About me:
I joined the Geography Department at JGU as the chair of the cultural geography research group in April 2021.
After finishing my B.A. in Geography at the University of Bayreuth, I went to Royal Holloway University of London for my M.A. in Cultural Geography (Research). From 2006-2010 I worked as a research assistant in Bayreuth, where I also completed my PhD in 2010 with a study on “Living translocality: Space, Culture and Economy in Contemporary Swahili Trade” (2010, Franz Steiner Verlag)
Funded through a post-doc scholarship by the Thyssen Foundation I then spent a year as a research scholar at the cross-over of Geography, History and Area Studies in the History Department at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), before joining the Economic Geography and Globalisation research group at Goethe University Frankfurt from 2011-2015. Both at UCLA and Frankfurt, I was able to deepen my empirical as well as conceptual engagement with the Indian Ocean [AFRASO].
In 2015, I was appointed professor of geography at the University of Bonn, where I was heading the international joint master programme on “Geographies of environmental risks and human security” organised together with the United Nations University.
Here at JGU Mainz I’m teaching cultural geography in the Bachelor and Master programs with a particular emphasis on conceptual approaches which aim to better understand the complexity of contemporary human-nature relations.
Contact:
Institute of Geography
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität
Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 21
55099 Mainz
Room: 02-172
E-Mail: julia.verne@uni-mainz.de.
Research Interests:
(Postcolonial) Science and Technology Studies, Human-Technology-Environment Relations, More-than-human Geographies, Geographies of Development, Digital Geography, the History of (Cultural) Geographic Thought, Maritime Geographies, Indian Ocean Studies, Ethnographic research approaches and creative methods, Eastern Africa, (Western) Indian Ocean, Oman
Research Projects:
My ongoing research projects funded by DFG and SSHRC focus on a critical engagement with the role of technological innovations in agriculture [smart futures], disaster governance [appraising risk] and humanitarian design. Moreover, I still follow my long-term research interest in mobilities and translocal experiences of place along the Swahili coast and across the Indian Ocean.
Publications:
Korf, B., Wardenga, U., Verne, J., Michel, B., Harvey, F., Schlottmann, A., & Wintzer, J. (2024) Book Review: Weltbildwechsel: Ideengeschichten geographischen Denkens und Handelns, Geogr. Helv., 79, 161–175, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-161-2024 
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Verne, J., Marquardt, N. & Ouma, S. (2024) Planetary Futures: Über Leben in kritischen Zeiten. Keynote auf dem 62. Deutschen Kongress für Geographie (DKG) in Frankfurt am Main, Geographische Zeitschrift 112, 2, 151-171.
Verne, J. (2023) Weltregionen und ihre Grenzen, in: Wilhelmi, V., Theveßen, E. & Pfeil, F. (eds): Grenzgeographien – aktuelle Brennpunkte und didaktische Impulse, Mainz: Mainzer Kontaktstudium Geographie, Bd. 21.
Verne, J. & Schnepel, B. (2022) Cargoes in Motion. Materiality and Connectivity across the Indian Ocean. Ohio University Press: Athens.
Verne, J. & Müller-Mahn, D., Stephan, C. und Dittmann, J. (2022) Geographische Entwicklungsforschung jenseits des Hemisphären-Denkens, Schneider-Sliwa, R. (Hrsg.) Humangeographie, Westermann: Hannover.
Matejcek, Astrid & Verne, Julia. (2021). Restoration-as-development? Contesting Aspirational Politics Regarding the Restoration of Wildlife Corridors in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. The European Journal of Development Research. 10.1057/s41287-021-00403-2 .
Matejcek, A. & Verne, J. (2021) Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure in Rural Tanzania: Anticipating Diverging Agricultural Futures and the Production of (In)securities in the Kilombero Valley. Culture Unbound. 10.3384/cu.2021.13.3
Bertram, M. & Verne, J. (2021) Communicating with home, coping without home: Trusting to the mediating capacity of blogging, Digital Geography and Society.
Verne, J. (2021) Diskussionsbeitrag: Kiel 1969 – ein Erinnerungsort der Geographie, Geographica Helvetica.
Verne, J., Pörting, J., Krieg, L. & Ködding-Zurmühlen, O. (2021) Mehr-als-menschliches Wissen, Füller, H. et al. (Hrsg.) Handbuch Digitale Geographien, UTB.
