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Anne Meneley

Professor of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario

Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

June 2026

Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

»How to Do Things with Plants: Easy and Uneasy Collaborations with Plants«

Project outline:

In my »Ad. E. Jensen Memorial Lecture« I explore how to do things with plants. While human agency is key here, I also explore planty agency as plants often do not conform to human desires to impose their will on the plants and the places where they grow. The theme of movement – of plants, seeds, peoples, and infrastructures – runs throughout this set of lectures at Goethe University Frankfurt: »Greening the City: Plants, Gardens and Imaginaries of Statehood in Singapore« (8 June 2026); »Highlighting the Human Hand in Planting: Gardens by the Bay« (15 June 2026); »The Politics and Aesthetics of Georgian Gardens « (22 June 2026); »Plants in Times of War: Examples from the Middle East« (29 June 2026). (Anne Meneley)

Research partner:

Anne Meneley is a fellow at the Forschungskolelg Humanwissenschaften at the invitation of the Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University Frankfurt. She is collaborating with Susanne Fehlings, deputy director of the Frobenius Institute and adjunct professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Scholarly profile of Anne Meneley

Anne Meneley, Professor of Anthropology at Trent University in Canada, received her PhD in Anthropology from New York University in 1993. She has conducted field research in Palestine, the Republic of Yemen, Singapore, New York and Italy, among other places. Among her research topics are the production, circulation and consumption of olive oil in Italy and Palestine, and auto-ethnographies of academic practices. Her book on women’s competitive hospitality in Yemen, Tournaments of Value: Sociability and Hierarchy in a Yemeni town (1996) has been released in its 20th Anniversary Edition (2016). Her current work is on the anthropology of consumerism, walking (quantified and nature walking), and human-nonhuman interactions in plant materialities.

Website:
Please find more information about Anne Meneley here.

Selected publications:

(with Paul Manning), »Look but Don’t Touch: Plant Intimacies for an Oligarch and His Public«, in: The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 43, 2 (2025), pp. 85-107.
»Walking and Perceptions of Danger in Various Cities«, in: City & Society 37, 2 (2025).
»Hope in the Ruins: Seeds, Plants, and Possibilities of Regeneration. Environment and Planning«, in: Nature and Space 4, 1 (2021), pp. 158-172.
»The Olive and Imaginaries of the Mediterranean«, in: History and Anthropology 31, 1 (2020), pp. 66-83.
»Oleo-Signs and Quali-Signs: The Qualities of Olive Oil«, in: Ethnos 73 (2008), pp. 303-326.

Anne Meneley

Scholarly profile of Anne Meneley

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