My research covers a broad field of interests that spans from theoretical reflection to an understanding of contemporary popular culture to the analysis of the connection between the global order, the social impacts of climate change in the Global South and transnational governance concepts such as sustainability. My theoretical background is Frankfurt school, discourse analysis, and poststructuralism. 

A key field of study in my work is research on questions of sustainability and on the impacts of climate change on affected societies. Here, emphasis lies on the region southern African region where societies are especially vulnerable to climate change impact due to a lack of infrastructure and resources, massive social inequalities and problems in health care. Working with a network of colleagues in Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana, emphasis lies on the two latter societies. Through the systematical application of postcolonial approaches, I examine the emergence and organization of cultural epistemologies of climate change, community adaptation practices and practices for climate communication.

The study of comics and film is another important field in my research as I consider popular media as key sources for an understanding of the contemporary social and cultural condition. Popular media paradigmatically negotiates the major discourses of our time. They do not only provide representations of such discourses but produce genuine media-based analyses of cultural meaning-making and signification, societal conflicts and intersubjective practices. All of which can be especially traced in the so-called mainstream products. 

The reflection of violence and anxiety in the public realm, in popular media, and in the global order is a recurring subject in my work. Essential parts of the cultural uncanny, violence and anxiety are ubiquitous elements of cultural imaginaries and narratives. But their recurrence, presence and representation within social life are a permanent menace to social actors. I am especially interested in the sudden outbreak of spectacular violence, its negotiation in popular media, and the entanglement of phantasmagory and the real.