In the award of the European Research Council 2020 Starting Grants, the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel both came in with four grantees. Among these eight talented researchers, the Foundation is proud to count two of its former fellows, Olivia Angé (Laboratory of Anthropology of Contemporary Worlds, ULB) and Christophe Snoeck (Analytical-Environmental-& Geo-Chemistry Group, VUB). As Wiener-Anspach Fellows, they both worked at the University of Oxford before returning to Brussels.

Entitled SeedsValues, Olivia’s project will analyse the relationship between ethical values and farmers’ commitment to agrobiodiversity, focusing on three different crops. “The project will carry out an ethnographic inquiry into networks of relationships, both affective and instrumental, involving humans and seeds, in three high agrobiodiversity sites: potatoes in Peru, corn in Mexico and rice in Laos. Present in global markets and viewed by international institutions as essential to promote food security on our damaged planet, these crops are treated with respect by indigenous farmers, who cultivate and eat them daily. Agriculture offers a unique ethnographic object helping overcome the current split between the economic and the ethical studies on value. The project will thus contribute to the development of a general anthropology of value” (ULB press release, 3 September 2020).

Christophe’s project – LUMIERE – Landscape Use and Mobility in EuRopE – will “shed light on changes in mobility, migration patterns and landscape use of early populations in Europe by bringing together information obtained directly from both cremated and inhumed individuals using state-of-the art bioarchaeology. The aim is to identify and characterise the movement of people on a local, regional and European scale to explain how and why people moved, as well as how they used their surrounding landscape between the Neolithic to the Early Medieval period, when both cremation and inhumation were practiced” (VUB press release, 3 September 2020).

Our warmest congratulations to Olivia and Christophe!