Summary

Baer was born in Lima, Peru in 1944 and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1951. He initially worked as an aircraft engineer but turned to social activism and the study of anthropology and sociology after becoming politicised in the turbulent era of the 1960s. Leaving engineering in early 1970, he gained an MA and PhD, then went on to study and teach in anthropology and sociology in various US universities and colleges, until he moved to Australia in 2004. Defining himself as a scholar-activist and eco-socialist, he enthusiastically involved himself in various social movements, including the peace, labour, environmental, socialist, and climate movements. During the period 2010-2020, he was a member of the Socialist Alliance and the National Tertiary Education Union.

Details

Background
Hans A. Baer was born on April 6, 1944 in Lima, Peru. He immigrated with his family to the United States, arriving in New York Harbour on January 1, 1951. His youth was spent in western Pennsylvania, particularly Pittsburgh. Baer earned a BS in Engineering Mechanics at the Pennsylvania State University in September 1966. He worked as a stress analysis engineer in the aircraft industry, at United Aircraft in Connecticut from September 1966 to January 1970. Having been politicised by the ethos of the 1960s, Baer embarked upon graduate studies at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln where he earned a MA in Anthropology in December 1971 and at the University of Utah where he earned a PhD in March 1976. Between January 1970 and July 1971, he taught in the Department of Sociology at Kearney State College in Nebraska. After completing his PhD, Baer held tenure-track and tenured positions at George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee (1973-1976); St John's University in Queens, NY (1980-1981); the University of Southern Mississippi (1981-1983); the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (1983-2005); and the University of Melbourne (2006-2013). He also held visiting positions at Humboldt University in East Berlin (German Democratic Republic (1988-1989) as a Fulbright Scholar; the University of California - Berkeley (Spring 1994); Arizona State University (1997-1998), the Australian National University (2004). Baer held post-doctoral fellowships at Michigan State University (1979-1980) and Arizona State University (2002-2003). Since January 2014 he has been a Principal Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Baer taught a wide array of anthropology and sociology courses, as well as several interdisciplinary courses.

Scholarship
Baer conducted research on religious communities, health anthropology and health sociology. In a more political vein, he wrote on the socio-political life in East Germany during the period 1988-1995. In mid-1995, he examined the socio-political status of the Evangelical and Catholic churches in the new eastern states of Germany.

Baer, along with Merrill Singer, were the principal developers of the critical anthropology of climate change. Baer has examined climate politics and the climate movement in Australia. He also conducted research on the political economy of higher education both in the United States and Australia. Baer became a strong proponent of eco-socialism as a radical alternative to capitalism and has written about how to make the transition in various publications. Until 2022, he had published 25 books and over 200 academic book chapters and articles as well as numerous popular articles.

Recognition
Faculty Research Award, College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 1989
Rudolf Virchow Award, Critical Anthropology of Health Caucus, Society for Medical Anthropology, 1994

Scholar-Activism
Baer defined himself as a scholar-activist and was in various social movements, including the peace, anti-apartheid, labour, environmental, socialist, and climate movements. In around 2010, he joined both the Socialist Alliance and the National Tertiary Education Union.

Selected Publications
Baer, Hans A. 2022. Climate Change and Capitalism in Australia: An Eco-Socialist Vision for the Future. London and New York: Routledge.

Baer, Hans A. 2021. Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System (2nd edition). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Baer, Hans A. 2021. Grappling with Societies and Institutions in an Era of Socio-Ecological Crisis: Journey of a Radical Anthropologist. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Baer, Hans A. 2020. Airplanes, the Environment, and the Human Condition. London: Routledge.

Baer, Hans A. 2019. Motor Vehicles, the Environment, and the Human Condition: The Road to Extinction. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Singer, Merrill, Hans A. Baer, Deborah Long, and Alex Pavlotski. 2019. Introducing Medical Anthropology: A Discipline in Action (3rd edition, 1st edition, 2007; 2nd edition, 2012). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Cooper, Liam and Hans A. Baer. 2018. Urban Eco-Communities in Australia: Real Utopian Responses to the Ecological Crisis or Niche Markets? Springer.

Baer, Hans A. and Merrill Singer. 2018. The Anthropology of Climate Change: An Integrated Critical Perspective (2nd edition, 1st edition, 2014). London: Earthscan at Routledge.

Baer, Hans A. 2018. Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Real Utopia: Transitioning to an Alternative System. New York and London: Berghahn Books.

Baer, Hans A., Merrill Singer, and Ida Susser. 2013. Medical Anthropology and the World System: A Critical Perspective (3rd edition; 1st edition 1997; 2nd edition,). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Baer, Hans A. 2012. Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System. Lanham, MD. AltaMira Press.

Burgmann, Verity and Hans A. Baer. 2012. Climate Politics and the Climate Movement in Australia. Melbourne University Press.

Baer, Hans A. and Merrill Singer. 2002. African American Religion: Varieties of Protest and Accommodation (2nd edition). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Baer, Hans A. 1998. Crumbling Walls and Tarnished Ideals: An Ethnography of East Germany Before and After Unification. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Resources

Manuscripts

• Semi-structured life history interview questions for Rod Quantock, 2018. PDF Details

Sound recordings

• Quantock, Rod, Interview with Hans Baer: 5, Duration: 42 mins, 58 sec, 23 October, 2018. MP3 Details
• Quantock, Rod, Interview with Hans Baer: 3, Duration: 1 hour, 6 mins, 7 sec, 18 July, 2018. MP3 Details
• Quantock, Rod, Interview with Hans Baer: 4, Duration: 1 hour, 53 mins, 57 sec, 10 September, 2018. MP3 Details
• Quantock, Rod, Interview with Hans Baer: 2, Duration: 1 hour, 3 mins, 48 sec, 6 June, 2018. MP3 Details
• Quantock, Rod, Interview with Hans Baer: 1, Duration: 1 hour, 7 mins, 56 sec, unidentified date, 2018. MP3 Details
• Quantock, Rod, Interview with Hans Baer - 6, Duration: 11 mins 23 sec, [This copy courtesy of Hans Baer], 22 January, 2019. MP3 Details

Online Resources

• Baer, Hans, Climate Change and Capitalism in Australia, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, 2022, 240 pp, https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/247087140/version/277606853?. Details