Sensing Loss – Uni Köln goes r e t u r n: 60 Minutes AnthroLab.

Donnerstags 16:30-17:30Uhr 

Prof. Dr. Erella Grassiani (Amsterdam): Arboreal Nationalism: Planted landscapes of death and return in Israel / Palestine

In February 2026, thousands of young saplings were planted by bereaved families in a ceremonial planting event organized by the Jewish National Fund, or KKL-JNF, an organization founded in the 20th century to buy land in Palestine for the creation of the Jewish State. These saplings are to become part of a new forest, the Sword of Iron forest, named after Israel’s military operation in Gaza, and they serve to commemorate the civilians who were killed on October 7th by Hamas and the soldiers who died on this day and afterwards. Each young tree is flanked by a sign with the name and date of birth and death of one of the dead.
In this talk, I will analyse the planting and imagining of this forest and the meaning of death and commemoration through return in the landscape of Israel/Palestine, through the use of arboreal nationalism. I will show how the violent deaths and their commemoration through planting new trees function as a revival of the Zionist landscape and a firm rooting in it. The landscape, heavily scarred by war, is returned to the public to enjoy, but not without reckoning with its dead.

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Die Diskussionsreihe Sensing Loss bringt ethnologische Forschungen aus der Universität ins Museum. Sozial- und Kulturanthropolog:innen aller Karrierestufen berichten aus ihren aktuellen Forschungen, wie Menschen Verlust erfahren und Verlusterfahrungen bearbeiten. Sensing Loss fragt, wie Verlust begegnet, verkörpert und verräumlicht wird – und wie aus Vertreibung, Enteignung und vergangenem Unrecht neue Zukünfte gewonnen werden können. Erfahrungen des Verlusts (loss), ihre Konfrontation und Aufarbeitung [r e t u r n] sind dabei so vielfältig wie die Situationen, in denen Menschen Kolonialismus, Marginalisierung oder Gewalt begegnen. Die öffentlichen Vorträge diskutieren Formen des Sensing, über die Menschen Verlust gewahr werden, und Sense Making, d.h. die Frage, wie Menschen Verlusterfahrungen eine Bedeutung verleihen. Trauer, Verlust und Erinnerung können zur Quelle werden, Ansprüche an die Gegenwart zu artikulieren und zwischen Menschen und Orten, Vergangenheit und Zukunft neue Verbindungen zu erarbeiten. Im Sinne der Ausstellung r e t u r n  beschäftigen sich die Vorträge mit ganz unterschiedlichen Momenten und Formen der Trauer, der Nostalgie, der Erinnerungsarbeit und des gemeinsamen Aufbruchs. 

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The lecture series Sensing Loss connects anthropological thinking across university and museum spaces. Social and cultural anthropologists at all career stages discuss their ongoing research to explore how people sense and make sense of loss. Sensing Loss asks how loss is experienced, embodied and spatialized – and how displacement, dispossession and past injustices can become sources for new future-making practices. Experiences of loss, their confrontation, and the ways in which people try to come to terms with them – and find ways to r e t u r n – are as diverse as the situations in which people experience colonialism, violence or marginalization.

The public lectures discuss how grief, loss and remembrance can become resources for articulating claims on the present, and for shaping new connections between people and places, past and future. In resonance with the exhibition r e t u r n at the RJM, the lectures engage with diverse moments and forms of grief, nostalgia and memory work, as well as with joint departures into new futures.