Dr. Sven Bergmann
”Addressing the sea as a field of political ecology and communicating this research in the museum is central to my work at the German Maritime Museum.“
Dr. Sven Bergmann, Senior Researcher and Ombudsperson for Research Integrity
About the person
Dr Sven Bergmann is a cultural anthropologist with a focus on ethnographic science and technology studies (STS). He has been a research associate and curator at the German Maritime Museum since 2019, where he coordinates the exhibition and research area Ship and Environment. His research interests are: Maritime and Environmental Anthropology; Urban and Infrastructure Studies; Economies of Waste; Transnationalisation, Post- and Decolonial Perspectives on Globalisation and Labour; Medical Anthropology; Kinship, Reproduction and Gender Studies. In recent years, his research has focused on what he calls "speculative ecologies", e.g. problematising microplastics or munitions waste in the ocean. Sven Bergmann is also Ombudsperson for Research Integrity.
Current research projects
EU-Interreg-Projekt REMARCO (“Remediation, Management, Monitoring and Cooperation addressing North Sea UXO”)
DFG Network "Waste in motion. Mobilisations of waste and pollutants as sociomaterial configuration".
MINING. Mining the Future, interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research and exhibition cooperation
EU-Interreg-Project "North Sea Wrecks - An Opportunity for Blue Growth: Healthy Environment, Shipping, Energy, Production and Transmission" (project management)
Speculative Maritime Ecologies
Curriculum Vitae
Since 2019 | Senior Researcher at the DSM, lecturer at the University of Bremen | |
2016-2019 | Post-doc at the Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Studies at the University of Bremen, in the research projects "Plastic as a Life Form" (2016-17) "Knowing the Seas as Naturecultures" (2017-18) | |
2012–2015 | Research coordinator of the DFG research group "Cultures of Madness" at the Institute for the History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, on parental leave 08-09/2013 and 04-09/2014 | |
2012 | Doctorate (Dr. phil.) in European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin , title of thesis: "Circumvention routes of reproduction - An ethnography on (biomedical) mobility and the practice of gamete donation" | |
2011 | Predoc Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin | |
2006–2011 | Predoc Research Scholar in the Research Training Group "Gender as a Category of Knowledge", Humboldt University of Berlin, lectureships at the Humboldt University (on parental leave 02/2008-04/2009) | |
1998–2005 | Master's degree (Magister Artium) in Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, Latin American Studies and Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt a.M. | |
Publications
North Sea Wrecks - An interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the risks posed by wrecks containing munitions in the North Sea, (mit Matthias Brenner, Jennifer Strehse, Tobias Bünning, Edmund Maser, Philipp Grassel, David Heuskin, David Brandt, Marco Berger, Simon van der Wulp, Matthew Skellhorn, Polly Hill, Sven Van Haelst, Maarten De Rickje, Uwe Wichert), in: MARESEC Conference Proceedings, 2022: zenodo.org/record/7149216.
Speculative ecologies: Salmon farming and marine microplastics as slow disasters In: Lettow, Susanne & Sabine Nessel. (2022): Ecologies of gender: Contemporary nature relations and the nonhuman turn. London/New York: Routledge (Environmental Humanities), 206-226.
Mikroplastik und TNT. Unterschiedliche Regime der Problematisierung von Meeresmüll (mit Philipp Grassel). In: WerkstattGeschichte 85 (2022), 55-75.
Dawn of the plastisphere: An experiment with unpredictable effects. In: Farrelly, Trisia, Sy Taffel & Ian Shaw, eds. (2021): Plastic legacies: Persistence, pollution, and politics. Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press (open-access), 79-99.
Exhibition projects
"Ship and Environment" at DSM
Travelling Exhibition: „Toxic Legacies of War – North Sea Wrecks“
“Change Now – Schiffe verändern die Welt“
„Sea Changes – Welt und Meer im Wandel“
Scholarships and funded projects
DFG-Network “Waste in motion. Mobilisations of waste and pollutants as sociomaterial configuration" (Ko-application with Yusif Idies, University Münster)
Extension application for North Sea Wrecks Projekt (Lead partner)
TNTreg – Transnational und sustainable regional transfer via gaming, funded via the Federal Programme „Transnational Cooperation“
Funding by the University of Bremen/DFG as part of an M4 exploration project, (joint application with Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht and Britta Hamann)
Funding by the Volkswagen Foundation in the programme "Suspected originality? New Options for the Humanities and Cultural Studies" (2016-2017)
Scholarship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin (09-12/2011)
Scholar in the Research Training Group "Gender as a Category of Knowledge", Humboldt-University of Berlin (2006-2011)
Memberships
- Bremen NatureCultures Lab
- Enjust – Network for Environmental Justice
- European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)
- EASA-Network: Environment and Anthropology (Enviroant)
- EASA-Network: Anthropology of the Seas
- European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)
- Commission for Women's and Gender Studies of the German Society for Empirical Cultural Studies (DGEKW)
- Commission Europeanization_Globalization: Ethnographies of the Political (DGEKW)
- Strategy Group Marine Social and Cultural Sciences at the German Marine Research Consortium (KDW)
- stsing – German Society for Science and Technology Studies
- Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin