Julia has a research interest in the environmental humanities, human-wildlife interactions, indigenous and local knowledges and multispecies ethnography. She realized a Bachelor in “Regional Studies of Latin America-Social Sciences” at the University of Cologne and the National University of Colombia, Bogotá and a Master in “Social and Cultural Anthropology” at the University of Cologne. In her master thesis she focused on the role of Indigenous knowledge and participation in conservation programs in the Colombian Amazon region where she previously had done her first fieldwork on intangible cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.  Besides Academia, Julia has gained practical work experience in journalism and international university and development cooperation. The transfer of science into society is therefore a particular concern for her. In February 2022 she started to work as a doctoral researcher in the ERC REWILDING project.

I am happy and grateful to be able to pursue my research at the GSSC. Here I find a stimulating and supportive environment. The GSSC brings together a diversity of disciplines, perspectives and people. Regular events or meetings in the hallway or kitchen allow for exchanges with other researchers that may lead to scientific collaborations.

Co-adapting for Coexistence: A Biocultural Perspective on Human-Lion Interactions in Northern Botswana

Hosting 20% of the remaining lion population and other vulnerable carnivore species, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is one of the last global refuges for large predators. However, human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) present a major challenge for lion survival, pastoral livelihoods and the TFCA vision of ecological cross-border connectivity and coexistence. Human land-use expansion, climate change, increased wildlife populations and changes in pastoral practices have intensified some of these conflicts over the last decades. Pastoral communities have long shared landscapes with lions and possess important ecological knowledge for coexistence, even if this knowledge is increasingly vanishing. Recognising that wildlife damage control alone does not transform conflicts, regional HWC mitigation efforts are now increasingly adopting a coexistence approach that involves a more holistic framework of social and ecological factors and digital technologies, aiming to achieve sustainable co-habitation of humans and wildlife in shared landscapes. For example, digital early warning systems help to warn people in time of the approach of lions, and communal livestock management and the reintroduction of herding are intended to prevent predator attacks.

While drivers and negative outcomes of human-lion conflicts are well studied, my research project takes a biocultural perspective and investigates how humans and lions coadapt(ed) in the past and present to coexist in shared landscapes with an outlook on future coexistence. The aim is to identify enabling factors of local human-carnivore coexistence as well as engage with the impact of coexistence as a concept and practice in Botswana and KAZA TFCA. The research makes use of multispecies ethnography and the assemblage concept as an analytical tool to bring to light the co-constituting and continuously restructuring human-nonhuman relationships of the lion assemblage.

Key research questions include:

• How are coexistence interventions changing local livestock management as well as local perceptions and interactions with lions? How have lions adapted to human presence and coexistence measures related to husbandry changes?
• What kind of changes did local pastoral knowledge undergo in northern Botswana? What are factors that  enable knowledge revitalization and application of traditional knowledge in coexistence interventions?
• How is the concept of coexistence conceptualized, contested and enacted among different scales of local, regional and global actors in the KAZA TFCA?