Universität zu Köln

Schäfer, Anna Céline (2024). Of weed and value. Encounters with the Stinging Nettle in the urban wilderness of Cologne. Masters thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

The study by Anna Céline Schäfer, supervised by Dr. Clemens Greiner, engages with the stinging nettle, a plant probably better known for painful encounters than for its many beneficial properties. Reflections on this plant's ambivalence led Schäfer to explore experiences and notions of urban "wilderness" in the City of Cologne. In this accessible and highly readable ethnography, Schäfer explores Western cultural memories of "wilderness" and traces the history of wilderness thinking from the Middle Ages through the Romantic period to the present day. The subsequent ethnographic exploration of the world of the urban stinging nettle is beautifully organised into four tropes: Chaos (the uncontrollability of wilderness in an over organized space), Contamination (the risks for more-than-human wellbeing through pollutions), Danger (fear of intoxication), and Feral Culture (contemporary struggles about the meaning of "wilderness"). Schäfer explores the world of urban foragers who try to educate and sensitize their contemporaries as to the nutritional benefits of wild herbs, which grow at their doorsteps and can be used as complementary food source. Their foraging trips, Schäfer argues, are embodied and sensory encounters with more-than-human worlds. In this way, urban food-foraging practices help those alienated from nature to refamiliarize with these worlds and to rethink prevalent nature-culture dualisms. Connecting wild ecologies, urban foraging practices and current debates about "superfoods", this work touches a wide range of pressing issues relating to the crisis-ridden relationships between humans, the environment and beyond. It brings these topics literally to our doorstep and thus contributes in an exemplary way to an "anthropology at home".

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Schäfer, Anna Céline UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-740388
Series Name at the University of Cologne:	Kölner Ethnologische Beiträge
Volume:	65
Date:	2024
Place of Publication:	Köln
ISSN:	1611-4531
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Fächergruppe 4: Außereuropäische Sprachen, Kulturen und Gesellschaften > Institut für Ethnologie
Subjects:	Customs, etiquette, folklore
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Cologne, Wilderness, Stinging Nettle, Urban forangers, MA Thesis English Köln, Wildnis, Brennnessel, Urbane Sammler, Masterarbeit German
Date of oral exam:	2024
Referee:	Name Academic Title Greiner, Clemens Dr.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/74038