About me:
Since August 2021, I have been working as a lecturer and research assistant in the research group for cultural geography at the Institute of Geography at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. I started my studies in Geography at the University of Heidelberg in 2012 and completed my Bachelor of Science with a thesis on rural development through agritourism in Ecuador. For my Master’s degree with a focus on ‘Globalisation and Development’, I then moved to the Institute of Geography at the University of Bonn, where I also supported research and teaching in Julia Verne’s team. After completing my Master’s degree with the thesis ‘Approximating the Past – the Restoration of Wildlife Corridors in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania’, I was employed as a doctoral student at the CRC 228 ‘Future Rural Africa: Future Making and Social-Ecological Transformation’. Since the beginning of 2024, I have been researching current dynamics in international disaster relief in the DfG project ‘Shelter Technologies in Action’.
Contact:
Institute of Geography
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität
Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 21
55099 Mainz
Room: 02-162
E-Mail: astrid.matejcek@uni-mainz.de
Research Interests:
Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies, Eastern Africa, Experimenting, Human-Technology-Environment Relations, Post-Phenomenology, Ethnographic Methods, Technological Pilot Projects, Agricultural Development, Actor-Network-Theory, Tanzania, Digitalization, Participant Observation
Research Projects:
My dissertation critically engages with debates on ‘information and communication technologies for development’ (ICT4D) and uses ethnographic methods to explore how mobile applications, digitally- enhanced interactive content creation and artificial intelligence systems are being tested in the context of agricultural development in rural Tanzania. Building on recent scholarly concepts that address the role of technologies in the (co-)constitution of social phenomena, in the current project on ‘’Shelter Technologies in Action‘’ I understand shelter technologies and humanitarian supply chains not as neutral means for humanitarian purposes. Through ethnographic fieldwork, I examine humanitarian goods as artefacts and infrastructures that co-produce the social worlds of disaster relief. This research follows selected shelter technologies from their design and production sites through their distribution networks to various sites of relief and daily use in the global South and North.
Publications:
Matejcek, A. (under revision): Experimental Rural Development in the Global South: Piloting Digital Technologies for Agriculture in Tanzania. In: Future Rural Africa. Boydell & Brewer.
Tups, G. and Matejcek, A. (accepted): Planning smart, working hard – Building digital connectivity between firms and farms in rural Tanzania. Territory, Politics, Governance. Matejcek, A., Neuhöfer, R., Rochlitz, J., and Verne, J. (forthcoming). “In technology we trust“: Digital visions and their implications for Agricultural Development in Eastern Africa. In D. Müller- Mahn and M. Bollig (Eds.) Future rural Africa (pp.1-16). James Curry.
Matejcek, A. (2024): “We don’t do sugar-coating!” – The Tough Business of Digitizing Tanzanian Agriculture. In: Jacobsen & Tristl: Western Modernity in Crisis: (De-)Constructions of Plural and Alternative Forms of Social Organization. Edited collection for Society and Space Forum. https://www.societyandspace.org/forums/western-modernity-in-crisis-de-constructions-of-plural-and-alternative-forms-of-social-organization.
Matejcek, A. (2022). Das tansanische Reisfeld als lebendes Labor? Eigenlogiken des Übersetzungsprozesses einer technologiezentrierten Pilotstudie in ein Agrarentwicklungsprojekt. Geographica Helvetica, 77(2), 239–252. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-77-239-2022
Matejcek, A., and Verne, J. (2021a). Restoration-as-development? Contesting Aspirational Politics Regarding the Restoration of Wildlife Corridors in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. The European Journal of Development Research, 33(4), 1022–1043. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287- 021-00403-2
Matejcek, A., and Verne, J. (2021b). Mobile Application to Secure Tenure in Rural Tanzania: Anticipating Diverging Agricultural Futures and the Production of (In) securities in the Kilombero Valley. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.1535
Blogposts:
Notes from the field: Cultivating Rice in the Kilombero Valley – Future Rural Africa (crc228.de)
Corona-Blog — Department of Geography University Bonn (uni-bonn.de)
Activities:
- Speaker of the Research Group “Digital Geographies” in Germany 2022-2024
- Co-Organizer of the annual meeting of the Research Group “Digital Geographies” in Mainz 23.11.2023-24.11.2023
- Conference presentation on piloting digital technologies as an experimental practice within development aid at the German Congress of Geography: Planetary Futures, Frankfurt, 21.09.2023
- Conference presentation on the role of the private sector in driving innovation in the Global South at NKG XVIII: Geographies of Overlapping Crisis, Halle, 27.01.2023
- Invited talk at the Institute Colloquium on emerging dynamics in the development sector through digitalisation, Erlangen, 25.05.2022
- Conference presentation on Testing and Developing Digital Technologies in and for Tanzanian Agriculture at the 4S Toronto: “Good Relations: Practices and Methods in Unequal and Uncertain Worlds.”, 10.6.2021 – 10.9.2021
- Conference presentation on Piloting Digital Technologies in Rural Tanzania at the NKG XVII Bonn: Technocultures & Technoscapes, 30.01.-01.02.2020
- Summer School: Politics of anticipation – Exploring Social-Ecological Transformation through the lens of Future Studies, July 29th –August 2nd 2019 – Nairobi and Naivasha, Kenya
- Research stays in Tanzania (and Kenya) Feb-Apr 2018, Sept-Oct 2018, Feb-Sept 2019, Feb-Apr 2020
- Organization of the PhD-Workshop on interdisciplinary research and bridging gaps between natural sciences and humanities, in Lindlar 14.12.2018 – 15.12.2018
Teaching:
Winter term 23/24
- M11b/M11ED GP: Exkursion mit Vorbereitungsseminar “(Post-)Phänomenologische Zugänge zu Landschaft, Südfrankreich”
Summer term 23
- M11b/M11ED GP: Exkursion mit Vorbereitungsseminar “Tansania: Nord-Süd, Kultur-Natur, Stadt-Land”
- M6/M8ED/M13ED Geländepraktikum Humangeographische Methoden C „Mainzer Foodscapes“
Winter term 22/23
- M2 Übung: Humangeographie I (Sozialgeographische Stadtforschung)
Summer term 22
- M8 Übung: Theorien und Methoden der Humangeographie C „Der Cyborg in Dir!“
- M6/M8ED/M13ED Geländepraktikum Humangeographische Methoden C „Mainzer Foodscapes“
Winter term 21/22
- M3 Regionale Geographie: Bonn – Ehemalige Hauptstadt, UN-Stadt, Postkoloniale Stadt
Teaching at University of Bonn:
- Humangeographie Aufbau 2 (Seminar Bachelor Geography, Winter term 2020/2021)
- Tutor for the scientific writing course in the UNU Joint Master program