Prof. Dr. Birgit Müller | Forscherin Fellow

Ehemaliges Mitglied
Umwelt, Klima, Energie: Gesellschaften und ihre ökologischen Herausforderungen
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, D-10117 Berlin
E-Mail: birgit.muller  ( at )  ehess.fr Tel: +33 648581804

Mutterinstitut : Laboratoire d'anthropologie politique | Position : Directrice de recherche au CNRS, professeur à l'EHESS | Fachbereich : Anthropologie |

Biographie

Birgit Müller (PhD Cambridge 1986) ist Forschungsdirektorin am Laboratoire d'anthropologie politique / LAP-LAIOS (CNRS) und Professorin an der École des Hautes Études in Paris. In ihrer aktuellen Forschung untersucht sie, wie Landwirte, Böden und Saatgut in die neuen globalen Rahmenbedingungen der klimaintelligenten Landwirtschaft eingebunden sind, d.h. in die private und öffentliche Agrarpolitik von Staaten, Unternehmen und einem breiten Spektrum von internationalen Regierungs- und Nichtregierungsorganisationen. Sie arbeitet in Kanada, Nicaragua, Frankreich und seit kurzem auch in Kalifornien. Zu ihren Büchern gehören: Toward an Alternative Culture of Work. Political Idealism and Economic Practices in West Berlin collective Enterprises (1991), Disenchantment with Market Economics. East Germans and Western Capitalism (2008), The Gloss of Harmony. The Politics of Policy Making in Multilateral Organisations (2013).

Lebenslauf als Datei
Organisation von Veranstaltungen

Marc Bloch Lecture Series: Farmers, Soils and Seeds in the Globalization

Birgit Müller, Marc Bloch Professor, Institute Marc Bloch, Berlin,

Laboratoire d’anthropologie politique, (LAP-LAIOS) EHESS, Paris

This lecture series will explore the visions of the world and of the future that underlie the everyday practices of agricultural producers. Birgit Müller will examine the intimacies of agricultural practices in both industrial agriculture and subsistence farming. In a historical situation where farmers around the world face multiple forms of dispossession, their practices interact with the complexity of ecosystems and the influence of climate change, and are exposed to state interference and the dominance of multinational corporations in global agricultural markets.

The series explores how the lives of soils and seeds are deeply rooted, not only in the physical environment, but also in the political and economic power structures that have become global. It is based on anthropological fieldwork in the centers of global decision-making on agricultural policies and on close observations of farming practices in Canada and Nicaragua.

 

To Act upon one's Time. From Impulse to Global Political Action

9. November 2022 Wednesday 4 pm – 6 pm ((IfSKA, Landoltweg 9-11/Seminarraum, 16–18 Uhr ct) as part of the Berlin Anthropology Seminars of the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ethnology Museum Berlin and the Leibniz-Center Modern Orient. Organizers: PD Dr. Paola Ivanov, Prof. Dr. Claudia Liebelt, Dr. Jonas Bens, and Prof. Dr. Kai Kresse. 

The event will take place in a hybrid format. (Online meeting link: https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin/j.php?MTID=m3f5a15c79e5392ed0b0f93e67b07c35f, meeting ID: 2731 677 8917, password: BASwinterterm22) 

Where public policy merges increasingly with private governance heralded as remedy to environmental destruction, hunger and climate change, citizens are encouraged to voice their opinions on major investments in agriculture, regulatory changes or biotechnologies, but their voices more often than not remain unheard and decisions are made without them. Individuals are seen to be self-directing, while they are losing their power of decision-making. However, inaction does not deliver the individual from responsibility as Adorno affirmed. It is in moments of resistance that freedom emerges. Since the possibility of freedom exists, it is not possible to avoid the confrontation with responsibility. This lecture reflects on the possibilities of political action. Following controversies on the patenting of seeds in Canada and globally within the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Committee for Food Security (CFS) it explores what gave the impulse for political action in these different arenas. How did collective action emerge and how did it sustain itself?

In this lecture I want to uncover the messy anthropological realities behind the concepts of autonomy (Adorno 1966), counter-hegemony (Gramsci 1971) and counter-conduct (Foucault 2004). Three theoretical concepts are central for understanding the political engagements observed: EigenSinn or giving one’s own meaning to things and acting according to this sense given; empathy or getting in touch with the warmth of things; and strategy or building a space for strategic action.

