Anna Landherr holds a PhD in Sociology and is currently a lecturer and researcher at the Center for Climate Resilience (ZfK- Zentrum für Klimaresilienz) at the University of Augsburg, Germany. In recent years she has dedicated her research to socio-ecological conflicts resulting from different extractive sectors, as well as the struggles and power relations that emerge from them, focusing mainly on the Chilean mining industry and its toxic waste. Her work focuses on socio-environmental consequences that, despite their seriousness, remain largely invisible at the societal level, understanding them as phenomena of slow violence. She is currently investigating the possibility of understanding the peasantry as a social force for change and its potential as a key actor for socio-ecological transformation in times of climate crisis.

Recent publications

2024. Die unsichtbaren Folgen des Extraktivismus: ein Blick hinter die slow violence der chilenischen Bergbauindustrie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS (Energiepolitik und Klimaschutz. Energy Policy and Climate Protection (EPKS)). DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-43288-1 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-43288-1

2023. Coproduction with Graf, Jakob. Die permanente Konterrevolution: der lange Schatten des Militärputsches von 1973 in Chile. In: PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft 53 (213), S. 685-703. DOI: 10.32387/prokla.v53i213.2077

2021. Coproduction with Alister, Cristian; Julián, Dasten; Sittel, Johanna; Schmalz, Stefan; Graf, Jakob; Landherr, Anna; Castro, Felipe. Precarizacion del campo o campo precario? Expansiones extractivas, colonialismo y precariedad(es) en La Araucanía. In: Revista de Geografía Espacios 12 (22), S. 114-145. DOI: 10.25074/07197209.22.2114

2021. Coproduction with Graf, Jakob. Territoriale Macht und periphere imperiale Lebensweise – Internalisierungsmechanismen in der chilenischen Bergbaustadt Tierra Amarilla. In: Journal für Entwicklungspolitik XXXVII (4), S. 44-69. DOI: 10.20446/JEP-2414-3197-37-4-44

2019. Coproduction with Ramírez, Martín. Las sociedades internalizadoras y el modo de vida imperial periférico. In: Gerardo Gutiérrez Cham, Olaf Kaltmeier (Hg.): ¡Aquí los jóvenes! Frente a las crisis. Guadalajara: Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara (CALAS), S. 157-182.

CALAS Research Project

Title: Collective rural identities - the Chilean peasantry

Abstract: In the current debates on socio-ecological transformations of the productive and energy system - necessary to face climate change - the peasantry is not considered as a strategic actor, much less as a social force for change, despite the empirical evidence that highlights the relevance of family farming for food sovereignty and its forms of cultivation as more sustainable alternatives to agribusiness. Thus, (semi)peripheral realities such as those in Latin America are not included in the analysis and projections, neither in terms of their colonial past, nor in terms of the dominant forms of production in these regions. In the (semi-)peripheries of the world-system, capitalist wage labor is far from being the only form of income and the peasant family economy is far from disappearing. Moreover, the latter has been transformed (along with small producers in general, the informal sector and care work) into a functional and necessary sector for the capitalist system, which at the same time is constantly threatened by capitalist expansion, commodification, productive restructuring within the framework of neoliberal hegemony and mainly the constant expansion of extractive frontiers. This tension leads to constant transformations and reconfigurations in rural collective identities. In this sense, the project seeks to study the existence of a collective identity or identities that allow us to think of peasants (and peasindios) as a social force, focusing on the potential of peasants as agents of change and adaptation to climate change, as well as on their vulnerability and their main challenges in ecological and economic terms.