Pörting, J., Verne, J. und Krieg, L. (2020) Gefährliche Begegnungen. Posthumanistische Ansätze in der technologischen Neuaushandlung des Zusammenlebens von Mensch und Wildtier, Geographische Zeitschrift 3, 153-175.
Verne, J. (2020) Der Indische Ozean als relationale maritime Region. Geographische Rundschau 4, 20, 4-10.
Verne, J. & Müller-Mahn, D. (2020) Geographische Entwicklungsforschung, Gebhardt. H. et al. (Hrsg.) Geographie. Physische Geographie und Humangeographie, 3. Auflage, Springer: Heidelberg.
Verne, J. (2019) The ends of the Indian Ocean: Tracing coastlines in the Tanzanian hinterland, History of Africa 46, 359-383.
Verne, J., Ouma, S. & Stenmanns, J. (2019) African Economies: Simply connect? Problematizing the Discourse on Connectivity in Logistics and Communication, Graham, M. (ed.) Digital Economies at Global Margins, MIT Press, IDRC, 341-363.
Verne, J. (2019) All things transregional? Potentiale und grenzen transregionaler Forschungsperspektiven, in: Forum Transregionale Studien (Hrsg.) All things transregional?, Max Weber Stiftung: Berlin.
Verne, J. (2018) Transregionalität am Beispiel des Indischen Ozeans: Relationale Raumkonzeptionen in den Regionalwissenschaften, in: Wippel, S. & Fischer-Tahir, A. (Hrsg.) Jenseits etablierter Meta-Geographien: Der Nahe Osten und Nordafrika in transregionaler Perspektive, Nomos: Baden-Baden.
Verne, J. (2018) Contemporary Geographies of Zanzibari Fashion: Indian Ocean Trade Journeys in the Run-Up to Ramadhan Festivities, in: Campbell, G., Machado, P. und Fee, S. (Hrsg.) Textile Trades, Consumer Cultures, and the Material Worlds of the Indian Ocean: an Ocean of Cloth, Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, 359-383.
Schurr, C. & Verne, J. (2017) Wissenschaft und Technologie im Zentrum der Geographischen Entwicklungsforschung. Science and Technology Studies meets development geographies, Geographische Zeitschrift 105, 122-145.
Verne, J. & Verne, M. (2017) The Indian Ocean as an aesthetic space, Einleitung für ein Themenheft der Zeitschrift für Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (Duke University Press) 37, 2, 314-320.
Verne, J. (2017) The neglected gift of Ratzel: thoughts on mobilities, materialities and relational spaces, Geographica Helvetica 72, 85-92.
Verne, J. (2017) Following Swahili traders along the corridor and beyond: The emergence of a translocal Indian Ocean Space, in: Simone, A., Tavengwa, T. & Newhouse, L. (Hrsg.) Corridors, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in association with Cityscapes Magazine: Johannesburg, 50-51.
Verne, J. (2017) The Mobile Phone – A Global Good? Modern Material Culture and Communication Technology in Africa, in: Hodos, T. (Hrsg.) Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, Routledge: London, 157-170.
Verne, J. (2016) Re-enlivening the Indian Ocean through contemporary trade: East African traders searching for new markets in Jakarta, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 38, 123-138.
Korf, B. & Verne, J. (2016) Geographie als Geisteswissenschaft – Geographie in den Geisteswissenschaften, Geographica Helvetica 71, 365-386.
Verne, J. & Doevenspeck, M. (2014) Von Pappkameraden, diffusen Bedenken und einer alten Debatte: Gedanken zur Bedeutung von regionaler Spezialisierung und Area Studies in der Geographie, in: Geographische Zeitschrift 1, 7-24.
Verne, J. (2014) Translokalität als sedimentierte Praxis: Getrieben von der Geschichte des Indischen Ozeans, in: Geographische Rundschau 11, 24-31.
Verne, J. (2014) Neue Netze, neue Räume? Mobiltelefonie in Afrika, in: Geographische Rundschau 6, 42-47.
Verne, J. (2014) Virtual Mobilities, in: Cloke, P. et al.(Hrsg.) Introducing Human Geographies, 3rd Edition, Hodder Education: London, 821-833.
Verne, J. & Müller-Mahn, D. (2013) Entwicklung, in: Lossau, J., Freytag, T. und Lippuner, R. (Hrsg.) Schlüsselbegriffe der Kultur- und Sozialgeographie, Ulmer: Stuttgart, 94- 107.
