Dr. Elisabeth Militz
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Dr. Elisabeth Militz
University of Innsbruck
Innrain 52f, 6020 Innsbruck
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About me
I am a feminist cultural and political geographer with a focus on global/intimate relations and digital transformations. My research brings together geographic theories of the body, emotion and affect, digital and affectual research methodologies and empirical fieldwork in Eurasia. From an intersectional research perspective, I want to understand how spaces of intimacy, everyday experiences of identity politics and digital technologies are interwoven. In my doctoral work (2017) and based on my long-term ethnographic field work in Azerbaijan, I developed the concept of affective nationalism and examined how feelings of national belonging arise in encounters between different bodies, objects, and places. My current research explores the digital/intimate. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan and on the social media platform Instagram, I investigate how digital practices and experiences are interconnected with intimate bodily experiences and global flows of technologies and knowledge. In this research, I study the role of gender, sexuality, and emotion in the creation of knowledge spaces about the intimate body in social media. I experiment with affectual research methodologies for human geographies, and I am particularly interested in developing feminist social media research methodologies.
Fields of research
feminist digital geographies | geographies of the body | feminist political geographies | feminist technosciences | emotions and affects | global intimate | affective nationalism | feminist methodologies
Professional career
| Since 2022 | Assistant Professor for Social and Digital Geographies, Institute of Geography, University of Innsbruck |
| 2021 – 2023 | Postdoctoral Researcher and Associate Research Fellow, Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph |
| 2021 | Interim Professor for Social and Cultural Geography, Institute of Geography, University of Bern |
| 2020 – 2021 | Associate Research Fellow, OSCE Academy, Bishkek |
| 2018 – 2021 | Associate Research Fellow, Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, University of Bern |
| 2018 – 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Institute of Geography, University of Bern |
| 2018 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Feminist Geography Collective, University of Texas at Austin |
| 2017 – 2018 | Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Transcultural Studies, University of St. Gallen |
| 2015 | Visiting PhD Student, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky |
| 2013 – 2016 | PhD Student and Research Assistant, Space and Organization, University of Zurich |
| 2012 | Visiting Scholar, Azerbaijan Tourism Institute, Baku |
| 2011 – 2013 | Research Assistant and Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of Jena |
| 2010 – 2011 | Lecturer of the Robert Bosch Foundation, State Agricultural University of Azerbaijan, Ganja |
| 2010 | Visiting Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg |
Current affiliations and memberships
| Since 2021 | YES! the IGU Gender and Geography Commission’s Young and Early Career Scholars, Member of the Steering Committee |
| Since 2017 | Member of the AK Feministische Geographien and AK Politische Geographie, VGDH |
Current research projects (as principal investigator)
| 2022 – 2024 | Feminist Social Media Research Methodologies
Postdoc project
Insight Development Grant |
| 2021 – 2023 | A Digital Geography of Marginalized Sexualities in Kyrgyzstan
Postdoc project |
Completed research projects (as principal investigator)
| 2018 | Clad in hope: affective geographies of the bridal dress
Postdoc project |
| 2015 | Conceptualising and applying topology
Workshop series project |
| 2013 – 2017 | Affective nationalism: bodies, materials and encounters with the nation in Azerbaijan
PhD project |
| 2009 – 2010 | Spaces of freedom in Azerbaijan: an action-oriented network analysis of environmental NGOs
Master’s project |
Publications
Peer-reviewed scientific articles | |
| 2023 | Schurr, Carolin, Nadine Marquardt, and Elisabeth Militz: Intimate technologies: Towards a feminist perspective on geographies of technoscience 47, no. 2: 215-237. |
| 2023 | Militz, Elisabeth: Intimate geographies of virginal blood. In: cultural geographies 30, no. 1: 123-139. |
