Matthäus Rest

Matthäus Rest
Department of Anthropology,
University of California, Los Angeles
mrest@ucla.edu
Education
2014
PhD in Social Anthropology at the URPP Asia and Europe, University of Zurich
2007
M. A. in Social Anthropology & Organic Agriculture, Department of Social and Cultural
Anthropology, University of Vienna and Department of Agriculture, University of Applied Life
Sciences Vienna
Professional Employment
2014 – 2015
Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles
2014
Visiting Scholar, Nepā School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Kathmandu
2012 – 2013
Visiting Scholar, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford
2011
Instructor, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich
2009 – 2012
Research Fellow, URPP Asia & Europe, University of Zurich
2009 – present
Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna
2007 - 2008
Graduate Student Instructor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna
2006 – 2007
Junior Assistant to Gertraud Seiser, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University
of Vienna
Matthäus Rest
May 2015
Fellowships & Awards
2014 – 2015
Early Postdoc.Mobility fellowship, Swiss National Science Foundation
2014
Travel Grant, Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences
2012 – 2013
Fellowship for prospective researchers, Swiss National Science Foundation
2012
Travel Grant, Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences
2009 – 2012
Research Grant, Humer Foundation for Academic Talent and URPP Asia & Europe of the
University of Zurich
2008
Research grant, University of Vienna
2008
Summer grant, Graduate School Asia and Africa in World Reference Systems at the Martin
Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
2007
Merit scholarship, University of Vienna
2006
Research grant, University of Vienna
2006
CEEPUS grant, Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research and
Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences
2005
Research grant, South African Wine Industry Trust (with Professor Werner Zips & colleagues)
2004
Travel grant, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Publications
Refereed Articles
Generating Power. Debates on Development around the Nepalese Arun-3 Hydropower Project,
in: Contemporary South Asia, 20 (1), 2012, 105–117.
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May 2015
Book Chapters & Editor-reviewed Articles
„Something we could never have”. Die Südafrikanische Landreform und ihre Auswirkungen am
Beispiel des Weinbaus im Western Cape (with Stephan Handl and Severin Lenart), in: Zips,
Werner (ed.). To BEE or not to Be. Black Economic Empowerment in der südafrikanischen
Weinindustrie. Vienna: Lit, 2008, 233-268.
„Man sieht, dass das die Hände von einem Bauern sind.” Bäuerliche Identität und Ethnizität im
post-sozialistischen Polen, in: Austrian Studies in Social Anthropology, 2008 (2).
Essays and Commentaries (selected)
The Politics of Earthquake, in: Daily News and Analysis, 1 May 2015, 8.
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-the-politics-of-earthquake-2082166
Long and Winding, in: The Kathmandu Post, 6 June 2014, 7.
http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/06/05/related_articles/long-andwinding/263620.html
Mit vollen Hosen ist leicht stinken: Über Höchstleistingen und Windeln, in: Restlos Glücklich,
12 May 2014. http://restlosgluecklich.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/mit-vollen-hosen-ist-leichtstinken-uber-hochstleistungen-und-windeln
Von einheimischen Geistern und auswärtigen Göttern. Das Arun-3 Wasserkraftprojekt, in:
Südasien, 2012 (4), 49-52.
Erkundungen des Infra-Ordinären, in: Paradigmata. Zeitschrift für Menschen und Diskurse. No. 1
(2010), 86-89.
Bedenkliches Gedenken, in: Progress 2008 (1), 14.
„Arbeit macht das Leben süss, so süss wie Maschinenöl,” in: Wege für eine bäuerliche Zukunft.
Zeitschrift der via campesina austria, Nr. 302, 2008, 28-29.
Meine Beobachtungen mit einer ungewöhnlichen Gruppe, in: Nikolai, Werner & Henry
Lehmann (eds.) Grenzen der Gedenkstättenpädagogik mit rechten Jugendlichen. Freiburg im Breisgau:
Lambertus, 2002, 70-72.
Book reviews
Staudamm oder Leben? Der Widerstand an der Narmada, in: suedasien.info, 2011.
http://www.suedasien.info/articles/2984
Online Teaching Material
Grundlagen sozialwissenschaftlicher Denkweisen (with Werner Zips). eLearning Zentrum der
Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften, University of Vienna, 2009.
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May 2015
Other Media
Denglawengl. 20 min Audio-CD & 7 min video installation, with Michael Gailer & Jan
Blaschko, Vienna, 2004
Work in Progress
The amnesiac Bank and its tame Inspector: The domestification of the World Bank Inspection
Panel through the cancellation of the Arun-3 Hydropower Project in Nepal. Paper under review
at Science as Culture.
Wild & Schön: Vom Krampuslaufen im Salzburger Land (tentative title). Volume co-edited with
Gertraud Seiser, Brandstätter Verlag Wien, estimated publication in late 2015.
The Dam that was not there: The Absence of Arun-3, the Work of Waiting and Nepal’s dams to come
(tentative title). Book manuscript to be submitted to a publisher.
On Uncles dead or blind: Seven years of tracing an invisible dam in the Arun valley (working title).
Essay for La.lit – A Literature Magazine.
Organized Sessions
“High Hydro Visions: Political Ecologies of Water in the Himalayan Region.” Dimensions of
Political Ecology, University of Kentucky in Lexington, 26-28 February 2015. Co-organized with
Christopher Butler and Amelie Huber.
“Urban Infrastructures.” 113th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association,
Washington, DC, 3-7 December 2014.
“Participation and resistance of civil societies in networks around Science, Technology and
Medicine in the Global South.” 6th Living Knowledge Conference, Copenhagen, 8-11 April 2014.
