Diverse Rural Identities and Politics of Belonging: Innovation, Intersections, and Entrepreneurship in Rural and Agricultural Territories

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Date: Thursday 15 October, 10.00–12.30
Location: Aurora B 9216, Wageningen University & Research

How can research and policy better recognise diverse rural and agricultural women’s identities, agency and perspectives on innovation and entrepreneurship?

On Thursday 15 October, Wageningen University & Research will host the interactive and interdisciplinary colloquium Diverse Rural Identities and Politics of Belonging: Innovation, Intersections, and Entrepreneurship in Rural and Agricultural Territories.

The session is organised in the context of the International Year of the Woman Farmer and Rural Women’s Day.

Women-led innovation and entrepreneurship

International research projects on women-led innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture and rural areas that were recently finalised provide the starting point for the session.

These projects provide ample evidence of women’s own notions and agency around innovation and entrepreneurship. Covering diverse geographical contexts across the globe, they also show how research and policy can better do justice to these perspectives.

The EU projects Grass Ceiling: Gender Equality in Rural and Agricultural Innovation Systems and SWIFT: Supporting Women-led Innovation in Farming Territories, together with the INREF project FermFood, will form the basis for the discussion.

The projects were conducted at Wageningen University & Research, with Bettina Bock, Valentina Materia and Jessica Duncan in the lead.

An interactive session

Following brief presentations of the most striking takeaways from these international projects, the session will move into an interactive group-work set-up.

Participants joining in person will work in groups, while online participants will join through breakout rooms. Together, they will exchange insights and perspectives on new avenues for research and policy to better embed diverse rural and agricultural women’s identities.

Four main questions will kick off the discussions:

  • What from your research or practice resonates or dissonates with the presented takeaways?
  • What accordingly needs to be added or changed in mainstream concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship to better include women’s notions and agency?
  • What might be the underlying root causes to address, and what research or policy can help to leverage these?
  • What ways forward do you see to collaborate and tackle these issues in research and/or policymaking?

Practical information

Date: Thursday 15 October
Time: 10.00–12.30
Location: Aurora B 9216, Wageningen University & Research
Participation: Free and open to all interested

We prefer participation in person. An online link will mainly be available for participants joining from abroad.

Please register for updates, further details and a calendar invitation via this link.

Further details will be shared with those who register.
Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone who might be interested.

Upcoming PhD defence of Anna Roodhof

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We are proud to share that Anna Roodhof of the Rural Sociology Group will be defending her PhD thesis entitled “Reclaiming economic viability through food forestry: Entanglements of discourse, governance, and practice”
 
When: Friday, 9 October at 15:30
Where: Omnia Auditorium, Wageningen Campus

𝗔𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁
This dissertation examines the economic viability of food forests in the Netherlands and the discursive and governance conditions through which such viability emerges. Food forestry – an agricultural practice that mimics forest ecosystem dynamics to integrate food production with ecological restoration – has become increasingly prevalent in the Global North. Despite its multifunctional logic, it is often evaluated through conventional economic frameworks that equate viability with financial profitability, positioning economic, ecological, and social value as separate and competing domains. Challenging this reductionist perspective, the dissertation develops a relational, multispecies, and more-than-monetary understanding of economic viability grounded in diverse economies thinking.

For those unable to attend in person, the ceremony will also be livestreamed via: https://wur.yuja.com. A link will appear in the “Event” section approximately 5 minutes before the start of the ceremony.

ESRS 2027: European Society for Rural Sociology returns to Wageningen

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In 2027, the European Society for Rural Sociology (ESRS) celebrates its 70th anniversary — returning to Wageningen, where the Society’s story began.

We are proud that the Rural Sociology Group will host the 31st ESRS Congress, taking place from 5–9 July 2027. The congress will bring together scholars and practitioners from across Europe and beyond to reflect on the theme “Knowledge for Sustainable Futures: Rural Communities, Social Action and Democracy.”

The congress will explore questions around the knowledge that shapes rural futures, whose knowledge counts, how rural futures are negotiated and contested, and how rural research and social action can contribute to more just, sustainable and democratic futures.

The Call for Working Group Proposals is now open. We invite researchers and practitioners to contribute sessions that bring different perspectives, disciplines and experiences into conversation.

>> 5–9 July 2027 | Wageningen
>> Read the full Call for Working Group Proposals
>> Visit the ESRS 2027 website

Paul de Graaf successfully defends his PhD on urban agriculture and planning

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Yesterday, Paul de Graaf successfully defended his dissertation, “Trying the Impossible: Urban Agriculture as an Alternative Planning Reality.”

We are proud of how Paul connects his extensive experience with urban agriculture in Rotterdam to academic debates within and around the planning profession.

One of the challenging questions during the defence focused on the title: what exactly is ‘alternative’ to what has been explored? And isn’t planning, by nature, already ‘fuzzy’?

Paul explained how, in practice, he has seen an increasing number of Rotterdam planners experimenting with and stretching the boundaries of what has traditionally been possible within dominant rational planning approaches.

And when asked about his biggest surprise, Paul shared his admiration for the idealism he encountered among planners.

Thank you, Paul, for opening up the conversation about what might — and might not — be possible.

The Language of Learning: the place of English and indigenous languages in Kenyan education

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Christhe Vreugdenhil, a student in the Master’s programme International Development Studies (MID) at Wageningen University, conducted her thesis research in Kenya. In the text below, she discusses her research, experiences, and findings. A link to her thesis is provided below.

Colonial British administration in Kenya, though fought off in the 1960s, has had a lasting impact on Kenyan education and society. During colonialism, policies enforced the banishment or suppression of indigenous languages and the imposition of English as language of instruction (LOI). Despite formal independence, this is still a reality in many Kenyan classrooms today.

While language is a mode of communication and individual expression, it is also a carrier of culture, values and social connections (Osimen et al., 2025). Many young people in Kenya are thus in danger of losing more than just their mother tongue: identity, existential frameworks (Wa Thiongo’o, 1986), intellectual traditions and indigenous knowledge that is passed on generationally (Prah, 2017), family ties and traditional values (Obiero, 2008) are also in danger. Interestingly, by recent policy changes, indigenous languages should be a subject taught in school (KICD, 2017), but it is not clear whether and how this is being implemented.

That is why the research question of my thesis was: How does English as the language of instruction impact cultural identity formation and the integration of indigenous languages in Kenyan urban and rural classrooms? In my subquestions, I focussed on pedagogical strategies concerning the use of English vs. indigenous languages, the perceived relationship between English and cultural identity, and the different challenges that rural and urban schools face.

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