 

 

Negotiating Responsibility. Governing agricultural investments at the international level

 

24. November 2022, Thursday 12pm  – 2 pm , OSI, Ihnestr.21/E Seminarraum, as part of Einführung in die Agrar- und Ernährungspolitik, Organizer : Lena Partzsch

The event will take place in a hybrid format Zoom :

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/96264018068?pwd=QzQwR0tIL3R5cmtPYW1QWEdwMGRnZz09

ID de réunion : 962 6401 8068, Code secret : hh54Lr

At some point during the negotiations on principles for "Responsible Agricultural Investment" in the Green Room of the FAO building in Rome I had enough. I got up from my seat, went over to the representative of the European Union and told her flat out that her refusal to acknowledge the right of farmers to reseed from their harvested crop was irresponsible. I was thus breaking diplomatic etiquette and fieldwork ethics. There is indeed an unresolved methodological question: How to write about a governance process if one is engaged with / enraged by the matter at hand?

Massive investments in land and agricultural technologies have reconfigured land ownership and agricultural patterns at the global level over the last decade. This led to expulsions of small farmers, environmental disasters and to a call to regulate land grabbing and the associated agricultural practices by private investors and foreign states to make them more accountable. In the international negotiations to formulate principles for responsible agricultural investments, two modalities of global governance confronted each other: the idea of corporate self-governance promoted by the World Bank and governance through human rights based on multilateral processes in the Committee for Food Security of the United Nations. The negotiations around agricultural investments seem unspectacular and "technical" but following them closely through different forums of the United Nations, reveals one of the central problems of international governance today: the weakening of the role of the multilateral institutions of the United Nations Organization bound by the mandate of advancing and promoting human rights and at the same time the rise of autonomous instruments promoted by groups of states and international bodies without multilateral legitimacy. These ways of governing have a direct impact on soil depletion and intoxication, agrobiodiversity and the rise of global hunger.

Sensors versus Senses. Control and the Perception of Reality in Climate-Smart Farming

24. November 2022 Thursday, 6.30 pm – 8.30pm Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, Salle Georg Simmel, as part of theBerlin Brandenburg Kolloquium for Environmental History  Organizers: Jan-Henrik Meyer und Astrid Kirchhof,

The event will take place in a hybrid format Zoom

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/92179319632?pwd=cm5aclVZKzVLNTIxMjR1cGdsOFh5Zz09

ID de réunion : 921 7931 9632, Code secret : 95LJ3V

In the face of growing uncertainty in weather patterns, weed infestations, crop pests and fungal diseases the industry proposes to provide the farmers with total surveillance of their crop via satellites, drones, sensors in the field and mounted on their agricultural equipment. In this paper I want to explore how digital farming reshapes the imaginaries and practices of large scale grain farmers on the Canadian prairies of Saskatchewan. How does it affect their relationship to the crop plants they seeded and the weeds that spontaneously emerged? How do their skills to work with the natural elements grow, diminish or simply change through the new technology? How are weeds perceived by sensors and how are the data produced competing with the perceptions and the sensorium of the farmers? What do plants tell farmers and can they still listen? Underlying these practical questions is a broader concern with the nature and future of our technology addicted/trusting industrial system. Farmers still have to compose more directly than city dwellers with the natural elements. They cannot pretend to have broken free from the daily dictates of the weather, nor ignore what non-humans are up to. I will take as a point of departure Marx’ insight that human work is part of nature and explore what happens to the interactions between plants and humans if human senses are mediated through electronic sensors and algorithms that belong to powerful agricultural corporations.

Farmers, Development and the Temptation of Nitrogen for Sustainable Farming in Nicaragua

20. January 2023, Friday 10 am - 2 pm Lateinamerika-Institut, Boltzmannstr. 1, as part of Doktoand/innenkolloquium, Organizer : Stephanie Schütze,

The event will take place in a hybrid format. Zoom link:

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/98390091809?pwd=WjZZcnp6QTk5a2NreTVyNTI2REVQdz09

ID de réunion : 983 9009 1809, Code secret : c0BiJP

The Northern and Southern hemispheres use different amounts of energy. Southern farmers use much less energy to produce their crops, and many of the industrial crops produced with large amounts of fossil energy in the South are exported to the North. As Hornborg (2001) has shown, energy use constitutes one of the most extreme measures of global inequality. It may sound hypocritical, then, if NGOs from the Northern Hemisphere incite Nicaraguan farmers to pursue organic farming, foregoing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced with fossil resources.

