Academic interests
- Environmental Humanities
- Multispecies Studies
- Anthropogenic Soils
- Extinction
- Coexistence
- Wildlife in the Anthropocene
- Conservation and Recuperation
- South Asia
- Teaching the Anthropocene
- Place-Based Learning
- Anthropocene Studies
Background
Ursula M. Koy (formerly Ursula M. Münster) is Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities and the founding director of the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities (OSEH). She is currently involved in building up OSEH as a strong multidisciplinary network of environmental scholars, students, artists, activists, and practitioners at UiO, and beyond. She is also committed to experimenting with new forms of learning and teaching in the Anthropocene.
Her research combines approaches from multispecies studies, political ecology, feminist STS, and environmental anthropology to study how more-than-human relationships change and evolve in the Anthropocene. Her long term ethnographic fieldwork in South India has focused on protected forests and the effects of resource extraction and forest governance on the relationships between people and wildlife at the forest frontier. Her focus on interspecies conflict and care in India contributes to debates on conservation and the possibilities of coexistence in anthropogenic environments.
Trained as social and cultural anthropologist in Mexico (Escuela National de Anthropología e Historia) and Germany (PhD 2006, Habilitation 2018 at Ludwig Maximilian University Munich), she has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in rural South India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala).
Before joining UiO, Ursula was Director of Academic Programs at the Rachel Carson Center of Environment and Society (RCC) at LMU Munich. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE) in Bangalore, India, at the Center for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, India, and at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management (ESPM) at the University of California Berkeley, USA.
Her research interests include multispecies ethnography, political ecology, wildlife conservation in the Anthropocene, extinction studies, gender, and practices of more-than-human care. She is currently editing her ethnographic monograph with the working title: "Encountering Wildlife: Conflicts, Care and Conviviality in a South Indian Forest". Since August 2022, she is leading the large multidisciplinary project "Anthropogenic Soils", funded by the Research Council of Norway (fellesløft).
Teaching
At UiO, Ursula M. Koy has recently been involved in building up the Honours Certificate in Environmental Humanities and Sciences where Master students from all disciplines learn about and find ways of engaging with the environmental crisis. Her teaching crosses the disciplines and takes students out of the classroom to engage with the complex naturecultures of the Anthropocene. She has taught courses at all levels, including graduate seminars and PhD schools, in the fields of environmental humanities, multispecies studies, environmental anthropology, political ecology, and gender studies.
Publications
Publications published before 2025 appear under my former name, Ursula Münster. Publications from 2025 onward appear under the name Ursula Koy.
Monographs
In process, Koy, U. Encountering Wildlife: Conflicts, Care, and Conviviality in a South Indian Forest, Habilitation-thesis.
In process, Koy, U. Die Gute Frau: Hochkastige Weiblichkeit im ländlichen Tamil Nadu. Südindien (The Auspicious Wife: Gender and Femininity in Rural South India), Lit Verlag: Münster
Journal Articles
2025. Koy, U., Suma, T.R. Soilscapes: Making and Unmaking Below-Ground Worlds with Earthworms. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. Forthcoming.
2025. Koy, U.; Suma, T.R. (2025): Becoming Elephant: The Relational Personalities of Arikomban, Kalloor Komban, and Soorya in South India. In Humanimalia 16 (1), 205–256, Special Issue: Elephant (Research) Routes. Integrating elephants into more-than-human narratives, edited by Marianna Szczygielska and Violette Poulillard
2025. Robin, L., Wells, A., Leal, C., Baço, J., Brito, C., Carvalho, P., Lidström, S., Meyer, T., Koy, U., Rigby, K., Swart, S., & Vieira, N. Transdisciplinary Histories and the Rise of the Environmental Humanities. Global Environment, 18(1), 138–172.
2021. Münster, U., van Dooren, T., Schroer, S. A., & Reinert, H. Multispecies Care in the Sixth Extinction. Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology (Fieldsights).
2021. Münster, U., & Münster, D. Pharmaceutical Care: Diclofenac, a Pharmacon of More-Than-Human Health. Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology (Fieldsights).
2020. Münster, U. Lantana Invades Teak Plantations and Turns Elephants Violent. In A. L. Tsing, J. Deger, A. K. Saxena, & F. Zou (Eds.), The Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
2019. O'Gorman, E., van Dooren, T., Adamson, J., Mauch, C., Sörlin, S., et al.(including Münster, U.) Teaching the Environmental Humanities. Environmental Humanities, 11(2), 427–460.
