Carsten Wergin How Can Australian Indigenous Experience Change Western Perspectives of the World?

Carsten Wergin is Head of a Research Group at Heidelberg University's research area 'Transcultural Studies' (funded by the German Excellence Initiative). Previous positions include that of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. He is a founding member of the Environmental Anthropology Working Group of the German Anthropological Association (GAA), and Deputy Chair of the German Association for Australian Studies (GASt). His research focuses, among other topics, on socio-ecological transformations triggered by tourism, heritage and the resources sector. It is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Indian Ocean World, the European Ultra-Periphery, the Mascarene Islands and Northwest Australia.

Area of Research

Sociocultural Anthropology, Environmental Humanities

Carsten Wergin. "Reconstructing Biodiversity for Tourism Development: Ethnographic Accounts from a World Heritage Site in the Making." In World Heritage Sites and Tourism: Global and Local Relations, edited by Maria Gravari-Barbas, Laurent Bourdeau and Mike Robinson. New York: Routledge, 2017: 105-116.  
Carsten Wergin. "Tourismus." In Global Pop: Das Buch zur Weltmusik, edited by Claus Leggewie and Erik Meyer. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2017: 195-203.  
Carsten Wergin. "Travelling the Mascarenes: Creoleness in Tourism Policies and Practices on La Réunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues." In Archipelago Tourism: Policies and Practices, edited by Godfrey Baldacchino. Routledge, 2015: 227-240.  
Stephen Muecke and Carsten Wergin. "Materialities of Tourism." Tourism Studies (Special Issue) 14, 3 (2014).  
Fabian Holt and Carsten Wergin. Musical Performance and the Changing City: Post-Industrial Contexts in Europe and the United States. New York: Routledge, 2013.  
Carsten Wergin. "Trumping the Ethnic Card: How Tourism Entrepreneurs on Rodrigues Tackled the 2008 Financial Crisis." Island Studies Journal 7, 1 (2012): 119-134.  
Carsten Wergin and Patrick Neveling. "Tourism and Scale." Anthropology News 11 (2010): 3–4.  
Carsten Wergin. Kréol Blouz: Musikalische Inszenierungen von Identität und Kultur (mit Musik-CD). Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2010.  

since 2014

Research Group Leader 'The Transcultural Heritage of Northwest Australia'

Heidelberg University (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)

Transcultural Studies

2011-2014

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow

University of New South Wales (Sydney)

Social Policy Research Centre

2008-2011

Post-doctoral Research Fellow

Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)

Graduate School 'Society and Culture in Motion'

2007

PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology

University of Bremen (Universität Bremen)

2001

Master of Arts in Cultural Studies

University of London

Goldsmiths College

2000

Bachelor of Arts in English Studies and Communications

London Guildhall University

- Cultural Studies Review

- Island Studies Journal

- Journal of World Popular Music

- Science as Culture

- Transcultural Studies

- European Association of Social Anthropologists

- German Anthropological Association

- German Association for Australian Studies (Deputy Chair)

- Frobenius Society

Fellowships

- Senior Visiting Fellow, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales (2014-2017)

- Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellow (2011-2014)

Prizes

- Mariann Steegmann Foundation Publication Award (2010)

- Young Scholars Award, European Science Foundation (2007)

- PhD Stipend Holder of the Evangelische Studienwerk, Villigst (2003-2005)

Are there alternatives to the way Western culture perceives the world? This is a question that CARSTEN WERGIN is pursuing in his anthropological research in Northwest Australia. Recent developments and diverse global crises have shown that the idea that humanity can be master over nature needs to be seriously challenged. Participating in the Lurujarri Heritage Trail, guided by the indigenous group responsible for it – the Goolarabooloo – Wergin learnt about their approach to nature that is led by the experience of being part of and drawing energy from the land. He found that this indigenous perception of the environment allows for a different engagement with the world: Instead of exploiting nature for economic reasons, one is governed by the experience of entanglement and 'being with' the environment.

LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10513

The "White Magic" of Modernity: Retracing Indigenous Environmental Knowledge in Settler-Colonialist Australia

  • Carsten Wergin
  • Environmental Transformations and Cultural Responses: Ontologies, Discourses, and Practices in Oceania
  • Published in 2017
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Carsten Wergin. "The "White Magic" of Modernity: Retracing Indigenous Environmental Knowledge in Settler-Colonialist Australia." In Environmental Transformations and Cultural Responses: Ontologies, Discourses, and Practices in Oceania, edited by Eveline Dürr and Arno Pascht. 2017: 157-185.

Dreamings Beyond ‘Opportunity’: the Collaborative Economics of an Aboriginal Heritage Trail

  • Carsten Wergin
  • Journal of Cultural Economy
  • Published in 2016
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Carsten Wergin. "Dreamings Beyond ‘Opportunity’: the Collaborative Economics of an Aboriginal Heritage Trail." Journal of Cultural Economy 9, 5 (2016): 488–506.

Collaborations of Biocultural Hope: Community Science Against Industrialisation in Northwest Australia

  • Carsten Wergin
  • Ethnos
  • Published in 2016
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Carsten Wergin. "Collaborations of Biocultural Hope: Community Science Against Industrialisation in Northwest Australia." Ethnos (2016): 1–17.