Verne, J. & Bramsiepe, E. (2013) Mobiltelefonie in Afrika: Revolution von Kommunikation und Bankwesen – ein Unterrichtsentwurf, in: Müller-Mahn, D. und Obermaier, G. (Hrsg.) Afrika (Bayreuther Kontaktstudium Geographie, Bd. 7), Verlag Naturwissenschaftl. Gesellschaft Bayreuth e.V., Bayreuth, 175-196.
Verne, J. & Müller-Mahn, D. (2013) “We are part of Zanzibar” – Translocal practices and imaginative geographies in contemporary Oman-Zanzibar relations, in: Wippel, S. (ed.) Regionalising Oman, Springer Science: Dordrecht, Netherlands, 75-89.
Verne, J. (2012) Ethnographie und ihre Folgen für die Kulturgeographie: eine Kritik des Netzwerkkonzepts in Studien zu translokaler Mobilität, in: Geographica Helvetica 67, 185-194.
Verne, J. (2012): “Le terrain, c’est moi?” Reflections on the emergence of the field in translocal network research, in: Les Annales de Geographie 687-688, 561-582.
Verne, J. & Doevenspeck, M. (2012) Bitte da bleiben! Sedentarismus als Konstante in der Migrationsforschung, in: Steinbring, M. und Geiger, M. (Hrsg.) Migration und Entwicklung aus geographischer Perspektive, IMIS, Osnabrück, Heft 42, 61-94.
Verne, J. (2012) Living translocality: Space, Culture and Economy in Contemporary Swahili Trade. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Verne, J. & Dorsch, H. (2011) “Othering your neighbour.” Eine kritische Perspektive auf kommunale Integrationspolitik, in: Popp, H. (Hrsg.); Migration und Integration in Deutschland (Bayreuther Kontaktstudium Geographie, Bd. 6), Verlag Naturwissenschaftl. Gesellschaft Bayreuth e.V., Bayreuth.
Pfaff, J. (2010) Mobile Phone Geographies, in: Geography Compass 4, 10, 1433-1447. Pfaff, J. (2010): A mobile phone: mobility, materiality and everyday Swahili trading practices. In: cultural geographies 17, 3, 341-357.
Müller-Mahn, D. & Verne, J. (2010) Geographische Entwicklungsforschung – alte Probleme, neue Perspektive, in: Geographische Rundschau 10, 4-11.
Activities (Selection):
- Member of the Editorial Board of the Geographische Zeitschrift
- Member of the Selection Committee of the Studienstiftung
- Member of the Board of Trustees of the WBZ Ingelheim
- Member of the Research Network on Digital Geographies (DFG)
- Member of the Board of the Schule des Sehens, an exhibition and creative space at the JGU Mainz
- Workshop on “Digitized natures” as part of the Summer School on Digital Geographies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in September 2021
- Organisation of the Annual Meeting of Cultural Geographers in Germany (NKG) in Bonn, 2020 on the topic of “Technocultures/Technoscapes” (together with Nadine Marquardt)
Teaching:
Summer term 23
- M7 Research Workshop: Decolonising Research Collaborations (MA Human Geography)
- M11 Exkursion: Tansania – Nord/Süd, Stadt/Land, Natur/Kultur (BSc Geographie, MEd Geographie)
- M15 Spezielle Humangeographie: Urbane Wildnis (BSc Geographie)
- Forschungskolloquium
- Reading Course and Lecture Series in Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture
Winter term 22/23
- M3 Concepts of Cultural Geography (MA Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture)
- M11 Regionale Geographie (BSc Geographie) Der Indische Ozean als relationaler Raum
- M3 Vorlesung Geographie des Anthropozäns (BSc Geographie)
Summer term 22
- M1 Tack a map: Geographies of Extinction (MA Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture)
- M6/M8 Geländepraktikum: Eine kulturgeographische Perspektive auf Rheinstrände (BSc/BEd Geographie)
- Forschungskolloquium
- Reading Course and Lecture Series in Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture
Winter term 21/22
- M1 Geographies of Globalisation (MA Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture)
- M3 Concepts of Cultural Geography (MA Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture)
- M6 Research Concept: “A Virtual Approach to Development – #hashtags, VR, apps” (MA Human Geography: Globalisation, Media, Culture)
- Forschungskolloquium