Co-organized with Rachel Douglas-Jones and Salla Sariola.
“Developing control: the reconfiguration of space and the making of development on the ground.”
22nd European Conference for South Asian Studies, University of Lisbon, 25-28 July 2012. Coorganized with Miriam Bishokarma, Pia Hollenbach and Sebastian Homm.
“‘Wild und Schön’ – Maskeraden von Männlichkeit.” 7. Tage der Kultur- und
Sozialanthropologie, University of Vienna, 24-25 May 2012. Co-organized with Gertraud Seiser.
Presentations (selected)
Dreaming of Pipes: The politics of in/visibility around Nepal’s spectral infrastructures. Invited
Lecture, Center for India and South Asia, University of California, Los Angeles, 6 April 2015
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The Return of the prodigal Dam: The Resumption of the Arun-3 hydropower project in Nepal.
Dimensions of Political Ecology, University of Kentucky in Lexington, 26-28 February 2015.
The Reincarnation of the invisible Dam: Resuming Arun-3. Invited Lecture, Martin Chautari,
Kathmandu, 10 February 2015.
Dreaming of Pipes: The Melamchi Water Supply Project in Nepal. 113th Annual Meeting of the
American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, 3-7 December 2014.
The Invisible Dam: The Conception, Cancellation and Uncertain Reincarnation of the Arun-3
Hydropower Project. Invited Lecture, Nepa School of Social Sciences and Humanities,
Kathmandu, 27 August 2014.
The Road that took its Time: Nepal’s Kosi-Lhasa Highway along the Arun River. Decennial
Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth,
Edinburgh, 19-22 June 2014 and Practices of Materiality – 1st Vienna Ethnography Lab,
Vienna, 16-18 July 2014.
Spectres of Water Pipes: Kathmandu’s imagination of a future without water scarcity. Conference of
the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Tallinn, 31 July – 3 August 2014.
How to produce an invisible Dam: The collaboration of global civil society and the World Bank in the
cancellation of the Arun-3 hydropower project in Nepal. 6th Living Knowledge Conference,
Copenhagen, 8-11 April 2014.
The Amnesiac Bank. The World Bank and the cancellation of the Arun-3 hydropower project in 1995.
11th Nepal Study Day, Edinburgh, 18-19 April 2013.
Dam good Business? India and Nepal’s Arun-3 hydropower project. 111th Annual Meeting of the
American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, 14-18 November 2012.
A dam cancelled and reincarnated. The Nepalese Arun-3 hydropower project. 22nd European
Conference for South Asian Studies, Lisbon, 25-28 July 2012.
“The electricity demand of Nepal’s interconnected power system.” India and the Arun-3 hydropower
project. Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Paris, 10-13 July 2012.
“The dam that wasn’t there.” Transnationaler Aktivismus, das Weltbank Inspection Panel und der
Nicht-Bau des Arun-3 Wasserkraftprojekts in Nepal. Invited Lecture, Department of Ethnology,
University of Hamburg, 15 May 2012.
Das Arun-3 Wasserkraftprojekt in Nepal. Spannungen und Widersprüche zwischen Gleichheit und
Differenz. Momentum11: Gleichheit, Hallstatt, 27- 30 October 2011.
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Generating Power. Discourses on Development around the Arun-3 Hydropower Project in Nepal. Paper
presented at the conference of the British Association for South Asian Studies, University of
Southampton, 13 April 2011.
Arrested Development? Discourses on the Arun-3 project. Invited lecture, Project Labour in
Development, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, 31 January 2011 and Faculty
of Law, Nepal Law Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, 19 December 2010.
Water Power. The Nepalese Arun 3 Hydropower Project. Invited lecture, Department of Sociology,
University of Pune, 27 February 2010.
Globalisation, Migration and the Imaginary among the Yamphu Rai of Eastern Nepal. Summer School
“Cultural Translation” at the Graduate School Asia and Africa in World Reference Systems,
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 17 July 2008.
“I money – I farm.” Transformationen und Kontinuitäten in Südostpolen. 3. Tage der Kultur- und
Sozialanthropologie, University of Vienna, 27 April 2007.
Denglawengl. Sound-Performance with Michael Gailer & Jan Blaschko on and about sharpening
scythes. Conference of the International Society of Ethnobiology, University of Kent at
Canterbury, 14-16 June 2004.
Teaching
Autumn 2013
Instructor (with Professor Elke Mader & Gertraud Seiser), University of Vienna (“The
Krampuslauf in the county of Salzburg: performances of the un-human”)
Autumn 2011
Instructor (with Gertraud Seiser), University of Vienna (“The Krampuslauf of the Gastein valley:
violence, masculinity, history”)
Spring 2011
Instructor, University of Zurich (“Introduction to Ethnology II”)
Spring 2009
Instructor, University of Vienna (“Qualitative Methods”)
Languages
German (first language), English (fluent), Nepali, Polish and French (intermediate)
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Other Qualifications (selected)
2009 & 2007
Cheese maker & shepherd at Alp Naustgel, Sumvitg and Alp Bodmi, Habkern, both
Switzerland
2005 – 2009
Board Member of Gedenkdienst – Alternative Military Service Abroad – Holocaust Education –
European Voluntary Service
2003 – 2008
Member of the editorial board of Progress – Journal of the Austrian National Union of Students
2002 – 2004
Office manager at Gedenkdienst – Alternative Military Service Abroad – Holocaust Education –
European Voluntary Service, Vienna
2000 – 2001
Alternative military service abroad at the International Youth Meeting Centre Auschwitz,
Poland
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