Benedikt Korf, Prof. Dr.
Associate Professor
Political Geography
Department of Geography
University of Zurich - Irchel
Winterthurerstr. 190
CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland
room: | Y25L76 |
email: | |
tel: | +41-44-6355240 |
fax: | +41-44-6356848 |
Consultation hour: | Mondays 11 - 12 am For an appointment please get in contact by email or phone. |
Benedikt Korf is Associate Professor in Political Geography. Before coming to Switzerland, he was teaching development geography at the University of Liverpool, UK. He completed his PhD at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on the political economy of war in Sri Lanka and has field experiences, both as researcher and as a consultant, in Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania.
Recent talks:
2010, Geographie des Denkens, Jenaer Geographisches Kolloquium, 15. November. (pdf: 193KB (PDF, 188 Kb))
2010, Geographie des Zorns, Keynote-Vortrag, Tagung des Arbeitskreises Politische Geographie „Neue Geographien des Politischen!?“, Münster, 23.-24. Oktober. (pdf: 197KB (PDF, 191 Kb))
2010, The imaginative geographies of climate wars, Regional Environmental Governance (REGov) Conference, Geneva, 16-18 June 2010: Panel on Regional security and the environment. (pdf:160KB (PDF, 156 Kb))
2009, Panel 69: Revisiting the African Frontier, AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, 4-7 June 2009, Institute of African Studies, Leipzig. (pdf:156KB (PDF, 152 Kb))
2009, Geographien der Gewalt, Heidelberger Geographische Gesellschaft, 3. November. (pdf: 201KB (PDF, 194 Kb))
2009, Die imaginative Geographie von Klimakriegen, Geographisch-Ethnographische Gesellschaft Zürich, 28. Oktober. (pdf: 188KB (PDF, 181 Kb)), siehe auch UNINEWS
Research interests:
My research is exploring the dialectical geographies of (dis) order and violence as expressions of politics (the ordinary practices of politicians and others) and the political (the kind of metaphysical thing). I have explored this theme through empirical routes in Sri Lanka and the Horn of Africa. My research includes work on the political economy of war in Sri Lanka (“geographies of violence”), on pastoral resource conflicts (“unmaking the commons”) and on the attempts to uphold order through humanitarian assistance in the face of disaster (“moral geographies of the gift”). Most of my empirical work is rooted in ethnographic field material, which I have often collected in collaborative research or consultancy studies. I collaborate closely with academics and practitioners in Sri Lanka and the Horn of Africa. Three main themes have emerged in recent years:
- The theme “geographies of violence” studies the spatial politics and the political ecology of civil wars and other forms of violent conflict in South Asia and the Horn of Africa. Field work has mainly focused on the everyday practices and livelihood struggles around natural resource use (agriculture, pastoralism, fisheries) in situations of militancy, armed struggle and warfare. I have been interested in understanding the multiple, co-existing social and political orders that emerge at the intersections of violence and everyday practices.
- The theme “geographies of public policy” investigates the social negotiation of public order in situations of breakdown (natural disasters, civil wars, political crisis) and studies the ordinary practices of humanitarian actors in the context of humanitarian aid, reconstruction and peace building.
- The theme “geographies of the political” explores the theoretical premises of p/Political Geography: what it is, if anything, that makes the p/Political distinct from its Other(s), e.g. the religious, the social. This theme explores the affinities between Political Philosophy and Political Geography by interrogating critical theories of democracy, the political and (post-analytical) moral philosophy. My main interest is in bringing together different scholarly traditions, some of which are also based on different language communities.
I also pursue a number of “hobbies” – minor projects of interest with only a loose connection to the above themes. Most are concerned with the epistemology of geography (“geographies of rationality”, (post)human geographies; Sri Lanka’s c geographers). And due to my current location, I have also developed an interest in Swiss political geographies, an exciting topic, indeed.
Just published:
Jonathan Goodhand, Benedikt Korf and Jonathan Spencer (2011) Conflict and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka: Caught in the peace trap? (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series). London: Routledge.
Forthcoming:
Korf, B. (2011): Resources, violence and the telluric geographies of small wars. Progress in Human Geography. (pdf: 131KB (PDF, 127 Kb))