ACTIVITIES

Here you find information about recent and upcoming events that we organise or recommend, reports about fieldtrips and research activities, and teaching related news and suggestions. We also use this blog to highlight activities within our research networks and to share our current inspirations.

Activities, Events

Film-Screening: The Empty Grave (04th of December, 2025)

We are very excited to invite you to the screening of „Das leere Grab | The Empty Grave“ (2024; English/German/Swahili; Kijiweni Productions), a film by Tanzanian-German directorial duo Cece Mlay and Agnes Lisa Wegner, on 4. December at 6 pm at the African Music Archive (AMA). Don’t...

Activities, Inspiration

Insights from Health Geographies I: How cities shape our health (Summer term 2025)

Text and photos by Johanna Möller This project examines the complex relationship between cities and health. Using Mainz and other cities as examples, it shows how public spaces can both hinder and promote well-being – on the one hand through noise, crowding, and air pollution,...

Activities, Latest Publications

New publication: “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution” by Julia Verne

In this article, published in African Affairs, Julia and Sandra (from the University of Richmond, VA) address the loss of property that many experienced in the aftermath of the Zanzibar revolution in 1964 due to government confiscations. Even though a number of scholars have been interested in...

Activities, Field

Exploring Urban Air and Heat in Griesheim

As part of her ongoing research in the project “Technonatural mediations of urban airs“, Malve Jacobsen conducted fieldwork in Griesheim, a town near Darmstadt, to explore how residents sense and perceive urban air quality and heat. The visit was combined with the local Climate Action...

Activities, Events, Networks, Presentations, Teaching News

Visiting the Seminar “Heated Planetary Futures” at Goethe University Frankfurt

In July 2025, Malve Jacobsen gave a talk on “Mosses Against Heat” in the seminar Heated Planetary Futures at the Department of Human Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt. The seminar, led by Alexandra Wirobek and Marc Boeckler, sought to understand heat through its socio-spaital consequences and...

Activities, Latest Publications

Julia Verne’s co-edited volume “Cargoes in Motion: Materiality and Connectivity Across the Indian Ocean” is now available in open-access.

Firstly published in 2023, the edited volume can now be accessed free of charge! The different contributions deal with the mobility and materiality of freight in the Indian Ocean World, tracing various goods through the maritime space to highlight their regional interconnectedness. The open-access version of...

Film-Screening: The Empty Grave (04th of December, 2025)

Insights from Health Geographies I: How cities shape our health (Summer term 2025)

New publication: “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution” by Julia Verne

Exploring Urban Air and Heat in Griesheim

Visiting the Seminar “Heated Planetary Futures” at Goethe University Frankfurt

Julia Verne’s co-edited volume “Cargoes in Motion: Materiality and Connectivity Across the Indian Ocean” is now available in open-access.

Indian Ocean World Partnership Conference at the University of Mainz (June 2025)

Lecture Series 2025 – Andreas Folkers: After sustainability. Reparations and resilience in times of planetary emergencies (Juli 2025)

WISAG prize 2025 for Mara Linden’s dissertation on Global Health in Crisis (June 2025)

Umweltforschung zum Anfassen – Exkursion an die Universität Mainz (Mai 2025)

Insights into human-animal relations in Oman at a Camel Beauty Contest

Der etwas andere Golfstaat – Exkursion in den Oman (Februar 2025)

Eindrücke einer Exkursions-Rundreise in Tansania (September 2024)

Einsichten aus einem Praktikum in Tansania

Forschungsaufenthalt in Sansibar – Ein Erfahrungsbericht

Balancing resilience and sustainability: Visiting warehouses for humanitarian goods in Dubai

Exkursion nach Tansania (Oktober 2023)

Auslandssemester an der Uni Richmond – ein Erfahrungsbericht

Serious game test run

Lively debates on “Digital Disruptions” at the annual meeting of the Digitial Geographies-working group in Mainz

Sandra Petermann speaking at the JGU lecture series “Voices for Climate”

Everjoy Chiimba and Rupa Rupa presenting their work at the Northern European Emergency and Disaster Studies Conference (NEEDS)

Working group participated at German Congress of Geography in Frankfurt/Main

Workshop-Tagung “Digitale Disruptionen” des AK Digitale Geographien, 23./24. November 2023 in Mainz

M8 Fieldtrip to Cologne: European Conference on African Studies (ECAS)

Film Screening: “Concerning Violence”

Research Group on Writing Retreat in the Odenwald

New publication on “Sensing weather: scientific and experiental modes of knowledge production for small-scale farming in western Kenya” by Julian Rochlitz

New publication: Mediating Infrastructural Discipline: Established Practices and Changing Structures of Dar es Salaam’s Transport Sector

Catching energy? Insights from a workshop on hacking the city by means of design interventions

International Guest Lecture by Sandra F. Joireman (29th November 12:00 c.t. -14:00)

Malve Jacobsen conducted empirical research for her project “Urban air in crisis”

Sandra Petermann receives The Grand Princely Order of the Pink Flamingo from the Principality of Aigues-Mortes

Lecture and Prix Molière at the 3e Sommet de la MicroFrancophonie in Blaye

Bayreuth und Fränkische Schweiz B (Oktober 2022)

Bayreuth und Fränkische Schweiz A (August 2022)

Research Group Members participating in the Annual Meeting of British Geographers in Newcastle

Urbane Natur: Geländetage in Berlin (Juli 2022)

Guest Lecture by Frank Edward (UDSM)

„Ab in den Süden“: Exkursion in Südfrankreich (April 2022)

Geländetage im Rhein-Main Gebiet zum Urbanen Fahrradfahren

Bonn – ehemalige Hauptstadt, UN-Stadt, Postkoloniale Stadt

Joint research and teaching with colleagues from the State University of Zanzibar

Anchoring Indian Ocean Studies at JGU Mainz

Disaster communication beyond the state?

Das tansanische Reisfeld als lebendes Labor?

New Book Publication: Cargoes in Motion

Film Screening at Geography Department on 09 June 2022: “Natura Urbana: The Brachen of Berlin”

Counter-Geographies of Extinction

Tansania notes from the field #2

Unruly Sites? Exploring the Brachen of Berlin – A Workshop by the Research Group of Environmental Anthropology

Tansania notes from the field #1

Starting fieldwork in India: First impressions and more

VR-glasses available for student research projects in the GeoPool

LK Arava