The article examines the relationship between the social and the material sphere and how they can be thought and analysed. Presenting different concepts of materiality in political ecology studies, the concept of a dispositive analysis is introduced to integrate both social and material conditions. By using the example of water and water infrastructure in the semi-arid region in Northeastern Brazil, the papers provides an empirical case study to show the advantages of an integrative approach.

This paper addresses migrations taking place during the transition from higher education to the labour market. It analyses the reasons why graduates do not return to their rural home region after university, with a case study in Switzerland. The analysis of the motives reported by graduates indicates that migration decisions cannot be reduced to a single dimension (although job opportunities are central), are diverse (even within a homogeneous group) and depend on a variety of constraints.

This paper undertakes a creative exploration of bulky rubbish [sperrmüll] in the City of Bonn by expanding on and utilising what has come to be known as non-representational thinking. Through this engagement, it is possible to see sperrmüll as an area-sized fabrication connecting humans and various other materialities. These perspectives are advanced as a way to expose that certain ecologies enable certain actions and hamper others.

The paper explores in what ways we might examine the drone from other points of view that are technical and political, but also theological, magical, artistic and aesthetic. The paper draws on notions of aesthetics and politics, not in order to compare the drone with other flying figures and objects, but to enable very different visual and aesthetic regimes to begin to help us see a whole new set of invisible relations, from gender to sexuality, within which the drone is caught.

The arrival of a new generation of Eritrean refugees has shaped the Eritrean diaspora in Switzerland. This paper reveals that encountering the new Eritrean refugees both personally and as a group present important moments in the process of identity formation of second-generation Eritreans. It provides insights into the diversity in the Eritrean diaspora in Switzerland and highlights the importance of encounters with new immigrants for the identity formation process of post-immigrant communities.

The article discusses the present debate on Globality, Coloniality and Materiality. The early studies of political ecology related to historical materialism are confronted in recent debates with a new materialist thinking of more fluid interrelations between nature and non-nature. By addressing cultural studies and postcolonial studies the article suggests a decentralized perspective on history and geography in order to understand new forms of connectivity of nature and culture.

Dieser Beitrag fokussiert die konzeptionelle Erfassung von Fragen der Maßstäblichkeit und Scale in der Politischen Ökologie. Anhand des Beispiels der Palmölproduktion in Indonesien, wird argumentiert, dass die Verknüpfung der Produktion von Natur und der Produktion räumlicher Maßstabsebenen die Veränderungen beim Zugang zu und bei der Kontrolle über natürliche Ressourcen sichtbar machen.