Pearl-Sue Carper

Pearl-Sue Carper is a Researcher at the Chair of European Ethnology / Empirical Cultural Studies within the Institute for German Philology at the Faculty of Philosophy, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. She has been employed as research staff since April 2021, following her role as a student research assistant from 2015-2021.

Her educational background includes a Master's degree in European Ethnology/Empirical Cultural Analysis (2021) with a thesis titled "Die Macht der Ratten – Begegnungen in urbanen Räumen" (The Power of Rats – Encounters in Urban Spaces), and a Bachelor's degree in European Ethnology/Empirical Cultural Analysis and English/American Studies (2017) with a thesis on "Minimalismus als Luxus?" (Minimalism as Luxury?).

Carper's research interests focus on Multispecies Studies, Plural Literacies, and Cultural studies perspectives on consumer-critical lifestyles. Her current doctoral research examines the cultural significance of rose hips from an anthropological perspective, exploring the interconnections between locality and globality, non-human cultivated stocks and plantation cultivation, and the shared development of humans, plants, and animals in ecological crisis contexts.

Her scholarly work demonstrates a trajectory from urban anthropology to digital literacy studies among older adults, and now to multispecies perspectives on plant-human relationships. This evolution reflects a growing interest in post-anthropocentric approaches that challenge human exceptionalism and explore the agency of non-human entities.

• Current Research: "A Superfruit: Cultural Anthropological Perspectives on the Rose Hip"
• Research Focus: Interweaving of locality and globality, non-human cultivated stocks and plantation cultivation
• Theoretical Framework: Post-anthropocentric theories examining plant agency

Carper is actively contributing to understanding how rural spaces, economies, and basic human life products can be reshaped under Anthropocene conditions through her innovative multispecies approach that highlights the active role of plants in cultural processes.