In this lecture I analyze how the different agricultural development discourses in Nicaragua and the programs and projects attached to them play out in the actual practice of farming. What kinds of interventions take place in their name? To what strategies do they give rise? Farmers confronted with these different development logics take different decisions; I show to what extent their decisions are linked to global policy making and historical configurations. I also show that, in spite of the overwhelming financial power of certain development projects, a certain EigenSinn (Lüdtke 1997) prevails.

 

 

 

Glyphosate—A love story. Ordinary thoughtlessness and response-ability in industrial farming

23 January 2023 Monday 12pm - 2 pm  (also 12:15 bis 13:45 Uhr) Henry-Ford-Bau im Hörsaal B, Institut für Ethnologie FU Berlin, as part of Vorlesungsreihe Soziale Beziehungen, Organizer : Sandra Calkins

The event will take place in a hybrid format. Zoom link:

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/97680525671?pwd=alVkaURObU9DNmhpdy9nVnRrcjZ1QT09

ID de réunion : 976 8052 5671, Code secret : 2QB4u4

More than 8.6 billion kilograms of glyphosate have been used worldwide since the 1970s. Herbicide tolerant crops became the lynchpin of the technological revolution for large-scale farming first in the United States and Canada, and now in Europe. Zero-till farming, as a production scheme and a world view, is based on simplifications promoted by a handful of transnational corporations with the complicity of politicians looking for easy solutions for problems, such as climate change, erosion and the hunger in the world. At the same time, the massive use of glyphosate is branded as an endocrine disrupter, causing cancer, male sterility and infertility. It interferes with soil bacteria and acts on the equilibrium of soil fungi. Glyphosate resistant crops connect farmers to far away consumers ingesting the food they grow together with the traces of chemicals. Farmers intra-act with the myriads of life-forms of the soil eco-system. How do they perceive the life in the soil, when they spray chemicals? The lecture explores the political dimensions of the agency of both humans and non-humans to understand the effects of the modernizing project of zero-till, as well as to identify spaces and scales of possibility from where alternatives can emerge.

 

Flux, unrelenting — The struggle for local seed sovereignty in Nicaragua

2 February 2023 Thursday 2 pm – 4 pm, Ihnestr.22 (Seminarraum G)

Institut für Ethnologie FU Berlin, as part of the Seminar über Multispezies-Studien, Organizer : Sandra Calkins

The event will take place in a hybrid format. Zoom link:

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/97116771121?pwd=MlFyeEdEMHdXeFJCMk1hU204MWo4QT09

ID de réunion : 971 1677 1121, Code secret : aRM6eu

Most farmers are not activists. They make, however, their own sense of the world and act —sometimes quite stubbornly — according to that sense given, grasping what they perceive as opportunities, and protecting as best they can, what they feel as essential for their livelihood.. The lecture analyzes the creativity and political potential, as well as the contradictions and inconsistencies of the quotidian practice of seed saving under extreme constraint in light of the major struggles about Nicaraguan seed legislation. Ever since the 1970s, the seed politics of the country passed through periods when the use of high-responsive homogenous maize and bean varieties was promoted and other times when the planting of traditional criollo population varieties re-emerged as a response to instability and political crisis. Political projects for Nicaraguan society, international policy-making, corporate strategies and imperial ambitions engage with and affect the varieties grown locally. How do small farmers keep the relation to their seeds alive in the midst of development inventions, when politicians, corporate actors and activists in far-away places make/change/transform seed laws and regulations, and ambition to make farmers conform?

 

Anthropological Encounters with Organic Intellectuals and the Practice of Politics

January or February 2023to be determined

The practice of politics has a long history as an arena of anthropological inquiry and was the subject of a recent special issue of Anthropological Theory to which I contributed together with Tania Li. We both came to anthropology because of political commitments that could be summarized as a critical stance on the world as it is, and a desire to see it constructed otherwise. We were also attracted to interlocutors who have their own critical analysis of injustice and set out to change it in some way. This engagement meant taking interlocutors and their ideas seriously, and not rushing to judge them or instruct them on how to think or act differently. It did not mean we agreed with them on all counts, but it did involve respect for their capacities as people who are capable of thought and reflection as they analyze the world they live in drawing on their own experience, environment and the diverse sources available to them.

