Mélissa (Lili) Aïnseba is s a PhD candidate in the Department of Media and Culture Studies and part of ERC-funded project RESPIRE, which focuses on how planet Earth breathes and suffocates at the current socio-political-environmental conjuncture. In the project, breathing and suffocation are understood not as metaphors but as material processes of contemporary multispecies living and dying on this planet. RESPIRE explores their political dimensions by examining how power relations, climate change, and socio-environmental injustices are interconnected through the practice of planetary breathing.
Lili holds an MSc in Cultural Anthropology from Utrecht University, where her thesis explored agency and resistance in climate activism. Alongside this, she pursued an interdisciplinary honours programme with the University of Hong Kong, which deepened her commitment to transdisciplinary and ecological thinking. She also holds a Msc in Applied Linguistics and a BA in Chinese studies. Read more.