2017. Münster, U. Forest Atmospheres: Ecological Nostalgia in a Teak Plantation. In Soziale Ästhetik, Atmosphäre und Medialität: Beiträge aus der Ethnologie, 61–72. Berlin: Lit Verlag.
2017. Münster, U. The Sons of Salim Ali: Avian Care in the Western Ghats of South India. RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, 2017(1), 67–75.
2016. Münster, U. Working for the Forest: The Ambivalent Intimacies of Human–Elephant Collaboration in South Indian Wildlife Conservation. Ethnos, 81(3), 425–447.
2016. van Dooren, T., Kirksey, E., & Münster, U. Multispecies Studies: Cultivating Arts of Attentiveness. Environmental Humanities, 8(2), 1–24.
2016. Lowe, C., & Münster, U. The Viral Creep: Elephants and Herpes in Times of Extinction. Environmental Humanities, 8(1), 118–124.
2015. Münster, U. Work, Knowledge and Subaltern Subjectivities in South Indian Nature Conservation. Rivista degli Studi Orientali, 88(Suppl. 2), 197–214.
2015. Locke, P., & Münster, U. Multispecies Ethnography. In J. Jackson (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2012. Münster, U., & Suma, T.R. In the Jungle of Law: The Implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Kerala. Economic & Political Weekly, 47(19), 38–45.
2012 Münster, D., & Münster, U. Consuming the Forest in an Environment of Crisis: Nature Tourism, Forest Conservation, and Neoliberal Agriculture in South India. Development and Change, 43(1), 205–227.
2012. Münster, U. Contentious Diversities and Dangerous Species: Biocultural Diversity in the Context of Human–Animal Conflicts. RCC Perspectives, 9, 31–35.
Book Chapters
2025. Münster, D., & Koy, U. M.; Suma, T. R. Frontiers, Encounters, Metabolism: A Material-semiotic Approach to Fields and Forests in the Western Ghats. In S. Vasan (Ed.), Environmental Studies from India: Engaging with the Planetary Ecological Crisis (pp. 243–262). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2023. Schroer, S. A., Hylland Eriksen, T., & Münster, U. Introduction: Responding to the Anthropocene. In U. Münster, S. A. Schroer, & T. Hylland Eriksen (Eds.), Responding to the Anthropocene: Perspectives from Twelve Academic Disciplines. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press.
2022. Bubandt, N., et al., Hastrup, K., Tsing, A., & Münster, U. Troubling Methods in the Anthropocene: A Roundtable Discussion. In Rubber Boots Methods for the Anthropocene: Critical Description, Curiosity and Collaboration in the Study of Multispecies Worlds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
2020. Münster, U. Lantana Invades Teak Plantations and Turns Elephants Violent. In A. L. Tsing, J. Deger, A. K. Saxena, & F. Zou (Eds.), The Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
2017. Münster, U. Forest Atmospheres: Ecological Nostalgia in a Teak Plantation. In Soziale Ästhetik, Atmosphäre und Medialität: Beiträge aus der Ethnologie, 61–72. Berlin: Lit Verlag.
2016. Münster, U. Challenges of Coexistence: Human–Elephant Conflicts in Wayanad, Kerala, South India. In P. Locke & J. Buckingham (Eds.), Conflict, Negotiation, Coexistence: Human–Elephant Relations in South Asia, 321–352. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Edited works
2023. Münster, U.; Hylland Eriksen, T. ; Schroer, S: Responding to the Anthropocene: Perspectives from Twelve Academic Disciplines. Scandinavian Academic Press.
2017. Multispecies Editing Collective (including Münster, U.). Troubling Species: Care and Belonging in a Relational World. RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, 2017(1).
2017. Zehmisch, P., Münster, U.,& Zickgraf, J. ; Lang, C. (Eds.). Soziale Ästhetik, Atmosphäre und Medialität: Beiträge aus der Ethnologie. Berlin: Lit Verlag.
2016. van Dooren, T., Kirksey, E., Rose, D. B., Chrulew, M., Tsing, A., & Münster, U. (Eds.). Multispecies Studies. Environmental Humanities, 8(2).
2014. Cederlöf, G., Münster, U., & Satsuka, S. (Eds.). Asian Environments: Connections Across Borders, Landscapes, and Times. RCC Perspectives, 3.
2012. Münster, U.; Dorondel, S., & Münster, D. (Eds.). Fields and Forests: Ethnographic Perspectives on Environmental Globalization. RCC Perspectives, 5.
2012. Martin, G., Mincyte, D., & Münster, U. (Eds.). Why Do We Value Diversity? Biocultural Diversity in a Global Context. RCC Perspectives, 9.