Dr. Paul Christensen

Paul Christensen is an anthropologist specializing in Southeast Asia. He studied cultural and religious studies in Bremen and Yogyakarta and completed his PhD in 2019 with the dissertation "Spirits in Cambodia: Existence, Power and Ritual Practice" (funded by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).
His research examines how religious cosmologies and environmental transformations intersect within political-economic contexts. In the project "Sandscapes in Southeast Asia: the social implications of sand mining on the Mekong River," he analyzes the effects of industrial sand extraction in the Mekong region. The project asks how extractivist practices transform local human-environment relations and what conflicts emerge between animist cosmologies and capitalist resource exploitation.

Post-Doc Projekt
"Sandscapes in Southeast Asia: the social implications of sand mining on the Mekong River" (Abstract)

Dissertation:
"Spirits in Cambodia - Existence, Power and Ritual Practice" (download/order here)

Thematic foci