About me
I joined the Cultural Geography research group in November 2024. My research is focused on fermentation, food practices and microbial relations. Before turning my attention to microbes in the food world, I worked on global health and foreign policy, coincidentally during Covid-19.
At the department, I teach in the areas of health geographies, health and environment relations, more-than-human geographies, and more broadly economic and cultural geography. Before coming to Mainz, I was a research associate at the Department of Human Geography at Goethe-University Frankfurt (2018–2024), where I concluded my PhD research on the development of global health as a concern for foreign policy in Germany and the changes brought about to this political field by the Covid pandemic. Previously, I studied International Relations (M.A.) at the University of Birmingham, and Political Science and Geography (B.A.) at Goethe-University Frankfurt.
Contact
Institute of Geography
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität
Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 21
55099 Mainz
Room: 02-162
E-Mail: m.linden@uni-mainz.de
Research Interests
Global Health; Microbial Relations; Restructurings; Socio-Material Relations; Theory and Philosophical Concepts; Ethnography
Research Projects
I am currently interested in more-than-human and microbial relations. Using fermentation practices with and around dough as a starting point, I look at how humans relate to microbes and the environment through practices such as fermenting and cooking. I am also interested in understanding how microbes are sensed and made visible, and i the ways in which knowledge about microbes is conserved, shared, economised and/or used to create communities across spaces.
For my PhD research, I analysed the formation, consolidation and variation of global health as a political field in foreign policy in Germany. From an ethnography in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I conceptualised a global health–foreign policy assemblage to demonstrate these developments, particularly the changes Covid-19 caused to this arrangement. My PhD dissertation has been awarded the WISAG prize for the best dissertation in the humanities and social sciences at Goethe-University Frankfurt in 2025. The corresponding book, titled “Global Health in Crisis? Security, Foreign Policy and Covid-19 in Germany”, was published by Routledge in 2025.
Publications
Jacobsen, M., Linden, M., Matejcek, A., Neuhöfer, R. & Petermann, S. (2026) Austauschen, unterstützen, kompensieren. Intervision zur universitären Lehre. Feministisches Geo-RundMail 103: How (c)are you? Eine kleine Gefühls-Inventur in der Feministischen Geographie, 5-12.
Linden, M. (2025) Global Health in Crisis? Security, Foreign Policy and Covid-19 in Germany. London: Routledge.
Bartl, G., Hardt, J. N., Suttner, S., Linden, M., Ventura, R. A., Vogler, A., … & Melcher, F. (2024) Rethinking Governance in Times of Multiple Crises, in: Vigoni Papers 2023, 5, 1-23.
Linden, M. & van de Pas, R. (2024) The Political Determinants of Health – 10 Years On. International Health Policies Blog. https://www.internationalhealthpolicies.org/featured-article/the-political-determinants-of-health-10-years-on/.
Linden, M. (2022). Review of Kevin Hall (2021) Viren im Blick. Überwachung und Sichtbarkeit der Influenza in Deutschland (Campus Verlag), in: Newsletter AK MedGeo 2022, 7, 9-10.
Linden, M. (2020) Auswirkungen der Pandemie: Gesundheitskrise, Ökonomie und Ungleichheit, in: Geographica Helvetica 75, 3, 307-313. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-75-307-2020.
Linden, M. (2020) Globale Gesundheitspolitik und Ökonomie. Ein Beitrag zur Reihe “Sicherheit in der Krise.” Soziopolis. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-81968-1.
Activities
upcoming: exhibition “Haustiermesse” and panel discussion “Companion Sourdough”, November 2026, Forum Stadtpark Graz, https://forumstadtpark.at/de/programm/haustiermesse-graz; https://forumstadtpark.at/de/programm/lonely-planet-3
May 2026: Visiting Researcher, Centre for the Social Study of Microbes, University of Helsinki
Presentation, 26.02.2026: “‘Studying up?’ Ethnographisch forschen im Auswärtigen Amt” [Studying up? Ethnographic research in the German Federal Foreign Office]. Forschungswerkstatt Institut für Länderkunde (IfL), 26.-27.02.2026, Leipzig, Germany
Presentation, 02.10.2025: “Experimenting with dough: Fermentation, feeling, and autoethnographic practice making sourdough and injera” (with Tesfahun Haddis Hailu). Neue Kulturgeographie, 30.09.-02.10.2025, Augsburg, Germany
Presentation, 29.08.2025: “The folded temporalities of vaccine donations”. Royal Geographical Society (with Institute for British Geographers) Annual Conference, 26.–29.08.2025, Birmingham, England
Session Organisation, 29.08.2025: “Intersecting Creative Geographies with Spatio-Temporalities: Art and Science in Time of Crises” (with Yu-Kai Liao). Royal Geographical Society (with Institute for British Geographers) Annual Conference, 26.–29.08.2025, Birmingham, England
