Georg N. Schäfer (he / him)

Georg Schäfer is a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology whose work examines how groundwater irrigation transformed the semi-arid landscapes of Western Kansas into one of the world’s most intensive agricultural regions, now increasingly threatened by groundwater decline. His research therefore explores the double dynamic through which regional socio-ecological formations both drive planetary transformations and are increasingly constrained by the Earth-system changes they help produce.

He is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Structural Changes of the Technosphere at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and a doctoral candidate in sociology at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, supervised by Jürgen Renn and Hartmut Rosa. Georg is a member of the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) “Modelling the Anthropocene.”

His dissertation project, Hiding in Plains Sight: Tracing the Emergence of the Technosphere between Kansas’ Dust Bowls, investigates the development of groundwater-dependent agriculture in the U.S. High Plains. The project analyzes how cultural, technological, economic, and legal infrastructures transformed a semi-arid landscape into one of the most intensive agricultural systems during the Great Acceleration. By tracing these transformations from their emergence to the present moment through a regional Anthropocene perspective, the research informs contemporary debates on groundwater governance, agricultural resilience, and regional adaptation to resource depletion, while linking local transformations to broader planetary dynamics.

In Spring 2026, he is a Visiting Researcher at the Agrarian Studies Program of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

At MPI-GEA, Georg contributes to several collaborative research initiatives, including Teleconnections: A Spatiotemporal Atlas of the Technosphere and the development of the digital research platform hidinginplainssight.org. The platform brings together diverse environmental, economic, and infrastructural datasets to explore the multiple socio-ecological drivers of groundwater-dependent agriculture in the U.S. High Plains. Designed as a transdisciplinary research infrastructure, the platform also creates a space for research, policy dialogue, and public engagement and has been utilized in collaborative workshops and knowledge exchange with state agencies and regional stakeholders in Germany and the United States, as well as in conversations with journalists and educational outreach in schools.

Through these formats, the project not only bridges regional challenges with broader planetary perspectives on groundwater depletion and agricultural transformation, but also connects the research with broader public and policy discussions on groundwater and agricultural transformation.

Beyond these initiatives, Georg contributes to transdisciplinary activities such as the Decision Theater, serves as PhD Representative of his department, and is editor of the Anthropocene Curriculum online platform. He coordinates the institute’s collaboration with the Anthropocene Working Group and co-chairs the Anthropocene Commons e.V.