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Christoph Sonnlechner : "Gesellschaft und Umwelt im Frühmittelalter. Ein Jahr Visiting Scholar an der UCLA (University of California Los Angeles). Blick zurück und Vorstellung des Projekts"

Das Seminar wird sich in drei Teile gliedern: Zuerst wird der Schrödinger Stipendiat seine Erfahrungen während des Forschungsjahres an der UCLA referieren und anschließend sein laufendes Projekt vorstellen. Der dritte Teil wird der Diskussion gewidmet sein. Diese Veranstaltung versteht sich als Beitrag des ehemaligen Stipendiaten, im Ausland erworbenes methodisches Know How in die österreichische Wissenschaftslandschaft einzubringen. Differenzen der wissenschaftlichen Systeme sollen angesprochen, mögliche Impulse für den heimischen Betrieb beleuchtet werden. Im zweiten Teil wird das im April 2003 angelaufene FWF-Projekt "Gesellschaft und Umwelt im Frühmittelalter" vorgestellt, das bereits auf den in Los Angeles betriebenen Studien aufbauen kann. Im Mittelpunkt der Fragestellung stehen Transformationsprozesse von Agrarökosystemen.

Gerade das 8. und 9. Jahrhundert brachten in ganz Europa Wandel auf vielen Ebenen. Mit den Karolingern setzten großräumig merkbare Prozesse der Vereinheitlichung ein: in den Bereichen des Schriftwesens, des Gesandtenwesens, der kirchlichen, monastischen wie auch der weltlichen Administration wurden Standardisierungsmodelle kreiert und in die Realität umzusetzen versucht. Gleiches gilt für den landwirtschaftlichen Produktionsprozeß. Standardisierte Landorganisation und Produktionseinheiten wurden erstrebt. Das sogenannte Villikationssystem war das Resultat. Diese erstrebten Umstrukturierungen sollen behandelt und in erster Linie in ihren Konsequenzen für Agrarökosysteme beleuchtet werden. Wahrnehmung von Land und Organisation desselben zu beforschen, ist eine Facette umwelthistorischer Forschung, die sich mit den Beziehungen von Gesellschaft und Umwelt in der Vergangenheit beschäftigt. Nicht zuletzt müssen auch Fragen der Quellenkritik prominent angesprochen werden.

Eine kurze Projektbeschreibung finden Sie unter: http://www.univie.ac.at/Geschichtsforschung/forsch3.htm

Ort: Hörsaal des Inst. f. Österr. Geschichtsforschung, Uni Wien, Dr. Karl Lueger-Ring 1, A-1010 Wien
Zeit: Freitag, 7. November 2003, 16:00 pünktlich

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Tomasz Samojlik: "Białowieża Forest: Human Footprints in Europe’s Last Primeval Forest"

The presentation shows an outline of a PhD project (conducted under a supervision of Prof. Dr. Bogumila Jędrzejewska) dealing with human influence on the past biodiversity of Białowieża Forest in the period of traditional multiple forest use. Chronological frames of the project are only partially set: the closing date is known (year 1795 AD, the third partition of Poland, a historical event that fundamentally changed the model of interaction between people and the forest in Białowieża), but the beginning point is still to be set (recent archaeological discoveries showed that human settlement in Białowieża Forest began 2.5 thousand years ago). The project aims to show the interlinked relations between man and nature in Białowieża Forest in the time of traditional use of woodlands, before timber production became the prime forest resource for people. Białowieża Primeval Forest has preserved the last remnants of pristine temperate forests in European lowlands. The long history of protection (since the 15th century) succeeded in preserving enormous biodiversity of flora and fauna, including the European bison. Even longer history of human actions in the Forest left various traces in its structure and composition. Tomasz Samojlik’s PhD project will aim at answering the following questions:

1. What were the forms, time and space range of local economical human influence on Białowieża Forest?
2. What were the forms, time and space range, and efficiency of administrative protection of Białowieża Forest?
3. What were the effects of both directions of anthropogenic influence on Białowieża Forest ecosystem biodiversity?
4. What traces of human activities from the period before the beginning of 19th century are observed up to date in Białowieża Forest ecosystems?

