Lusatia is a paradigmatic example of the anthropogenic shaping of landscapes as a supplier of resources for industry and energy supply.
Today more than ever, the depleted and dried-up industrial landscapes with their shrunken cities, empty villages and ageing populations as well as the scarcity of water represent the questions of the Anthropocene: Does the massive intervention of man mean the decline of his species, which we now accept but can hardly correct?
To put it bluntly: social development through technical and landscape intervention is up for discussion! It appears here as the beginning of the end. The recultivation of coal-mined landscapes promises a lake landscape of recreation for man and nature, but leaves behind water shortages, acidic lakes, emptied cities and sliding quicksand landscapes.
The landscape risk is not left to its own devices, but is a legalized responsibility structure between compensation, nature conservation and research, tourism and the private sector as well as risk requirements under mining law. To put it more impressively: it is an expression of social interdisciplinarity for the question of how "liveable regions" are understood and built.
Interest in the (social) scientific debate on the Anthropocene, i.e. the influence of humans on its existential foundations, has increased significantly in recent years. From the plea for a "human ecology" (Manemann 2014) to the promotion of a "multi-paradigmatic sociology in the face of existential problems" (Scheffer and Schmidt 2019). The attempts to use interdisciplinarity to describe a way out of the general uncertainty with regard to global warming and climate change are manifold. This shift is of interest in the present project. Despite disciplinary certainties that the catastrophe has long since arrived, the ability to not practice a weiterso! in the present is still poorly developed.
The research project explores inter- and transdisciplinary partnerships and, together with the artists' collective recherchepraxis and others, develops a line of investigation to open up scientific questions with practical research, participation and artistic interventions for landscape research using the example of lignite mining landscapes.
The project is funded by the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism(SMWK).
This measure is co-financed with tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the members of the Saxon State Parliament.
