dr.ir. AP (Annet) Pauwelussen

dr.ir. AP (Annet) Pauwelussen

Assistant Professor

Annet Pauwelussen is assistant professor with the ENP group, focusing on coastal resilience and inclusive marine governance, including changing notions of nature in conservation and restoration programs, particularly related to coral and shellfish reefs. With a background in environmental anthropology and qualitative research methods, she combines elements of science and technology studies, political ecology, multispecies ethnography and feminist theory. The aim is to explore matters of equity and decolonization in environmental governance and knowledge practices,  relating to marine and intertidal places. In this context, she leads a project on diversity and gender in coral and mangrove rehabilitation for the Ocean Nexus program (2020-2022) with the University of Washington.

More broadly, Annet is interested in inclusive approaches and methodologies that are responsive to diversity; making room for relational thinking, indigenous ecologies and dialogue across epistemological and ontological difference. Focusing on Southeast Asia and Europe, her work has focused on human-sea interactions, seanomadic lifeworlds, artisanal and illegal fishing, coastal restoration in relation to aquaculture, visual ethnography and mobile methods.

Annet graduated cum laude with the SDC group of Wageningen University with her PhD project ‘Amphibious Anthropology’. For this project, she conducted long-term ethnographic research among maritime communities in Indonesia to highlight different ways of relating to the sea. Annet holds a MSc degree (cum laude) in Development Sociology from Wageningen and a MA in Cultural Anthropology from Leiden University. In her previous positions, Annet was a Postdoc researcher with the Environmental Policy Group (WUR) working on inclusive business models in the certification of small-scale shrimp farms in Vietnam, and a lecturer with the Cultural Anthropology Department of Leiden University. Translating science to policy, Annet leads a project for the United Nations FAO on wellbeing and social-cultural values of small-scale fisheries with ENP colleagues, and she has worked for the North Sea Foundation as project leader Sustainable Food from the Northsea.