Pauline von Hellermann is an environmental anthropologist and political ecologist, who came to Anthropology via History and Development Studies. After completing her PhD at Sussex in 2005 and two postdocs at Sussex and York, she joined Goldsmiths as a lecturer in 2011. She currently holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2018-2021) for the project Red Gold: A Global Environmental Anthropology of Palm Oil.
Pauline supervises research projects in environmental anthropology and political ecology, and with a regional focus on Africa and the African diaspora. Her research and supervision interests range widely and include palm oil, mining, youth and patronage politics, science policy processes, infrastructure, multi-sited ethnography, political ecology and environmental justice.
Currently supervising
Ashley Puskas – Money and social relations in London’s Ghanaian diaspora
Sarah Howard – Government work in practice: Rethinking power and the state in rural Ethiopia
Flora Bartlett – Life in a Cold Climate: Nature, Weather, and Climate Change in Arjeplog, Sweden
Jessica Lumanisha - Black Slavs: Poland’s African diasporic community and the rise of post-socialist right-wing populism in Poland
Completed doctoral students
William Wheeler (2016) Sea changes: environment and political economy on the North Aral Sea, Kazakhstan
Clate Korsant (2017) Environmentalisms in Practice: From national policy to grassroots activism in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula
von Hellermann, Pauline and Coleman, Simon. 2013. Introduction. In: Pauline von Hellermann and Simon Coleman, eds. Multi-sited Ethnography. Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods. London: Routledge, pp. 1-15. ISBN 978-0415849012
Landscape histories, perceptions and policies in Tanzania
My research as a Marie Curie Research Fellow for the HEEAL project (2008-11) complemented the work of my archaeologist colleagues at York University. I conducted ethnographic, archival and photographic research into land use practices, conservation policy and landscape change in the South Pare Mountains in Northeastern Tanzania, subsequently writing about tree symbolism and conservation and about repeat photography and narratives of environmental change.
Red Gold: A Global Environmental Anthropology of Palm Oil
This research, funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2018-21) presents a holistic and multi-faceted investigation into palm oil, from the early history of the oil palm and human-palm relations in West Africa, over the global palm oil agribusiness of today, its environmental and social effects, and the myriad forms of palm oil consumption throughout the world, to palm oil discourses and governance: anti-palm oil activism and boycotts, corporate attempts to rebrand and promote ‘sustainable’ palm oil production and certification schemes, and evolving national and global regulation. The project will build on existing palm oil research and will combine digital ethnography and archival research with new fieldwork in Nigeria, Indonesia, India and the UK.
As a commuter from Eastbourne and a regular user and sufferer of Southern Rail, I also developed research and activist interests in the Southern Rail crisis, and continue to be interested in rail and infrastructure anthropology.