Dr. Katja Grötzner Neves Full Professor of Sociology & Anthropology | Professeure titulaire, Sociologie et Anthropologie | Specialist in Blue Humanities, Interspecies Governance, and Critical AI Pedagogy in the Social Sciences

Professor Neves works at the intersection of the Blue Humanities and Interspecies Governance. Her work redefines our understanding of the political and moral management of the living world, from the high seas to the curated landscapes of botanic gardens. 

In her 2019 book, Post-Normal Conservation (SUNY Press, recipient of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title award), Professor Neves demonstrated how botanical gardens have emerged as powerful, non-traditional governance actors—often succeeding in global biodiversity conservation where Westphalian nation-states falter under the pressures of rising nationalism. Her research critically exposes how these "moral infrastructures" drive global sustainability while simultaneously risking the reproduction of colonial dynamics, offering a sophisticated framework for decolonizing conservation.

Her current project—a literary ethnography of the 'Anthropocene'—narrates the ocean’s transition from extractive whaling to the complex care economies of whale watching. By treating these maritime shifts as allegories for global capitalism and the global economics of petroleum, she maps the moral contradictions at the heart of contemporary environmentalism.

Beyond her primary research, Professor Neves is developing emerging approaches to Critical AI Pedagogy. She is currently architecting new methodological frontiers for the Social Sciences, exploring how students can harness AI as a tool for expert-level ethnographic and qualitative analysis. Her blended course Soci/Anth 320 (Fall 2026) captures these developments. By bridging deep ethnographic tradition with AI experimental technologies, she prepares the next generation of researchers to navigate and govern an increasingly uncertain planetary future.

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