ISRF Independent Scholar Fellow 2022-23
ISRF Independent Scholar Fellow 2022-23
Larisa Jasarevic is an independent scholar. An anthropologist, she has been conducting field research on local apicultures, honeybee ecologies in changing climates, and Islamic eschatology in Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 2014. Her second book, Beekeeping in the End Times (IUP) is in preparation. She taught for a decade at the University of Chicago. Currently, she is engaged in ethnographic filmmaking while beekeeping and homesteading on the side.
Beekeeping in the End Times is an ethnographic film project that conveys Bosnian Muslim apicultures and stories about the world’s imminent ecological collapse. It shows how Islamic apocalyptic lore informs human-apian relations with ecological insights that, surprisingly, inspire hope. The ISRF fellowship proposal aims to secure funds for the films’ post-production as well as for online and on the ground distribution. The film is currently shot at the anthropologist’s apiary and compiled from the footage and findings of a postdoctoral research project on local beekeeping under the conditions of climate change. Conducted from 2014 to 2019 across Bosnia and Herzegovina the ethnographic research study has been written into a book intended for general audience. Also entitled Beekeeping in the End Times, the book is under contract with the Indiana University Press. Because, however, the implications of climate change on honeybees are surprisingly underresearched while the ecological tones of Islamic eschatology—the end time myths—are rarely acknowledged, the anthropologist has embarked on production of a film intended to reach wider audiences. The film presents three popular tales paired with events of extreme weather: 1. About angels watching for the signs of the End, including animal endangerment; 2. About planting on the eve of apocalypse; and 3. About a flower named “shame,” whose disappearance is said to signal “shameless” environmental irresponsibility. The film blends beekeepers’ storytelling with fieldwork footage from former battlegrounds and industrial zones, which are new forage frontlines. Tales are retold around apicultural predicaments in anthropogenic environments and atmospheres. The environmental message of the film is inflected by the Islamic ideas of ecology and cosmology. Rather than depict the local ways as romantic or presumably glum–in keeping with the environmental or Islamic apocalyptic (Kirksey 2015; Filiu 2011)–the film explores an eco-eschatological sensibility of broader relevance.
If you would like to contact any of our Fellows to discuss their ISRF-funded work, please contact Dr Lars Cornelissen (Academic Editor) in the first instance, at [email protected].