Michi Knecht

Michi Knecht is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Bremen, co-founder of the Bremen NatureCultures Labs (BNCL), and spokesperson for the interdisciplinary research platform "Worlds of Contradiction" and the Research Training Group at the university. She previously served as a researcher and lecturer at Humboldt University Berlin's Department of European Ethnology and as executive board member of the Collaboratory Social Anthropology and Life Sciences.

Her research critically examines connections between knowledge practices and sociopolitical formations through practice theories and STS (Social Studies of Science and Technology). Primary foci include reflexive medicalization, anthropology of reproductive technologies, new kinship systems, economies of reproduction, Christian fundamentalist movements, poverty regimes, and the transformation of anonymity. Current work investigates unrequited reciprocity and object-extractivism in Pacific gift societies under German colonialism, framed within Contradiction Studies for decolonizing humanities and social sciences.

As principal investigator for the SFB 640 research cluster "Representations of Changing Social Order" at Humboldt University and current leader of Bremen-based initiatives, she secures significant research funding. She co-founded the Research Network "Economies of Reproduction" and the "DCNtR – Decolonizing Collections – Networking towards Relationality" blog, emphasizing collaborative ethnographic methods for examining contemporary contradictions across disciplines.

Her leadership in the Bremen NatureCultures Labs and "Worlds of Contradiction" platform establishes interdisciplinary bridges between humanities, social sciences, and law, fostering critical concept translation and experimental research formats that challenge systematic worldviews while engaging diverse public spheres.