In this lecture, I want to talk about a form of ethnographic writing that we experimented with together. It foregrounds the actions and reflections of two of our favorite fieldwork interlocutors, and our own interactions with them. These interlocutors fill the role Gramsci ascribed to organic intellectuals: people who stand out for their capacity to go beyond the common sense born out of quotidian experience to a new kind of sense, called “good sense” by Gramsci. He argued that party organization and the kinds of outreach he was involved in as a journalist for a party newspaper were essential for good sense to be stabilized. In the situations we examine organizational structures are less formal or even absent; hence the organic intellectuals in our account wrestle with competing concepts and prescriptions as they attempt  to make sense of their situations. 

Publikationen

Ouvrages

2008 La bataille des OGM. Combat vital ou d’arrière garde? Collection transversale débats, Paris: Éditions ellipses, 173 pages

2007 Disenchantment with Market Economics. East Germans and Western Capitalism, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 224 pages

2002 Die Entzauberung der Marktwirtschaft. Ethnologische Erkundungen in ostdeutschen Betrieben,Frankfurt: Campus. 230 pages

1991 Toward an Alternative Culture of Work. Political Idealism and Economic Practices in West Berlin Collective Enterprises. Boulder: Westview Press. 212 pages

Ouvrages dirigés :

2022 Political Ecology and Environmental Governance LASA Forum 53.1

2021 avec Michel Naeples Mondes toxiques numéro thématique de Mondes Communs Nr. 5

2014 Seeds and the Ontic in Political Anthropology. Thematic issue of Focaal. Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 69

2013 The Gloss of Harmony. The Politics of Policy-Making in Multilateral Organisations. London: Pluto Press

2012 Anthropologie des organisations internationales. Thematic section Critique internationale 2012/1 Nr. 54

2010 My own boss? Strategies of Resistance and Accomodation of Rural Producers to Neoliberal Governance. Numéro thématique de Anthropologica. The Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society 52.2

2006 GMOs – global objects of contention, thematic issue of Focaal. European Journal of Anthropology, 48 automne

avec Catherine Neveu (eds.) 2002 Mobilising Institutions — Institutionalizing Movements, numéro spécial de Focaal. European Journal of Anthropology 40

1998 Power and Institutional Change in Postcommunist Eastern Europe, Canterbury: CSA

1997 Anthropologie der Wende. Kontroversen im Alltag der deutschen Vereinigung, avec Emmanuel

Terray et Vincent von Wroblewsky, Berlin: Cahiers du Centre Marc Bloch Nr. 5

1996 Alltag in Jablonec 1994. Vom "Neusiedlergrenzland" zur Euroregion: dirigée avec Zdenek Uherek, Wien: IFK Materialien

1996 A la recherche des certitudes perdues... Anthropologie du travail et des affaires dans une Europe en mutation, Berlin: Cahiers du Centre Marc Bloch, Cahier Nr. 4, août

avec Christian Giordano et Ina Greverus (eds.) 1993 World View, Political Behaviour and Economy in the Post Communist Transition. numéro spécial du Anthropological Journal on European Cultures vol.2, Nr. 1 et Nr. 2

Chapitres dans des ouvrages collectifs:

Forthcoming Interlude I. Frictions of Distance and Proximity. Observing IOs in Action in : International Organization and Research Methods. An Introduction. Michigan University Press

2022 “Don’t Look Up”: Political Ecology and the Denials of Environmental Governance LASA Forum 53.1

2021 « Glyphosate, une histoire d’amour » In : Birgit Müller et Michel Naepels (sous la direction) Mondes toxiques. Monde Commun Nr. 5 Paris: PUF

2021 « Affect and Power in Seeds — Sensorial and Political Engagements » in Bengt Karlsson et Annika Rabo Seedways. Stockholm : Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.

