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Sociological Coffee: The Delicate Signwork of Ecological Remediation in Post-Iron Curtain Landscapes

The Iron Curtain is best known as a metaphor for the geopolitical separation between the Soviet Union and 'the West'. It is less well known as a technology of human displacement and ecological damage, for which forests were cut down or wetlands drained - even less so since the European Green Belt Initiative claimed the collateral ecological value of the former militarised border area. In the transboundary protected area of the Bavarian Forest (Germany) and Šumava (Czechia), a recent ecological project aims to restore wetlands, as these ecosystems have gained high ecological value for climate change mitigation, but also as drivers of biodiversity. Through material semiotic analysis, this case discusses what kind of wetland one can 'return to' in post-Iron Curtain landscapes. Emphasising the co-dependence of matter and meaning, the analysis highlights that the work of ecological remediation is actively engaged in processes of 'sign production' and 'sign destruction', here introduced as material signwork. The act of returning carries with it not only meanings of bodily movement, but also the 're-mediation' of the delicate histories of exclusion, dispossession and ecological damage.

Markus Rudolfi is working as a research associate in the area of interpretative social research at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany. His PhD project is an ethnography focusing on the Bavarian Forest/Šumava transboundary protected area and asks about the more-than-human politics involved in process protection. More generally, his fields of interest span between science and technology studies, political ethnography, political ecology, and environmental sociology. Currently, he is a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University Prague, funded by the ERASMUS+ teaching mobility program.

Invitation on seminar

Marcus Rudolfi, photo: Goethe Universität