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Pauline von Hellermann

Am giving the last lecture of my module today - about personhood and the . Amongst other things I will talk about how everyone should have a , and my own: . And it so happens that the coffee I am whilst preparing my slides is called Murmurations! So had to share that moment here. Can elaborate a bit later but need to finish my lecture (and give it) first.. 1/3

2/3 Today i had one of those “pavement” flashbacks, when you suddenly remember a street corner from years ago in great detail. It was George Square in , where I did my first degree. Made me think about how orderly and solid everything seemed then, like George Square itself: i was just living a student life, studying history. I most definitely did not have any lectures on living in a or the need for activism

3/3 it made me feel so much, or even more, for my students this year, all that uncertainty and real fear. Of course, just as my sense of security was misguided then, my students today, too, might feel muxh less worried than i think. But it’s made me really question whether it was right to give this kind of lecture, and that it really needs to be done well. I tried to, of course, but still worried. Difficult to know what and how we should teach now.

@pvonhellermannn Will you be able to share the talk? Or can I find any writings you’ve done about the murmurations metaphor? I need something at least a little hopeful to hang onto today.

@johnnyforeign I am afraid I don't think I can share the talk - can't share PDFs here, and too embarrassed to share the recording - next year! but here is a paper where i - very briefly, and very badly, talk about this idea. The whole paper is not great, as very quickly written, and Murmurations is only one part, at the end, but anyway.. It comes from Andy Stirling, by the way, but I think they use it in a slightly different way. Really hope it helps a little

mdpi.com/2673-4060/2/4/32

MDPIFrom Ecophany to Burnout? An Anthropologist’s Reflections on Two Years of Participating in Council-Citizen Climate Governance in EastbourneIn July 2019, Eastbourne Borough Council declared a climate emergency and committed to making Eastbourne carbon neutral by 2030. In order to achieve this, citizens together with Council created a unique model of council-citizen collaborative climate governance, the Eastbourne Eco Action Network (EAN). EAN’s main strategy has been the setting up of targeted working groups, each bringing together Councillors, engaged citizens and providers, and each tackling a specific area of climate action through a combination of infrastructure, institutional and behavioural changes. As an environmental anthropologist living in Eastbourne, I was involved in this process right from the beginning, having had my own ‘ecophany’—the realisation that the climate emergency required urgent action—in February 2019. Two years and one pandemic later, in this paper I reflect on the overall experiences and challenges of EAN’s and Eastbourne Borough Council’s work towards town-wide carbon neutrality to date, discussing possible factors (structural and other) determining varying successes and failures. At the same time, this paper provides an auto-ethnographic account of what ‘engaged anthropology’ means in practice, mapping out the real contributions anthropologists can and should make in local climate action, but also reflecting on challenges encountered along the way.

@pvonhellermannn

Ha! Well, across the Meadows and up Marchmont Road is where I spent my college days (it's a uni now). Rather a long time ago now.