2022 avec Elise Boutié « ¿Agua fósil para Baby Carrots? El desafío de la (auto)limitación en un desierto californiano verde » in : Chloé Nicolas-Artero et.al. (eds.), L’Eau dans les Amériques. Paris : éditions de l’IHEAL

2021 « ““If They Don’t Farm It, They Should Not Own It”:. Land Investments and the Divisions of Farming » IN: Cora Sellers, JoAnn Jaffe and Trish Elliott (eds.) Divided: Populism, Polarization and Politics in the New Saskatchewan. Regina: Fernwood Publishing

2018 "Peasants" in: Hilary Callan (editor) The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Chichester : John Wiley & Sons Limited

DOI :[https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2150]

2018 "Anthropology of International Organisations" in: Hilary Callan (editor) The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Chichester : John Wiley & Sons Limited DOI : [https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2241]

2017 avec Sarah Benabou, Nils Moussu « The business voice at COP21: The Quandaries of a Global Political Ambition » in: Stefan C. Aykut, Jean Foyer, Edouard Morena (eds.) Globalising the climate: COP21 and the climatisation of global debates. Routledge pp. 57-74

2016 “Volverse esclavo de su semilla. Anthropos y el poder de los no-humanos”, In: Angel Aedo, Piergiorgio Di Giminiani y Juan Loera (eds.) Ecopolitica: medioambiente, bienestar y poder pp. 231-260

2015, avec Gilles Cloiseau, “La fabrique d'un paragraphe. Les investissements agricoles entre multilatéralisme et gouvernance privée”, in : Jean Foyer (sous la direction) Retour sur Rio + 20, Paris : éditions CNRS pp. 90-114

2015 avec Sarah Benabou “De l'autojustification du capitalisme. Les ambiguïtés de l’agenda du secteur privé à Rio + 20”, in : Jean Foyer (sous la direction) Retour sur Rio + 20, Paris : éditions CNRS pp. 164- 185

2014 "Semences : auto-contrôle, traçabilité, confidentialité et privatisation du droit" In: Droits de propriété intellectuelle et communs. Entre droits exclusifs de propriétaires et droits positifs des contributeurs, producteurs et usagers, Bagnolet: Réseau Semences Paysannes, http://www.semencespaysannes.org

2013, “Lifting the Veil of Harmony: Anthropologists approach International Organisations” In: Birgit Müller (ed.) The Gloss of Harmony. The Politics of Policy- Making in Multilateral Organisations. London: Pluto Press p. 1-20

2013 “The Loss of Harmony. FAO Guidance for Food Security in Nicaragua” In: Birgit Müller (ed.) The Gloss of Harmony. The Politics of Policy-Making in Multilateral Organisations. London: Pluto Press p. 202-226

2013 “The Struggle about the Canadian Wheat Board: Taking Freedom and Democracy to Market” in: Carole Counihan and Valeria Siniscalchi (eds.), 2013, Food Activism: Agency, Democracy and Economy, London : Berg Publishers p. 129-142

2013 “The Skeleton versus the Little Grey Men. Conflicting Cultures of Anti- Nuclear Activism at the Czech - Austrian Border” in: Jutta Lauth Bacas / William Kavanagh (eds.) Asymmetry and Proximity in Border Encounters. Oxford, Berghahn Books pp. 68-89

2011 “Détenir les codes de la nature : droits de propriété intellectuelle ou bien commun.” In: Ouvrage collectif La propriété intellectuelle contre la biodiversité ? Géopolitique de la diversité biologique. PubliCetim No 35, Genève: CETIM, mars 2011. pp. 177-193

2011, « The Elephant in the Room. Multi-stakeholder Dialogue on Agricultural Biotechnology in the FAO » In: Davide Però, Cris Shore, Sue Wright (eds.) Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Anatomy of Contemporary Power, Oxford: Berghahn Books pp. 282-99

2007, « La loi du marché comme idéologie. Les agriculteurs de la Saskatchewan face au système économique néo-libéral », Cahiers du GEMDEV. Mesure de la mondialisation (sous la direction d’Irène Bellier) Nr. 31, mars, p. 52-65

REPRINT : 2007, “La loi du marché comme idéologie. Les agriculteurs de la Saskatchewan face au système économique néo-libéral”, in : Eveline Baumann, Laurent Bazin, Pepita Ould-ahmed, Pascale Phelinas, Monique Sélim et Riochard Sobel, La mondialisation au risque des travailleurs. Paris : l’Harmattan pp. 267-290

2006 “On the Ownership of Nature” in: Laxer, Gordon and Soron, Dennis (eds.), Not for Sale: De- commodifying Public Life, Calgary: Broadview Press, pp. 55-68

2006 “The Misgivings of Democracy: Personal Resentment and Alternating Power in a Czech Village” in: Maruska Svasek (ed.) Postsocialism. Politics and Emotions in Central and Eastern Europe, New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 178-195.

