We are very happy to welcome our new Fellow Visitor Martin Andreas Schmid to the KLI.

Martin is an environmental historian trained in history and archaeology. He studies the biophysical and symbolic relationships of society with nature since c. 1500 with focus on Austria and Europe. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor for Environmental History at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences (WiSo), University of Natural Resources & Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).

Martin’s KLI project is titled, “What Is Socio-Ecological Industrialization in Co-Evolutionary Terms?” The project aims to combine the idea of industrialization driven by fossil fuels with concepts from evolutionary science with a goal to create a new understanding of industrial shifts as a process where natural and social systems are intricately connected and influence each other and co-evolve.

During his stay at the KLI Martin also plans to write two papers: one, a conceptual paper on the co-evolutionary view of socio-ecological industrialization, and another, an environmental history paper, on how rivers and forests from the late 18th c. onwards changed their role in social metabolism during industrialization in terms of society-nature co-evolution.

Martin will be at the KLI for six months, 2 September 2024 till 28 February 2025.

We wish Martin all the best as he develops his theories, and also a fruitful time for his work on his two papers.