Schroer’s project “Living with Drought: Human-Environment Relationships in Drying European Landscapes” (DROUGHT) will investigate what it means to live with droughts in different European climatic regions.
How are droughts locally manifested? And what are their cross-regional implications? These questions will be addressed through a multi-sited ethnographic investigation of three case studies in Spain, Germany, and Norway.
“Sara's project demonstrates the crucial role of the humanities in environmental research. To understand and address issues related to climate and the environment, we must also comprehend how human values, societies, and perceptions shape our response to these changes,” Dean of Research Mathilde Skoie.
A new approach
Droughts are not solely the result of large-scale geophysical processes; they also manifest in specific locations, profoundly affecting the daily lives and experiences of individuals and communities.
To understand the complexity of environmental phenomena such as droughts, Schroer emphasises the importance of developing a cultural analysis that approaches droughts as long-term processes, rather than short-term crisis events, that are at the same time cultural and material, social and geophysical.
“Running this project over the next five years is an excellent opportunity to experiment with integrating cross-disciplinary perspectives from the natural sciences and the arts into an anthropological analysis of one of the most persuasive societal challenges of our times – living with drought,” Schroer says.
Her aim is to develop the field of anthropogenic drought studies, which will deepen the understanding of droughts in social, cultural, and scientific contexts, transforming how academics, the public, and policymakers perceive and respond to the manifold and unevenly distributed consequences of living with droughts today.
About ERC Starting Grant
The European Research Council's (ERC) Starting Grants are designed to support talented early-career researchers who have demonstrated excellence in supervised work, are prepared to conduct independent research, and exhibit the potential to become leaders in their fields.