- Which research project are you currently working on the most?
The project is called “Amber Worlds: A Geological Anthropology for the Anthropocene (AMBER).” AMBER has recently been funded by an ERC Starting Grant and will officially start in the fall of 2023. The project sets out to be the first global study of amber from an anthropological perspective, and it does so through three main approaches, all grounded in ethnographic research.
First, we will look at amber as an object of extraction by working in some key mining areas in Asia, Europe, and Central America. Secondly, we will explore how amber circulates globally as a gemstone: how it acquires value in specific contexts, what drives the trade, and what are the main actors involved. Lastly, we will work with palaeontologists and geologists for whom amber, and the prehistoric inclusions it often features, is a key object of scientific research.
In doing so, AMBER brings together three dimensions in a common analysis: anthropological frameworks of global circulations; the political ecology of resource extraction; and STS-inspired approaches to scientific research and the nonhuman.
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Read also in Norwegian "EU-midler for å forske på betydningen av rav"
- What do you want to find out?
From an empirical perspective, there is still much about the global amber industry and trade that we do not know. The overall value of the amber market remains, to begin with, a mystery. We also do not have a comprehensive picture of how growing Chinese demand in amber over the past two decades impacted various sites of amber extraction across the world. Nor we know much about how amber moves from the mines onto the global market, and the role that informal connections play in this trade. Additionally, we still have little understanding of how the scientific and commercial values of amber are intertwined.
What are, for instance, the points of frictions between how scientists, miners, and traders relate to amber inclusions? What role do geological knowledge and experts play in shaping extractive economies in the various sites? These are questions that are not only central to the economic aspect of amber extraction and trade, but that also deeply affect how scientific research is carried out, by whom, for what purposes, and to whose benefit.
- Why is this important?
I strongly believe that a close examination of amber and its global circulations can tell us a lot about the current times. Amber is a fossil resin secreted by plants between 300 and 16 million years ago, mostly during phases of climate breakdown and ecological crises. Today, geologists and palaeontologists believe that the study of amber specimens can help us answering key questions about the planet’s climatic history, and understanding how and why species adapted, or failed to adapt, during previous phases of mass extinction.
Amber is also a well-known and sought-after gemstone, fuelling violent mining economies from Myanmar to Russia, Ukraine, and Mexico, and constitutes a global market increasingly driven by Chinese demand. Amber thus offers a privileged entry point to interrogate the current moment characterised by growing extractivism, trade, environmental crises, and conflict. It represents, in other words, a unique lens through which we can address some of the key empirical and theoretical challenges posed by the Anthropocene.
- Who do you collaborate with?
AMBER will start in the fall of 2023 and will include two postdoctoral researchers and one PhD student. All positions will be advertised later this year. In general, while the project is rooted in anthropology, I would be keen to work with scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, with a particular interest in political ecology and the underground, as well as research experience in some of the sites of amber extraction and trade.
- What do you look for when choosing partners?
A sense of shared curiosity, and the openness to learn from one another. This is also why I am particularly fond of trans-disciplinary research team, in which team members can continuously bring new inputs and generate new questions. I think it is also extremely important that partners have different levels of experience, and backgrounds in diverse academic (and non-academic) settings. Again, this can help us seeing things differently, and thus challenge established (in our discipline, or academic traditions) notions, learn new approaches and ideas, and continuously re-think our own questions.
- What other research projects are you involved in?
I am currently involved with two other research projects, both of which are based at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich.
One is called “Environing Infrastructure” and is funded for five years by the Volkswagen Foundation. Environing Infrastructure focuses on the environmental components of Chinese infrastructure development in Southeast Asia, and directly follows up from my previous research on China’s borderlands.
A second project is called “CONTOURS: Conservation, Tourism, Remoteness.” CONTOURS is funded by an Era-Net grant to study how conservation and tourism practices intersect, and how they are understood, implemented and at times resisted in various European sites. As part of it, I have been conducting research in my native region of northern Italy, on issues of rewilding, hunting, and abandonment.
- What do you think is the most interesting thing about being a researcher?
The possibility to continuously learn new things – from fellow scholars, students, and the wonderful individuals and communities I had the pleasure to work with in different parts of the worlds. Their generosity and curiosity drive much of my own interests and questions. To work, learn, and exchange ideas on a daily basis is a great privilege, and something I am immensely grateful for.
- What is the most common question you get about work when you are with others?
Initially people are rather surprised that an anthropologist would be interested in amber – an object of everyday use that easily goes unnoticed. “Why amber?” is a rather common question. At the same time, I realised that most people seem to have an amber story they like to tell – be it from themselves, a relative, or a friend. It feels quite apt, then, to conclude this interview with an invitation: please feel free to reach out with your amber story, I would love to hear it.