Projects
Students cultural anthropology help schools Ghent University
Through mental mapping and ethnographic interviw techniques some 50 students make a (limited) contextual analysis of some 20 schools. The schools are selected by the office of the Vlaamse bouwmeester (Flemish Architectural Surveyor) from a list of schools which are chosen to benefit of a substantial material (re)construction in the coming years. The socio-cultural research will be useful in the negotiations for PPS.
Human life? From philosophy of life to philosophical anthropology: a transnational and transdisciplinary inquiry. Ghent University
This project proposes a historical and systematic study of German and French intellectual projects between 1870 and 1940 labelled 'Philosophy of Life,' 'Biological Philosophy,' and 'Philosophical Anthropology.' The core hypothesis is that they share an alternative conception of philosophy, called here heterodox naturalism, which (1) resists reductive naturalisms as well as idealist and analytical approaches, and (2) seeks to articulate an ...
A feminist and decolonial approach to studying environmental movements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo KU Leuven
In the face of an escalating climate crisis, social scientists are confronted with an urgent challenge: How can our research contribute to facilitating the kind of radical economic and political reorganizations necessary for reduced resource use on a global scale? European scholars and activists and are at the vanguard of this research, and many approaches have coalesced around theories of ādegrowthā and āpost-growthā, which envisage the ...
The Icon as a Window for Environmental Dialogue KU Leuven
A discrepancy between environmental knowledge and values held, on the one hand, and actual proenvironmental behavior displayed on the other, forms a central challenge to contemporary environmental ethics, policy and education alike. As the cognitive dimension appears insufficient to bridge this so-called value action-gap, other dimensions within the experience of the natural environment are expected to play a role in fostering ...
The Haemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:24-34par). An iconological research into the meaning of the bleeding woman in medieval art (1th-15th century). Also a contribution to the blood- and touching taboo before the era of modernity. KU Leuven
Sabbatical Filip De Boeck: Decolonising anthropological knowledge. A History of the Lunda Frontier KU Leuven
Content Sabbaticial: Book publication (title: The Frontier Files: Life along the Congo-Angola Border, in collaboration with Peabody Museum, Harvard), construction of accompanying exhibition, production of accompanying ethnographic film in collaboration with visual artist Sammy Baloji and arts center Picha (Lubumbashi)
Hunting Stags: On the Origins of Cooperation and Social Reality KU Leuven
The research objective is to trace the origins of social cooperation by comparing two approaches, namely that of game theory versus evolutionary anthropology. For the first approach I start from Brian Skyrms's 'The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structureā which I will compare with Michael Tomasello's āNatural History of Human Moralityā. Tomasello also refers to the game-theoretical Stag Hunt as a metaphor to explain the origins of ...
Special Research Fund Professorship in political ethnography Ghent University
A professorship granted by the Special Research Fund is a primarily research-oriented position and is made available for excellent researchers with a high-quality research programme.
Lay Women: International Experts and Theologians avant-la-lettre. Legacies and Entangled Histories (1945-1962) KU Leuven
The overarching objective of this project is to demonstrate European Catholic lay women's vital contributions as international agents, thinkers and theologians avant-la-lettre, from the end of World War II up to the celebration of the Second Vatican Council (1945-1962). While several studies have dealt with lay (and religious) women during and after the Council, their pioneer role as intellectuals and international experts in the ...