Academic interests
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Health and Environment
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More-Than-Human Health: People, Plants, Fungi, Animals, Microbes
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Anthropology of Food and Agriculture
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Anthropology of Mental Health / Critical Suicide Studies
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Anthropology of Drugs and Drug Use
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Toxicity/Pollution/Pesticides; Chemical Ethnography
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Disease Ecologies and Climate
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Soil, Land, Landscape
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Medical Pluralism; Traditional Medicine; Alternative Medicine
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Postcolonial Science Studies
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South Asia (esp. South India: Kerala, Tamil Nadu); Norway; Germany
About
Writing on such issues as farmer suicides, pesticide use, food scares, landscape changes, fermentation, and alternative agriculture, he studies the possibilities for health and recuperation for people and their environments in a world threatened by ecological destruction and political-economic crises. Combining interdisciplinary theorizing from the fields of science and technology studies, multispecies studies, and political ecology with empirically grounded studies of rural communities, Daniel explores a variety of crucial topics in medical anthropology, such as suicide and mental health, biopolitics, toxicity and environmental poisons, drugs and drug use, more-than-human health, and planetary health.
Courses taught
- HES9280 – Introduction to Medical Anthropology
- HELSEF4410 – Introduction to Qualitative Methods
Background
Daniel Münster received his PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from LMU Munich (2005) and his Habilitation (2019) from Heidelberg University (venia legendi: Social and Cultural Anthropology). 2013-2018 he was leader of the Junior Research Group “Agrarian Alternatives: Agrarian Crisis, Global Concerns and the Contested Agro-Ecological Futures in South Asia” at the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" at Heidelberg University, Germany. Prior to coming to the University of Oslo, Daniel has taught anthropology at Bielefeld University (2005-2007), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (2007-2013), Heidelberg University (2013-2018), the University of Cologne (2019), and Bremen University (2019-2020). In June 2020, Daniel joined the Institute of Health and Society as Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology.