Research areas

Bob Kuřík is a political and environmental anthropologist. He studied at Durham University in England (2006), was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (2013-2014), and was also a Jan Patočka Junior Visiting Fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna (2019). He received his PhD in anthropology from Charles University for his thesis Revolutionary Amoebas: Political Versatility as an Art of Resistance in Contemporary Germany (2015).

In addition to anthropology of the Internet and ethnographic theory, his research focuses on political and environmental topics such as resistance & protest, power, decolonization, anarchist anthropology, punk, riots, post-humans, plantations, geological anthropology, infrastructures, and the climate crisis. More recently, he has been particularly interested in elaborating an anthropology of more-than-human resistance.

He has conducted two long-term research projects - a multi-sited ethnography of post-autonomous activism in Germany, but also in Mexico, Greece and Israel (2008-2017) and a study of the so-called Roznov school of punk around the Vrah (Murderer) Club in the Moravian-Silesian Beskydy (2014-2020).

He is currently involved in research on anarchism in the Czech Republic (GA ČR), everyday forms of racism (Erasmus+) and contemporary forms of coexistence of humans, domesticated and non-domesticated animals in the Czechoslovakian borderlands (Dutch Research Council - NWO).

He is the editor and co-author of Mikrofon je naše bomba: politika a hudební subkultury mládeže v postsocialistickém Česku (Togga, 2018). He has published in the journals Czech Sociological Journal, Journal of Urban Affairs. In addition to his scholarly writings, he seeks to bring anthropology closer to other worlds - be it the world of natural science and art, documentary, journalism, pedagogy & online gaming, or activism.

• Political anthropology

• Environmental anthropology

• Anthropology of/around the Internet

• Engaged anthropology

• Theory of ethnography

• America & Europe

Employment

• 2020 – present: assistant professor, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University (Department of social and cultural anthropology; SP Social and cultural ecology)

• 2017 – 2020: assistant professor, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University (Department of social and cultural ecology)

Education

• 2015: Ph.D., Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague; Dissertation topic: Revolutionary Amoebas: Political Versatility as the Art of Resistance in Germany

• 2010: MA., General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague

• 2007: BA., Humanities, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague

Residencies

• 2019: Jan Patočka Junior Visiting Fellow, Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Vienna, September - November

• 2014: Visiting Lecturer, Northeastern University, USA, March – April

• 2013-14: Fulbright Fellow, UCLA, USA, September 2013 – June 2014

• 2006: Erasmus Program, Durham University, UK, September – December

Funding & Research Projects

• 2022-24: ‘Histories of Wildlife and People in Czech and Slovak Borderland,’ VENI-grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), Project Collaborator

• 2021-23: ‘Smart for Democracy and Diversity,’ Erasmus + Project, Head of the Charles University Team

• 2020-22: ‘Anarchism in the context of Czech Political Culture: Presumptions, Parallels, Influences,’Research grant, Grant Agency of Czech Republic – FF UK & FHS UK, Co-investigator

• 2018-20: ‘Landslides – Underestimated Danger,’Strategy AV21, Czech Academy of Sciences, Principal Coordinator of Social Science Section

• 2017-19: ‘Disputes over Natures: Forms of Environmental Conflicts in the Anthropocene Era,’ Research grant, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Principal Researcher

• 2014-16: ‘Sources and Forms of the Subculture Politicization in Post-Socialism,’Research grant, Grant Agency of Czech Republic – FSV UK, Member of research team

• 2010-12: ‘Staging the Revolution,’Research grant, Grant Agency of Charles University and Hlávka Foundation, Principal Researcher

• 2011: ‘Ethnography: From Dogma to Heterodoxy,’Research grant, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Member of research team

• 2010: ‘Power of the Powerless: Forms of Resistance in Globalized World,’Research grant, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Member of research team

• 2008: ‘Land of the Zapatistas: Change of Power Relations and Subjectivities,’Research grant, Grant Agency of Charles University, Principal Researcher

Selected Publications

• Kuřík, Bob 2022 ‘Towards an Anthropology of More-Than-Human Resistance: New Challenges for Noticing Conflicts in the Plantationocene,’ Sociální studia (speciální číslo o klimatickém aktivismu editované D. Lorenz-Mayer & J. Taylor), tba.

• Kuřík, Bob 2021 ‘Kalistenika znovuobjevování s Jamesem C. Scottem,’ in Scott, James Dvakrát sláva anarchismu. Praha: Neklid, 219-278.

• Kuřík, Bob ‘Monster Farm: Algorithms of Life in the Plantationocene/Farma monster: algoritmy života v plantážocénu,’ in Janečková, Hana, Koťátková, Eva (Eds.) Animal Touch: Art, Labour and Emotion/Dotyk zvířete: umění, práce a emoce. Praha: ArtMap, 171-184

• Kuřík, Bob 2020 ‘Temporal Collisions: Time, Infrastructure, and Protest in the Shadow of Hamburg’s Port/Temporální kolize: Čas, infrastruktura a protest ve stínu hamburského přístavu,’ in Říha, Tadeáš, Pazdera, Miroslav and Kateřina Frejlachová (Eds.) Steel Cities/Ocelová města. Praha/Zürich: Galerie VI PER/ Park Books, 306-327.

• Kuřík, Bob, Novák, Arnošt 2020 ‘Rethinking radical activism: Heterogeneity and dynamics of political squatting in Prague after 1989,’ Journal of Urban Affairs, 2020, Vol. 42, No. 2: 203-221. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2019.1565820.

• Kuřík, Bob, Slačálek, Ondřej and Jan Charvát 2018 ‘Roviny politizace ve výzkumu hudebních subkultur mládeže,’Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 2018, Vol. 54, No. 5: 781–803. https://doi.org/10.13060/00380288.2018.54.5.423.

• Kuřík, Bob a Charvát, Jan (Eds.) 2018 Mikrofon je naše bomba: politika a hudební subkultury mládeže v postsocialistickém Česku. . Praha: Togga.

• Kuřík, Bob 2018 ‘Člověk-chyba z Vraha: existenciální revolta punkem v čase „mrtvých havlů“,’ in Kuřík, Bob a Charvát, Jan (Eds.) Mikrofon je naše bomba: politika a hudební subkultury mládeže v postsocialistickém Česku. Praha: Togga, 161-209.

• Kuřík, Bob 2016 ‘Emerging Subjectivity in Protest’, in Steven Vallas and David Courpasson (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Resistance. London: SAGE Publishing, 51-77.

• Kuřík, Bob 2015 ‘Křišťál Latinské Ameriky: z punkového klubu k epistemologické involuci’ in Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň and Tomáš Profant (Eds.) Mimo Sever a Jih. Rozumět globálním nerovnostem a rozmanitosti. Praha: Ústav mezinárodních vztahů, 243-266.

• Kuřík, Bob 2013 ‘Prosvítit výzkum: geopolitika a etnografie v proměnlivém světe’ in Yasar Abu Ghosh and Tereza Stöckelová (Eds.) Etnografie: Improvizace v teorii a terénní praxi. Praha: SLON, 52-87.

• Kuřík, Bob 2009 ‘The Struggle for and in Public Spaces in the Zapatista s Chiapas,’ in Mácha, Přemysl (ed.) Lighting the Bonfire, Rebuilding the Pyramid: Case Studies in Identity, Ethnicity and Nationalism in Indigenous Communities in Mexico. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita press, 124–159.