Franz Krause is project director and Principal Investigator (PI) of the DELTA project. Within the project he also conducts research on life in the Canadian Mackenzie Delta.

Following studies in Leiden, Manchester (MSc Environment and Development, 2004) and Berlin (MA Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2006) he earned his PhD in Aberdeen (PhD Social Anthropology, 2010). He subsequently held postdoc positions at the CCRI (2011-2012) and in Tallinn (2012-2016). Between 2015 and 2019, Franz served as Assistant Editor of Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, the journal of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). Since February 2016 he is a Junior Research Group Leader at the University of Cologne.

Franz's research revolves around water, on which he works with approaches from phenomenological anthropology, political ecology and environmental history. His previous research projects dealt with issues including communal irrigation in the Philippines, life along a river in Finnish Lapland, memories of floods in England and life in an Estonian wetland.

Amongst his most recent publications are

(with T. Pikner, M. Raudsepp, K. Kasemets, A. Kull) The unnatural: six excursions towards a situated concept. Pp. 140-70 in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture Theory. Approaches to Culture Theory 8. Eds. A. Kannike, K. Pärn und M. Tasa. Tartu: University of Tartu Press.

Conditions. Pp. 82-6 in Anthropocene Unseen - A Lexicon. Eds. C. Howe und A. Pandian World, Milky Way: Punctum Books.

Hydro-perspectivism: terrestrial life from a watery angle. Anthropological Notebooks 25(2): 93-101.

(with L. Ley). Ethnographic conversations with Wittfogel’s ghost: An introduction. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 37(7): 1151–1160.

Rhythms of wet and dry: temporalising the land-water nexus. Geoforum. 

Delta Methods: reflections on researching hydrosocial lifeworlds. Cologne Working Papers in Cultural and Social Anthropology 7. 

Water power, anthropologically speaking. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 26(3): 414-420.

Towards an amphibious anthropology of delta life. Human Ecology 45(3): 403–408.

Making space along the Kemi River: a fluvial geography in Finnish Lapland. Cultural Geographies 24(2): 279-294.

Rivers, borders, and the flows of the landscape. Pp. 24–45 in The Dynamics of Cultural Borders. Approaches to Culture Theory 6. Eds. A. Kannike and M. Tasa. Tartu: University of Tartu Press. 

(with V. Strang) Thinking relationships through water. Society and Natural Resources 29(6): 633-638.

“One Man’s Flood Defense Is Another Man’s Flood”: Relating Through Water Flows in Gloucestershire, England. Society and Natural Resources 29(6): 681-695.

(with I. Lippert and N. Hartmann) Environmental management as situated practice. Geoforum 66: 107-114.

Making a reservoir: heterogeneous engineering on the Kemi River in Finnish Lapland. Geoforum 66: 115-125.