2004 “ Productivity and the Person. From Socialist Competition to Capitalist Mission“ in. Procoli, Angela (ed.) Workers and narratives of survival in Europe. The management of precariousness at the end of XXth century. New York: SUNY Press

2003 “Produktivität und Identität. Eine Anthropologie der Fabrikarbeit während und nach dem Sozialismus “ In: Moser, Johannes Kultur der Arbeit, Kultur der Neuen Ökonomie, Kuckuck. Notizen zu Alltagskultur. pp. 103-118

2000 "From Planned to Market Economy in the Former East Berlin" in: Kenneth McRobbie and Kari Polanyi Levitt (eds.) Karl Polanyi in Vienna. The Contemporary Significance of the Great Transformation. New York: Black Rose Books. Pp. 116- 131.

1999 “ Adaptation and Distinction : the Management Politics of two East German Production Managers in a Multinational Combine ” IN : Müller Birgit (ed.) Power and Institutional Change in Post-communist Eastern Europe, Canterbury : CSA. pp. 157- 168

1998 “ Sozialismus als Performance : Die Repräsentation des Politischen im volkseigenen Betrieb ” IN : Pribersky Andreas, Unfried Bertholdt Symbole und Rituale des Politischen, Vienne : Peter Lang Verlag. pp. 103-118

1997 “ Culture, pouvoir et l’unification allemande dans l’entreprise ” IN : Abeles M., Jeudy H.P. Anthropologie du politique Paris : Armand Colin, Collection U. pp. 163-178

1995 « The Wall in the Heads : East-West German Stereotypes and the Problems of Transition in Three Enterprises in East Berlin », In Marguerite Mendell et Klaus Nielsen (eds.) Europe. Central and East. Montréal : Black Rose Books. pp. 248-269.

1993 "Vom Kollektivmitglied zum "neuen Menschen" in der Marktwirtschaft: Weltsichten und wirtschaftliches Handeln in drei ehemals volkseigenen Betrieben in Ostberlin" IN: Helmers, Sabine (ed.) Ethnologie der Arbeitswelt, Mundus Reihe Ethnologie, Band 67, Bonn: Holos Verlag. pp. 279-308.

1989 "Campesinos und Sandinisten: Fallstudie in einem Dorf in Nicaragua" IN: Dirmoser. D. (ed.), Verlierer der Weltwirtschaft. Hamburg: Junius Verlag p.100-109

Articles dans des revues avec comité de lecture:

2022 avec Elise Boutié « Whose Limit. Water and Democracy in a Green Californian Desert » Political

Ecology Vol. 29 : 561-587

2021 « Compromisos con los no-humanos. Una antropología política de la conservación de semillas en

Nicaragua » In : Cuadernos de anthropologia (en cours de revision)

2021 « Glyphosate—A love story. Ordinary thoughtlessness and response-ability in industrial farming. »

Journal of Agrarian Change. 21(1): 160-179. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12374

2020 « Flux, unrelenting – the struggle for local seed sovereignty in Nicaragua », The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(2):1-21. DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2020.1738395

2019 "To Act upon one's Time. From Impulse to Political Action." Politics In The Time Of ‘Post Politics’: Rethinking Anthropology’s Conception of The Political For The 21st Century. Edited by Nancy Peluso, Eli Elinoff, and Nicole Fabricant, special issue of Anthropological Theory 19 (1): 54-74

2015 'Fools Gold on the Prairies. Ontology, Farmers and their Seeds' in: Tsantsa 20 thematic issue L’anthropologie et le tournant ontologique p. 61-73

2015, with Gilles Cloiseau 'The Real Dirt on Responsible Agricultural Investments at Rio+20. Multilateralism versus Corporate Self-Regulation' in: Law & Society Review, Volume 49, No.1 p. 39-67

2014 “Seeds. Grown, Governed and Contested or the Ontic in Political Anthropology” In: Seeds and the Ontic in Political Anthropology. Thematic issue of Focaal. Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology Nr. 69: 3:11

