Jun.-Prof. Dr. Felipe Fernández

Junior Professor

Curriculum Vitae

• Since 2024: Assistant Professor [Juniorprofessur] (Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology)
• 10/2023: Guest Lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina)
• 2022: Doctoral  Thesis at Free University Berlin; Title: Violent Flows Water Infrastructures and the State in Buenaventura, Colombia. (summa cum laude)
• 2019-2023: Research Associate (wiss. Mitarbeiter) in the DFG-funded Temporalities of Future (Freie Universität Berlin)
• 2018-2019: Stipendiat im DFG-geförderten Internationalen Graduiertenkolleg Zwischen Räumen (Freie Universität Berlin)
• 08/2018-2/2019: Guest Lecturer at FLACSO (Ecuador)
• 2015-2018: Master in Interdisciplinary Latin American (Free University Berlin); Master Thesis: Liquid Sovereignty. Governance Effects in Sabaletas (Colombia).
• 2011-2014: Bachelor in History (Major) and Social and Cultural Anthropology (minor) at Free University Berlin.  

Regional Interests

Latin America (especially Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico)

Thematic Interests

• Political Anthropology
• Anthropology of the State
• Anthropology of Infrastructures
• STS
• Environmental Anthropology
• Geological Anthropology
• Extractivism

Main Publications

Books

Flows of Violence. Water, Infrastructures, and the State in Buenaventura, Colombia. The University of Arizona Press (in Press; Nov 2025)

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In Preparation. with Benjamin Schütze, Alke Jenns, Thilo Wiertz, Hussam Hussein and Rosa Lehmann: Introduction to the Special Issue ‘Contested Spatialities of Energy Transition: Political Tensions, Territorial Asymmetries, and New Frontiers‘. Politic & Space.

In Preparation. with David Schröter: Extractive Infrastructures in the Bolivian Altiplano. On Lithium, Grassroots Organizations, and the (Indigenous) State. Political Geography.     

2023 Reparieren im Globalen Süden am Beispiel der Wasserinfrastruktur von Buenaventura, Kolumbien. In: Weber/ Venn/ Rüsewald (Eds.) Reparieren, Warten, Improvisieren. Technikgeschichte des Unfertigen. Berlin, Deutsches Technikmuseum, 126-132.

2022 Coping with Extortion. On Violence, Parasites, and Water Infrastructures in Buenaventura, Colombia. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development 4(3): 296- 309. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31389/jied.124

2022    Construir y reparar frente al desabastecimiento: estado, provisión de agua e infraestructura en Buenaventura, Colombia. Revista Colombiana de Antropología 58 (2): 105-129. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472X.2125

Book Reviews

2021 Under Construction. Technologies of Development in Urban Ethiopia (2019) by Daniel Mains Anthropologica 63(1): 1-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica6312021340

2018 Landscapes of Freedom. Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia by Claudia Leal (in German) (2018). H-Soz-Kult, 22.05.2018  URL: https://www.hsozkult.de/review/id/reb-27062

Public Scholarship

2024    Podcast Episode: Lithium, State, and the Future in Bolivia [in Spanish]

In: Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies (Heidelberg University)

https://www.hcias.uni-heidelberg.de/en/publications-and-knowledge-transfer/hcias-podcast

2023    Podcast Episode: Illicities – City-Making and Organized Crime 

In: Crime Beyond Borders; podcast of the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development (JIED)

https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/crime-beyond-borders-podcast/

2022    Leaky Pipes. State and Infrastructural Violence in the Colombian Frontier

4S – Society for Social Studies of Science

https://4sonline.org/news_manager.php?page=28036 

Teaching

Winter Term 2024/2025:

• Anthropology of Politics (in English)
• Seminar zur Lektüre ethnologischer Texte (Introductory Seminar)
  
  

Summer Term 2024:

• Politikethnologie. Eine Einführung in die Anthropologie des Staates. (Political Anthropology)
• Anthropologie der Erde (eng Anthropology of the Earth)
  
  

Winter Term 2023/2024:

• Der Untergrund. Raum, Politik und Ausbeutung im (Spät)Kapitalismus (eng The Underground. Space, Politics and Extraction in Late Capitalism) (Geographisches Seminar, Universität Heidelberg)
  
  

Summer Term 2022

• Anthropologie des Staates aus globaler Perspektive (eng Anthropology of the State. Global Perspectives) (Institut für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Freie Universität Berlin)