Fellows

Thought Collectives of Environmental Knowledge. The Vienna Institute for Social Ecology between Science, Politics and Media (1970s–1990s)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In Vienna and Berlin, Vermont and Montevideo, the 1970s and 1980s were the heydays for founding research centers on social ecology. In response to the environmental crisis and social inequality, researchers, activists and civil society groups came together to develop new perspectives on human-environment relations and to inform politics. Drawing on Ludwik Fleck’s concept of »thought collectives« and »intercollective knowledge exchange,« Lisa Cronjäger would like to ask: What group dynamics characterized the thought collectives of social ecology? How did the Institute for Social Ecology in Klagenfurt and Vienna shape knowledge on how to deal with the environmental crisis? How did the members relate to their socio-political environments? The research project Thoughts Collectives of Environmental Knowledge examines the founding phase of socio-ecological research centers with regard to the collaboration of scholars from the humanities and sciences, media professionals and activists.

CV

Lisa Cronjäger combines perspectives from cultural and media studies with the history of science and environmental history. Before joining the research collective on television studies in Lausanne in March 2024, she studied in Berlin and Helsinki and completed her doctorate at the University of Basel with support from the institute for history of science at the University of Vienna. In her doctoral thesis she investigated the visualization techniques of forest maps that were meant to facilitate sustainable resource management. The book will be published in 2025 in the series Historische Wissensforschung by Wallstein Verlag. In general, her research focuses on knowledge production and imaging processes in the context of resource conflicts and political movements: from the forestry academies founded in 19^th century Europe, to socio-ecological research centers during the environmental movements of the 1970s and 1980s, to humanities and activist perspectives on the climate crisis in the present.

Publications

Umtriebszeiten. Forsteinrichtungskarten und die Umwandlung von Wäldern im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Wallstein 2025 (im Erscheinen).

»Sanft ist schön. Die bewegten Bilder der angepassten Technologie in den 1970er- und 80er-Jahren«, in: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte 75, 2025 (im Erscheinen).

»Umtriebszeiten und planetare Grenzen. Bildmuster der maximalen Ausnutzung natürlicher Ressourcen«, in: Traverse – Zeitschrift für Geschichte 1/2024, S. 86–104. https://revue-traverse.ch/ausgabe/2024-1/

»On the Exactly Balanced Use of Nature and Its Representation«, in: History of Humanities. Forum Section: The Promises of Exactitude (edited with Aurea Klarskov, Antoina von Schöning, Mario Wimmer), Vol. 7, No. 2, 2022, S. 161–175. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/721307)

» Bäume für das neue Jahrtausend. Die Vorstellung einer genauen Ressourcenverwaltung im Kreislaufprinzip«, in: Larissa Dätwyler, Aurea Klarskov, Lucas Knierzinger (Hg.), Imagination und Genauigkeit. Verschränkungen in Künsten und Wissenschaften, Berlin: Neofelis 2021, S. 137–154. Open Acess: https://neofelis-verlag.de/media/pdf/f0/52/f0/OA_9783958083875.pdf