2014, “The Seed and the Citizen. Biosocial Networks of Confiscation and Destruction in Canada” In : Seeds and the Ontic in Political Anthropology. Thematic issue of Focaal. Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 69: 28-44

2012 “Farmers, Development, and the Temptation of Nitrogen: Controversies about Sustainable Farming in Nicaragua » In : RCC Perspectives Nr. 5 p. 23-30

2012 « Comment rendre le monde gouvernable sans le gouverner : Les organisations internationales analysées par les anthropologues » in: Critique internationale 2012/1 Nr. 54 p.9-18

2010 “Les droits de propriété intellectuelle sur la nature” In : Multitudes. Revue politique, artistique, philosophique 41 (printemps) pp. 73-81

2010 « Introduction — My Own Boss? Strategies of Resistance and Accommodation of Rural Producers to Neoliberal Governance » In : Anthropologica 52.2 , p. 233-6

2010 « Favores, ayuda y robo: Peasants’ Views of Continuity in Systemic Change in Nicaragua » In : Anthropologica 52.2 , p. 259-272

2009 "Comment rendre technique un débat politique. Controverses autour des biotechnologies agricoles au sein de la FAO" In: Tsantsa Nr. 14 p. 27-36

2008, “Still Feeding the World? The Political Ecology of Canadian Prairie Farmers” Anthropologica. The Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society vol. 50,2 pp. 389-408

2006 “Infringing and Trespassing Plants. Control over and Responsibility for Patented Seeds at Dispute in Canada’s Courts” in : Focaal. European Journal of Anthropology, Nr. 48 automne p. 83-98

2006 “Introduction: GMOs - Global Objects of Contention” in: Focaal. European Journal of Anthropology, nr. 48, automne p. 4-16

2004 “Images of Nature as Designs for Czech Post-Socialist society” in: Political Ecology Nr. 11, November p. 31-42

2002 “Say it in Rimes. Hits below the belt in Czech village politics” In Focaal European Journal of Anthropology 39. Special Issue on 'Politics and Emotions in Post-Socialist Communities' (ed M. Svasek) p. 29-39

2002 avec Kohutek Petr “ Engaging the New Democracy: EIA Procedures and Institution Building in the Czech Republic ” In: Focaal. European Journal of Anthropology 40, special issue on ‘Mobilising Institutions — Institutionalizing Movements’ Birgit Müller and Catherine Neveu (eds.) p. 67-81

2002 avec Catherine Neveu, “ Mobilising Institutions — Institutionalizing Movements : an Introduction ” In Focaal. European Journal of Anthropology 40, special issue Birgit Müller and Catherine Neveu (eds.) ‘Mobilising Institutions — Institutionalizing Movements’ p.7-19

2000 « C’est ça la démocratie... ! La mise en scène d’un contre-pouvoir lors du sommet de Seattle » In : Socio-anthropologie nr.7 1 sem. [URL : http://journals.openedition.org/socio-anthropologie/102 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/socio-anthropologie.102]

1999 « Calcul et croyance: La mission civilisatrice d'une multinationale en Europe de l'est » In: Ethnologie française 1999:4 p. 543-548

1998 « Kultura a moc: Prumyslovy podnik po sjednoceni Nemecka » IN: Cesky Lid 85,3 pp. 209-222 1997 « Du travailleur “ socialiste à ‘l’homme nouveau’ dans l’économie du marché » IN : Ethnologie

Française 27 pp. 543-551

1994 "Macht und Disziplin, auf dem Weg vom Plan zum Markt: Belegschaftsinteressen und Managementstrategien in ostberliner Industriebetrieben 1990-1993" IN: Historische Anthropologie, 2 :1, pp. 63–86

1994 avec Elena Mechtcherkina, Kirill Levinson, Isabelle Cribier, Andrej Onikienko « 'Nous qui avons su ferrer une puce...': productivité et profit dans une joint venture moscovite » In: Les Temps Modernes 49 année, nr. 579, déc. Pp. 124-156.

