Postdoctoral Investigators

Carlos Nupia is a researcher at the IAI and a Postdoctoral Investigator at Mecila, where he coordinates the Research Area “Medialities of Conviviality.” His doctoral thesis analyzed the adaptation of international policy models on science and technology in Latin American countries from the theoretical perspectives of policy transfer and historical institutionalism.

Carlos’ main research interest within the framework of conviviality focuses on the inequalities of knowledge circulation in peacebuilding interventions, particularly those in which heterogeneous knowledges coexist. Drawing on empirical evidence from the Colombian case, his research at Mecila explores the power and knowledge relations among the different actors involved in territorial peacebuilding activities.

Carlos is a journalist, holding a degree from the Universidad Externado de Colombia, and he obtained his PhD in Political Science from the FU Berlin with scholarships from DAAD and Colfuturo. He has extensive experience in the field of international scientific cooperation. Recently, he worked as a researcher at the IAI (2023–2024) and as administrative director at the German-Colombian Peace Institute (CAPAZ) from 2017 to 2023.

Philipp Naucke is an academic staff member at the Institute for Latin American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and a postdoctoral investigator at Mecila, where he coordinates the Research Area Politics of Conviviality. His research interests focus on rural lifeworlds in the conflict and post-conflict regions of Colombia and Guatemala. In several research projects, he has ethnographically explored the Local Peacebuilding potential of peasant and indigenous communities, State-Society Relations and Everyday State Formation in regions of supposed state absence, and the Transforming Insecurity Situations and Security Strategies of marginalized indigenous, afro-colombian and peasant communities in (post-)conflict regions of Colombia. He is currently working on a project about Conviviality in Sacrifice Zones, dealing with violence, environmental destruction and alternative ecologies in areas and times of polycrisis phenomena.

Philipp holds a doctorate in Social and Cultural Anthropology and a master’s degree in Ethnology, Economics and Peace and Conflict Studies, both from Philipps-Universität Marburg. He has held two Interim Professorships in Social Anthropology (2023, 2020-21), was a Visiting Researcher at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (2023), an Associate Researcher at the Universitat de Barcelona (2020-21) and has held several Visiting Lectureships at the Universidad del Magdalena, Santa Marta, Colombia (2023), Universidade Rovuma, Nampula, Mozambique (2022) and the Universitat de Barcelona (2016, 2017, 2019, 2022). For his PhD thesis on State-Society Encounters in Conflict Regions, he received the 1st ADLAF Prize 2022 of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Lateinamerika Forschung for excellent, interdisciplinary research on Latin America.

Recent publications:

Naucke, P. & E. Halbmayer 2024. “Introduction: Security from the Margins.” Introduction to the Special Issue ‚Security from the Margins‘, Conflict and Society 10: 97–112.

Naucke, P. 2024. “‘Dignified Life’ in the Colombian Peace Process. Peasant security strategies in transforming (in)security situations.” Article in Special Issue ‚Security from the Margins‘, Conflict and Society 10: 144–61.

Naucke, P. 2024. “Peasant Peacebuilding – Colombian Peace Communities as Rural Peace Agents.” In: T. Kleibl, C. Schmitt, K. Kiewitt, R. Lutz (eds.), Krieg und Konflikt. Peacebuilding als Herausforderung und Arbeitsfeld. Beltz Verlag, Juventa, S. 309-324.

Naucke, P. 2023. “Beyond State Absence – Clientelised Statehood in a Colombian Conflict Region.” History and Anthropology 35(4): 732–53.

Naucke, P. & E. Halbmayer. 2023. “Von friedlichen Gesellschaften bis Friedensgemeinden und lokalen friedensbildenden Prozessen. Beiträge der anthropologischen Friedensforschung.” In: J.C. Cohrs, N. Knab, G. Sommer (eds.) Handbuch Friedenspsychologie, S- 3-24.

Claudio Cardinali is a research associate at the Luso-Brazilian Institute at the University of Cologne and a Postdoctoral Investigator at Mecila, where he also coordinates the research area [Hi]Stories of Conviviality. His research explores the intersections between aesthetics, epistemology, and social critique in Brazilian and German intellectual traditions, with a particular focus on the work of the Brazilian essayist Roberto Schwarz and the legacy of German Critical Theory.

He recently co-organized the edited volume Roberto Schwarz Beyond Borders (edited by Laura Rivas Gagliardi, Melanie Strasser, and Claudio Cardinali, in print, 2025). His doctoral research, completed in 2025 within a cotutelle agreement between the University of Cologne and the University of São Paulo, investigates the continuities and differences between Roberto Schwarz’s essays and the theoretical framework of Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin, focusing on questions of realism, critique, and the relationship between literature and social thought. His PhD was supported by a scholarship from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Before his doctoral studies, he obtained a Master’s degree in Romance Studies (Portuguese/French) from the University of Cologne (2020), a Bachelor’s degree in Multilingual Communication from the Technical University of Cologne (2018), and a Bachelor’s degree in Geography from the University of São Paulo (2015).

His research interests lie in Critical Theory, aesthetics, literary critique, and contemporary cultural theory.

Selected publications:

• “Sobre Rainha Lira,” Remate de Males, v. 42, n. 2, 2022.
• “Zwischen Ästhetik und Epistemologie: das Verhältnis von Wirklichkeit und realistischer Literatur bei Lukács und Adorno,” Kritiknetz – Zeitschrift für Kritische Theorie der Gesellschaft, 2020.
• (Translation) Michael Heinrich: Karl Marx e o nascimento da sociedade moderna. Biografia e desenvolvimento de sua obra. Vol. 1: 1818–1841. Boitempo, São Paulo, 2018.