Andrea Muehlebach

Andrea Muehlebach is an Associate Professor (Status-Only) at the University of Toronto's Department of Anthropology and Professor of Maritime Anthropology and Cultures of Water at the University of Bremen's Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research. Her research bridges socio-cultural anthropology, political economy, and environmental studies, with regional expertise in Italy, Germany, and France.

Her scholarly work examines the intersection of welfare systems, citizenship, and neoliberalism, with recent focus on water politics and infrastructure financialization. Key research areas include:

• Anthropologies of welfare, state structures, and citizenship formations
• Neoliberal transformations and austerity politics
• Water resource management and remunicipalization movements
• Political ecology and human-environment relations
• Legal anthropology and rights-based struggles

Her publications demonstrate strong engagement with crises of democracy, financialization of public goods, and community responses to extractive capitalism. Recent works critically analyze pandemic governance, water insurgencies, and the racialized impacts of austerity regimes across Europe.

She advises multiple graduate students and maintains active collaborations with water justice movements. Her forthcoming book A Vital Politics: Water Insurgencies in Europe examines anti-privatization struggles through ethnographic research.