1993 « Le mur dans la tete. Les stéréotypes interallemands et les problèmes de transition dans trois anciennes entreprises du peuple à Berlin Est » IN: Les temps modernes, année 49, Nr. 560, janvier. Pp 63- 95

1993 « Pouvoir et discipline, du monde du plan à celui du marché » in: Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie, Vol. XCV pp. 333-353

1993 "Der Mythos vom faulen Ó ssi`: Deutsch-deutsche Vorurteile und die Erfahrungen mit der Marktwirtschaft in drei Betrieben in Ostberlin" IN: PROKLA Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaften, Heft 91, 23. Jg. Nr. 2. Pp. 251-268.

1993 "The Wall in the Heads: East West German Stereotypes and the Problems of Transition in three Enterprises in East Berlin" IN: Birgit Müller, Christian Giordano and Ina Greverus (eds.) World View, Political Behaviour and Economy in the Post Communist Transition. (thematic issue) Anthropological Journal on European Cultures vol.2, Nr. 1. Pp. 9-42.

1992 « De la folie du marché à la fin des illusions » IN: Liber. Supplément aux actes de la recherche en sciences sociales Nr. 91-92 p.14-15

1992 « De la compétition socialiste à la libre concurrence: la privatisation de trois entreprises (VEB) de Berlin-Est » IN: Allemagne aujourd'hui Nr. 121 juil-sept, pp. 183-196

1985 "Commodities as Currencies. The Integration of Overseas Trade into the Internal Trading Structure of the Igbo" IN: Cahiers des Etudes Africaines 97, XXV- 1 pp. 55-77

Comptes rendus:

2018 « Compte-rendu : Tania Li Land's End », In: L'Homme Nr. 225, mars

2009 « Compte-rendu : Food for the Few. Neoliberal Globalism and Biotechnology in Latin America, edited by Gerardo Otero » in : The Journal of Peasant Studies Volume 36 Issue 2.

2008 « Compte-rendu : ‘Capitalism and modernity: the great debate - Jack Goody’ » in: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 14, Number 1, March, pp. 233-234(2)

1999 « Compte-rendu : Martha Lampland ‘the Object of Labour’ » In: Social Anthropology Nr 7 pp. 351- 52

1994 « Compte-rendu : "The Culture of Flowers by Jack Goody" » IN: Social Anthropology 2,3 October 1994, 314

Articles dans des revues sans comité de lecture :

2014 "B2Gold has to Go! Struggle against Canadian Open Pit Gold Mining in the North of Nicaragua" Blog du Centre Humboldt, Managua http://de.slideshare.net/centroalexandervonhumboldt/reportaje- rancho-grande-versin- ingles2

2014 avec McMichael, Phil The Land-Grab Trap: Is There a Will to Govern Global Land Grabbing? Focaalblog http://www.focaalblog.com/2014/09/19/philip- mcmichael-birgit-muller-the-land-grab-trap-is- there-a-will-to-govern-global-land- grabbing/

2012 « Changeons nos consommations... » in : Sarkophage, hors série spécial Elections : « On change tout ! » avril

2011 “Wem gehört das Saatgut?” in Der Standard 9.September


2006 “UPOV 1991 – contrôle des semences et politique sous influence” in Nature et Progrès nr. 59 : 28-

30 septembre-octobre.
 1992"JamesScottetlediscourscachédesdominés"IN:BulletindelÁ PAD,Nr.3,

1991 "Einbruch der Marktwirtschaft in die Alltäglichkeit von zwei Betrieben in der ehemaligen DDR" IN: Sozialanthropologische Arbeitspapiere. Nr. 37, Sept


Blog

Silent Spring Continued — Insect Love and Loss. DOI : [https://seeingthewoods.org/2018/05/23/call-for-

submissions-silent-spring- continued/], Conception et Animation (contributeur)

Rapports de recherche :

2019, avec Bina Agarwal, Group Farming and Collective Action. Does the French model hold lessons for

Indian and French farming futures? Rapport final pour le CEFIPRA

2008 avec Christina Garsten et Irène Bellier 
“Global swirl: some reflections on European organizing in the context of globalization." In: Anthropological Perspectives in a Changing Europe: Bringing People. Working document. European Commission, European Research Area. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ssh/library_en.html

1999 The Council of Europe after Enlargement:an Anthropological Enquiry Results of the Fieldwork in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, 15th of June to 18th of July 1998, financed by the European Science Foundation, presented to the members of the Council of Europe for discussion

1987 Cooperativismo y autoabastecimiento: el caso de los Potrerillos Informe para el departamiento de economia agricola UNAN, Managua