We are proud to announce that on October 19, 2026 our colleague dr. Anna Roodhof successfully defended her dissertation titled: “Reclaiming economic viability through food forestry: Entanglements of discourse, governance and practice”, and supervised by Esther Veen, Lucie Sovová and Han Wiskerke.
In her dissertation Anna studies under which conditions food forests in the Netherlands are economically viable. Grounded in diverse economies thinking, Anna adopts a relational, multispecies and more-than-monetary conceptualization of economic viability – thereby challenging what economic viability even means.
Clearly enjoying pushing the boundaries of what is possible during a PhD defense, Anna surprised and inspired us all with a song of her own making during her ‘layman’s talk’ – as if the defense isn’t challenging enough! For those PhDs still a little nervous at the thought of doing the defense, Anna showed us how you can have a lot of fun with it.
During the defense Anna, supported by paranymphs Marit Meijer and Lieke Moereels, engaged meaningfully with questions from her opponents: WUR’s Arjen Buijs and Chizu Sato, Giuseppe Feola from Utrecht University and Eric Sarmiento from Texas State University. The discussion covered theoretical questions such as the limitations of the diverse economies approach and the representation of more-than-human actors, as well as more applied concerns related to the governance of food system transformation and the risk of food alternatives becoming a market niche for the well-off.
As a Participatory Action Research project, the dissertations reflects Anna’s commitment to always search for opportunities not just to submerge herself into food forestry, but to also invite the community of food foresters in the Netherlands into her research process. She even did so until the very end of this beautiful day. The bites and drinks at the reception and afterparty were, you guessed it, all sourced from beautiful produce from food forest de Fruitproeverij – carefully prepared by Paulien and Laurens. A warm thank you for the great care given to Anna, her family, friends and colleagues.
Congratulations Anna on your monumental achievement! Though we have to miss you here at RSO, we are happy you will not stray away too far from us when you pick a new, exciting position at Wageningen Environmental Research.
Love,
Your colleagues at the Rural Sociology Group
Pictures were taken by Sven Menschel (Menschel Applied Photographic Art – https://menschel-photo.com)