| 2022 | Militz, Elisabeth: Soziale Medien als digitale intime Infrastrukturen: das Beispiel Instagram. In: sub\urban 10, no. 2/3: 149-156. |
| 2022 | Militz, Elisabeth, and Nurzada Kupueva: Towards a digital transformation of comprehensive sexuality education in Kyrgyzstan? In: OSCE Academy Policy Papers, no. 82 (December): 1-8. |
| 2022 | Militz, Elisabeth: “I am resolving the pain” – rechte Raumnahme (üb)erleben. In: Geographische Zeitschrift 110, no. 3:196-201. |
| 2022 | Militz, Elisabeth, Linda Ruppert, and Carolin Schurr: Solidarity, the national flag and embodied differences. In: Political Geography. |
| 2022 | Jokela-Pansini, Maaret, and Elisabeth Militz: Breathing new futures in polluted environments (Taranto, Italy). In: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 47, no. 3: 741-755. |
| 2020 | Militz, Elisabeth: Killing the Joy, Feeling the Cruelty: Feminist Geographies of Nationalism in Azerbaijan. In: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 38, no. 7–8: 1256–74. |
| 2020 | Militz, Elisabeth, Caroline Faria, and Carolin Schurr: Affectual Intensities: Writing with Resonance as Feminist Methodology. In: Area 52, no. 2: 429–36. |
| 2019 | Schurr, Carolin, and Elisabeth Militz. 2019. Winners of the Ashby Prizes. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 51, no. 7: 1409–14. |
| 2019 | Militz, Elisabeth: Towards Affective Nationalism. In: Gender, Place & Culture 26, no. 2: 296–300. |
| 2018 | Schurr, Carolin, and Elisabeth Militz: The Affective Economy of Transnational Surrogacy.” In: Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 50, no. 8: 1626–45. |
| 2016 | Militz, Elisabeth, and Carolin Schurr: Affective Nationalism: Banalities of Belonging in Azerbaijan. In: Political Geography 54, no. September: 54–63. |
Book and edited volume
| 2021 | Autor*innenkollektiv Geographie und Geschlecht: Handbuch Feministische Geographien. Arbeitsweisen und Konzepte. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. |
| 2019 | Militz, Elisabeth: Affective Nationalism: Bodies, Materials and Encounters with the Nation in Azerbaijan. In: Forum Politische Geographie 15. Münster, Zürich: LIT. |
Peer-reviewed book chapters
| 2022 | Militz, Elisabeth: Affekte und Emotionen. In: Mehr-Als-Menschliche Geographien. Schlüsselkonzepte, Beziehungen und Methodiken, edited by Christian Steiner, Verena Schröder, and Gerhard Rainer. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 87-108. |
| 2021 | Militz, Elisabeth, Iris Dzudzek, and Carolin Schurr: Feministische Geographien der Technowissenschaften. In: Handbuch Feministische Geographien. Arbeitsweisen und Konzepte, edited by Autor*innenkollektiv Geographie und Geschlecht, 190–214. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. |
| 2020 | Schurr, Carolin, and Elisabeth Militz: Reproductive Rights. In: International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Second Edition), edited by Audrey Kobayashi, 435–42. Oxford: Elsevier. |
| 2017 | Militz, Elisabeth: On Affect, Dancing and National Bodies. In: Everyday Nationhood: Theorising Culture, Identity and Belonging after Banal Nationalism, edited by Michael Skey and Marco Antonsich, 177–95. London: Palgrave Macmillan. |
| 2016 | Militz, Elisabeth: Public Events and Nation-Building in Azerbaijan. In: Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New Tools and Approaches, edited by Rico Isaacs and Abel Polese, 176–94. Post-Soviet Politics. London, New York: Routledge. |
Other publications
| 2021 | Militz, Elisabeth, ed.: Feministische Digitale Geographien. In: Feministische Geo-RundMail 85, no. April. |
| 2021 | Duplan, Karine, and Elisabeth Militz: Pasts, Presents and Futures of Feminist Geographies in Switzerland. In: GeoAgenda 2021, no. 1: 26-31. |
| 2019 | Militz, Elisabeth, and Karine Duplan: A Space for Feminist Geographies at the 16th Swiss Geoscience Meeting. In: GeoAgenda 2019, no. 1: 26–29. |
| 2018 | Klosterkamp, Sarah, and Elisabeth Militz, eds.: Feministische Politische Geographie. In: Feministische Geo-RundMail 75, no. April. |
| 2018 | Militz, Elisabeth: Feministische Geographien: Ankommen, Wohlfühlen, Weiterkommen. In: Feministische Geo-Rundmail 77, no. October: 19-21. |
| 2017 | Militz, Elisabeth, and Diana Griesinger: Book Review: Visuelle Geographien: Zur Produktion, Aneignung Und Vermittlung von RaumBildern. In: Geographica Helvetica 72, no. 1: 137–40. |
Teaching (Lehrveranstaltungen Uni Innsbruck)
| 2022 | VO1: Grundlagen der Humangeographie: Feministische Geographien |