Tomasz Samojlik graduated from the Faculty of European Philosophy, Culture and History of the Marie Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin. Since 2002, he as been an administrative coordinator of the project "Centre of Excellence in Biodiversity Conservation and Mammal Research in European Terrestrial Ecosystems (BIOTER)" conducted at the Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences and financed by the European Commission.

Place: IFF, Schottenfeldg. 29, 1070 Wien, Seminarraum 6. Stock
Time: Donnerstag, 9. Oktober 2003, 10:00-13:00

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Minisymposium zur Umweltgeschichte.
Eine Veranstaltung im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe „Lectures on Social Ecology“
in Kooperation mit dem Zentrum für Umweltgeschichte (ZUG)

Im Rahmen dieses Minisymposiums präsentieren zwei Gäste aus den USA aktuelle umwelthistorische Forschungen.

Geoff Cunfer: "Agricultural Land Use and Environment in the U.S. Great Plains, 1870-2000”

This talk evaluates the ways that people have intersected and altered ecosystem processes over more than a century in the Great Plains, one of the U.S.’s leading agricultural regions. It evaluates historical farming from the perspective of ecological systems: plant diversity, hydrology, energy transfers, wind erosion, and nutrient cycles. To what extent did Euro-American farmers disrupt the ecology of the prairies? How did climate and environment mold human land use? Is modern industrial agriculture sustainable? What caused the 1930s Dust Bowl? Empirical data suggest that the answers to these questions are more complex (and interesting) than many people believe. This lecture summarizes the Great Plains Population and Environment Project, which created a database and GIS of historical agricultural land use covering one fifth of the U.S. and 130 years of evolving interactions between people and nature. It also previews a new project, called "Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement,” which will trace thousands of individual farm families and farmsteads through 70 years of evolving land use and family structures.

Geoff Cunfer is associate professor of environmental history and studies at the Center for Rural and Regional Studies, Southwest Minnesota State University, in the U.S. He explores past interactions between people and the natural world, focusing especially on agriculture, agroecology, and land use in the prairies and Great Plains. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas. His first book, tentatively entitled The Great Plains: An Agricultural and Environmental History, is forthcoming from Texas A&M University press in 2004.

http://www.southweststate.edu/regional/

Ravi Rajan: "Technological Disasters and Cultures of Safety: Policy Lessons from Qualitative Risk Studies"

The purpose of this presentation is to explore the policy relevant "lessons" afforded by recent qualitative social scientific approaches - anthropological and historical - to technological disasters. I base this on my work on the "metaphysics" of environmental violence, which, in essence, consists of a five-pronged typology: a) Technological Violence, or the violence of the “normal accident”; b) Corporate violence, or the violence of irresponsible capital; c) Distributive Violence, or the violence of environmental justice; d) Bureaucratic Violence- comprising the violence of bureaucratic absence; the violence of the routine and of scientism; and e) Discursive Violence, or the violence of the symbolic appropriation of social suffering.

Ravi Rajan is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After studying mathematics and philosophy at the University of Delhi, he obtained his D-Phil in environmental history and the history of science at Oxford, following which he held post-doctoral positions in geography, science and technology studies and environmental history, respectively at Berkeley, Cornell and the Max Planck Institute für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin. He divides his research time between environmental history and studies of technological risks in complex systems. Rajan has also worked for a number of environmental organizations, including the Pesticide Action Network, North America, of whose board he recently served as President.

http://people.ucsc.edu/~srrajan/

Place: IFF Abteilung Soziale Ökologie, Schottenfeldg. 29, 1070 Wien, Seminarraum Nr. 6, 6. Stock
Time: 11. September 2003, 18.00 - 20.00

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