Nobre, University of Campinas, Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (Cebrap), Mecila Principal Investigator
Democratic challenges in the context of Brazil’s neo-extractivist trap
Bert Hoffmann, Freie Universität Berlin, GIGA Hamburg-Berlin
Contested democracies and the erosion of the res publica
Ina Kerner, University of Koblenz, Former Mecila Fellow
On the coloniality of democracy
Luicy Pedroza, Colegio de México
Can the Latin American Path of Migration Policies Endure the Backlash?
Moderation: Marianne Braig, Freie Universität Berlin, Mecila Ethics Committee
Marcos Nobre, University of Campinas, Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (Cebrap), Mecila Principal Investigator
Democratic challenges in the context of Brazil’s neo-extractivist trap
The presentation intends to offer a particular interpretation of neoextractivism, seeking to show how it might help us understand Brazil’s recent history – and maybe not only Brazil’s. Putting forward the general idea of a “neoextractivist trap” as a starting point and research focus also entails questioning formulations that have used the same notion of a “trap” for other purposes — particularly to delineate groups of countries typically identified as belonging to the Global South. I refer here to formulations such as the “middle-income trap” or the “low-growth trap.” Moving beyond uses like these of the “trap” concept means, above all, restoring the centrality of dependency and the climate emergency, a framework in which the aforementioned formulations appear limited, to say the least. In order to be up to the challenge it is required to look at the neo-extractivist trap as a multidimensional phenomenon, encompassing environmental, economic, cultural, political, social, geopolitical, and technological dimensions.
Bert Hoffmann, Freie Universität Berlin, GIGA Hamburg-Berlin
Contested democracies and the erosion of the res publica
With the rise of a new radical right in the Americas and elsewhere, much of the debate focuses on the ‘erosion of democracy’ and its consequences. However, from crypto-currencies to private security companies and data mining, quintessential elements of what used to be “public matters” have come to be in private hands. Consequently, the crisis of democracy we are facing is not only about how public affairs should be governed, but also, more fundamentally, what constitutes the “res publica”.
Ina Kerner, University of Koblenz, Former Mecila Fellow
On the coloniality of democracy
Democracy is in crisis—this diagnosis has been voiced with increasing frequency in Europe for several years now. But what exactly constitutes this crisis? And how recent is it really? In my short presentation, I will first address aspects of Western democracy that could be considered to have always been in crisis. They point to the colonial legacy of Western democracy—to its coloniality. In a second step, I will point out ways to counteract the outlined legacies.
Luicy Pedroza, Colegio de México
Can the Latin American Path of Migration Policies Endure the Backlash?
The democratic backlash in Latin America shares common traits with other regions, notably the incremental dismantling of democratic institutions by elected officials rather than coups. However, across many Latin American countries the combination of widespread insecurity, widespread illicit economies, corruption, and inequality lay fertile ground for polarization. Populist leaders seek to consolidate power in this environment by exploiting public distrust to undermine democratic and civic/civil institutions. Unlike in Europe and the U.S., however, this backlash has had a weaker effect on promoting xenophobic narratives and harsh migration policies in Latin America. While some governments have tightened migration controls amid economic and political crises, the region largely keeps true to its trend toward progressive and inclusive migration and citizenship policies. The increased externalized migration controls by the U.S. on larger parts of the region are putting the resilience of this trait under a harsh test: will they be able to endure?
This roundtable explores how social movements and institutional actors navigate and transform the political landscape in times of crisis, polarization, and ecological urgency. Bringing together Indigenous, feminist, environmental, and academic perspectives from Latin America and Europe, the discussion examines how collective action, community engagement, and institutional collaboration can contribute to sustaining democracy and promoting social justice. Reflecting on the diverse strategies through which marginalized voices, environmental movements, and civic organizations articulate political agency and resistance, the roundtable underscores the transnational character of contemporary struggles and the importance of alliances that bridge social movements and formal institutions. It invites to reflect on the potential of innovative forms of “doing politics” to generate new forms of solidarity and coexistence amid uncertainty and global transformation.
Yasmin Romero Epiayú, Indigenous Group Wayuu, Colombia
Ari Lutzker, YoNoFui Collective, Argentina
Marisa Ramos Rollón, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Political Scientist
Fatim Selina Diaby, Climate Activist and Poetess, Germany
Moderation: Tomaz Amorim, University of Bochum, Former Mecila Academic Manager
Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Mecila Advisory Board Member
Kristina Dietz, University of Kassel, CALAS Board of Directors
Gloria Chicote, CONICET/University of La Plata – Argentina, Mecila Principal Investigator
Jörg Gengnagel, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, ICAS:MP Director
Mamadou Diawara, Goethe University Frankfurt, German Director MIASA
Moderation: Gesine Müller, University of Cologne, Mecila Principal Investigator
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