Christoph Rupprecht

From EESwiki

Personal Statement

One of the big tasks of both biology and the social studies is to understand how people and their environment impact and form another. This knowledge is crucial to build a sustainable world for both humans and nature.

LMU and Hokkaido

After finishing high school, I entered the Ludwig Maximilians Universität München in 2003. In 2005, I went on an one year exchange programme to Hokkaido University, Japan. Studying ecology, environmental protection and human impact on ecosystems, I am currently preparing for my graduation thesis in Japanese studies on the topic of the Greenery Policy of Sapporo, Japan.

My work

I study several forms of political and social action people take to change their immediate environment. My work is especially on citizen movements. Central questions are their structure and the sociopolitical environment they occur in. What is the motivation behind such behaviour, despite often dire consequences for the individuals? I want to understand how the natural and social ecosystem people live in encourages or discourages certain engagement and how it shapes their image of the world they live in. For this purpose, I analyze the ways people wish and act to protect nature, and how a theory like sociobiology can shape humankinds self-understanding. Results hint at a deep connection between society and nature and could be explained by E.O. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis. This work provides a lot of valuable experience, and enables me to work interdisciplinary and apply existing results to different fields of research.

Future

In the future, I would like to expand my fundamental ecological knowledge and research institutional ways humans form their environment. A practical example are conservation laws or urban environmental policies. In this work I want to include and incorporate all involved interest groups like local public governments, NGOs and citizen movements.

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