Input and Workshop, 10.07.2025: “Resilient global health? The limits of pandemic preparedness and surveillance”. Georg Forster Summer School: Resilience in times of global crisis, 04.-15.07.2025, Mainz, Germany
Presentation, 28.03.2025: “‘An extreme situation, like never before’: the governance of global health–foreign policy during Covid-19”. American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, 24.-28.03.2025, Detroit, MI, USA
Presentation, 29.08.2024: “The global health assemblage in Germany and Covid-19: crisis, power and instability in policy decision-making”. Royal Geographical Society (with Institute for British Geographers) Annual Conference, 27.–30.08.2024, London, England
Session Organisation, 29.08.2024: “Mapping Power Relations in Assemblages of Health and Care” (with Jessy Williams). Royal Geographical Society (with Institute for British Geographers) Annual Conference, 27.–30.08.2024, London, England
Feb.–Mar. 2024: Visiting Researcher, Brocher Foundation Geneva, Switzerland
Presentation, 22.09.2023: „Globale Gesundheit regierbar machen? Politische Umgangsweisen zwischen Krisenintervention und nachhaltiger Planung“ [Making global health governable? Political processes between crisis intervention and sustainable planning]. German Congress for Geography 2023: Planetary Futures, 19.-23.09.2023, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Workshop Input, 16.09.2023: „Global health security after COVID-19: Pandemic preparedness, security and economics”. Global Health Summer School and Conference IPPNW & medico, 16.09.2023, Berlin, Germany
Presentation, 27.01.2023: „Zeit, Temperatur, Impfstoff: Die sozio-technischen Herausforderungen der COVID-Impfstoffspenden“ [Time, temperature, vaccines: the socio-technical challenges to COVID vaccine donations]. Neue Kulturgeographie, 26.-28.01.2023, Halle (Saale), Germany
Presentation, 23.09.2022: „Gesundheitssicherheit, Gesundheitsschutz und Pandemic Preparedness“ [Health security, health protection and pandemic preparedness]. Annual Meeting Arbeitskreis Medizinische Geographie und Geographische Gesundheitsforschung, 22.-24.09.2022, Bonn, Germany
Presentation, 10.06.2022: „Critical Logistics: Vaccine stockpiles, donations and their missing links“. Global Conference on Economic Geography, 7.-10.06.2022, Dublin, Ireland
2020–2021: Ethnographic fieldwork with the German Federal Foreign Office, Coordinator for the Foreign Policy Dimension of Global Health Issues, Berlin, Germany
Presentation, 08.10.2021: „Gesundheitsschutz oder Gesundheitssicherheit? Rationalitäten und Praktiken der globalen Gesundheit“ [Health protection or health security? Rationalities and practices of global health]. #GeoWoche2021 (virtual conference German geographical society), 05.-09.10.2021 (online)
Presentation, 19.08.2020: “Securitizing Global Health – Global Health Politics Between Preparedness, Security and Economy”. Joint Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, 18.-21.08.2020, virtually in Prague, Czech Republic
Presentation, 08.07.2020: “Globale Gesundheitspolitik zwischen ökonomischer Rationalität und Regieren im Ausnahmezustand” [Global health politics between economic rationality and governing in a state of exception] (with Peter Lindner). Online Symposium: COVID-19 als Zäsur? Geographische Perspektiven auf Räume, Gesellschaften und Technologien in der Pandemie [COVID-19 as a caesura? Geographical perspectives on spaces, societies and technologies in the pandemic], 06.-08.07.2020 (online)
Presentation, 29.09.2019: “Financial Literacy as Empowerment? The OECD and its promotion of financial literacy for women as a form of coordination between states and markets”. German Congress for Geography 2019, 25.-30.09.2019, Kiel, Germany
Teaching
Winter Term 2025/26
- M5-MA Current Debates on Globalisation, Media & Culture: “Food for thought” – Theories on and with Eating (MA Human Geography)
- M2/M2ED Übung: Humangeographie I – Sozialgeographische Stadtforschung (BSc Geographie, BEd Geographie)
Summer Term 2025
- M4-MA: Reading Course II (MA Human Geography)
- M5-MA Current Debates on Globalisation, Media & Culture: Geographies of Health (MA Human Geography)
- M2/M2ED Übung: Humangeographie II – Wirtschaftsgeographie (BSc Geographie, BEd Geographie)
Winter Term 2024/25
- M11/M9ED Exkursion mit Vorbereitungsseminar: Europäische Grenzregionen (BSc Geographie, MEd Geographie)
Prior teaching at Goethe University Frankfurt:
- Qualitative methods: Viruses, dust and heat. Qualitative analysis on health and air (with Till Straube, full academic year 2024)
- Seminar: Debt crisis in the Global South? Perspectives on the international debt architecture (with Ilja Fragin, winter 2023/24)
- Seminar: Geographies of health / Health Geographies (summer 2021, 2022, 2023)
- Seminar and field trip: Birmingham – Britain after Brexit (summer 2020, 2023)
- Seminar: Economic geographical perspectives on crises (summer 2020, 2019)
- Colloquium: Research seminar BA thesis (summer 2020, winter 2020/21, winter 2021/22, summer 2022)
- Reading seminar: Corona, Crises, and the New Economics of Global Health (winter 2020/21)