GSSC Seminar Series
6 May 2025
Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes: From Private Conservation Enclaves in Southern Namibia to Global Landscapes of Uninhabitability and Elite Escapes
Luregn Lenggenhager (University of Cologne)
12:00-13:00
This seminar introduces my new SNSF-funded research project Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes in Times of Climate Change, which examines how climate change is producing new, highly unequal geographies of elite escape and dereliction. While environmental change render certain areas increasingly uninhabitable – both effectively and rhetorically - wealthy elites are creating exclusive “curated escapes”—from private islands and luxury wildlife estates to off-grid shelters and virtual havens. My new project investigates the historical and political conditions under which such landscapes are made possible, and how they relate to broader dynamics of dispossession, environmental control, and social inequality. The presentation also offers a brief introduction to my recently co-published book (with Bernard C. Moore) Space is the Ultimate Luxury. Capitalists, Conservationists and Ancestral Land in Namibia which served as a point of departure for the new project. This book explores the history, ecology, and society of a seemingly inhospitable stretch of land southern Namibia, where a group of African farmers have succeeded to stay on their land through decades of colonialism and apartheid. In the 21st century, however, new actors that want to evict the farmers have emerged—super-wealthy individuals and companies acquiring massive swaths of land under the guise of nature conservation, transforming them into their private, exclusive and well-curated landscapes, emptied of people and livestock.
Luregn Lenggenhager is a historian and geographer specializing in Namibian and Southern African history. In 2022, he joined the Global South Studies Centre at the University of Cologne for the DAAD Prime project "Animal Crossings" followed by a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship titled “Past Natures for Future Conservation (PANATURE): Current Narratives and Historical Human-Wildlife-Land Relations in Southern Africa and the European Alps.” He was recently awarded the SNSF Starting Grant, which entails a 5 year non-tenured professorship at the University of Basel, starting in September 2025. His research project is titled “Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes in Times of Climate Change”.
His publications focus on the history of militarization and conservation, transfrontier conservation, animal histories, and land issues in Southern Africa. He has also been actively organizing regular academic exchange programs between Namibia and Switzerland. He is an affiliated researcher at the University of Namibia.