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.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our beloved and greatly appreciated colleague, Henk Oostindie. Henk passed away on Thursday 21 May, just six weeks after his retirement from the Rural Sociology Group.

Henk was a rural sociologist from Wageningen through and through. Having graduated as an agrarian sociologist from Wageningen in 1990, he has, in fact, been affiliated with the Rural Sociology Group ever since. He began in the 1990s as a researcher on various farming styles projects and on the European CAMAR project, for which he also spent two years working and living in Portugal. From the turn of the century, he worked as a researcher (and later, de facto, as assistant professor) on mainly European research projects in the fields of rural development, multifunctional agriculture, short food supply chains and urban-rural relations. From time to time, these international projects were combined or alternated with teaching and with national projects, such as the ‘Dynamics and Robustness of Multifunctional Agriculture’ project, funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

Vandaag in de Volkskrant: aandacht voor een belangrijk maatschappelijk debat over intellectueel eigendom, culturele toe-eigening en de commercialisering van traditionele kennis. In het artikel wordt onze collega Mark Vicol geciteerd over de gevolgen van het vermarkten van ayurveda door grote bedrijven.

De inzichten van Mark bouwen voort op gezamenlijk onderzoek met masterstudent Marine Viale. Samen onderzochten zij hoe intellectueel eigendomsrecht en commerciële belangen traditionele kennis en gemeenschappen in het mondiale zuiden kunnen raken.

Mooi om te zien hoe academisch onderzoek zo direct bijdraagt aan actuele maatschappelijke discussies — en hoe onze studenten daarin vanaf het begin een volwaardige rol spelen.

Lees het artikel in de Volkskrant (paywall): https://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/mag-je-een-oude-geneeswijze-claimen-als-handige-merknaam-miljardenbedrijf-rituals-botst-met-ayurveda-therapeuten~b6769cd4/ 

In Kurdistan, the Middle East, and North Africa, I have seen markings on women’s faces, hands, and arms: engraved memory in the form of small lines, dots, and symbols made from breast milk and ash. Known in Kurdish as deq, these tattoos bear ancient history, identity, protection, beauty, pain, and belonging. 

Traveling through Kurdistan, I met Fatê Temel, a deq artist in Diyarbakir (Amed), and spoke with her about the art of deq, its gradual disappearance, and the efforts to bring it back to life.

For the past several years, Fatê has been running a small deq studio in Diyarbakir, where she works to preserve and revive the tradition of deq – hand-poked tattoos primarily worn by women throughout Kurdish history. Often placed on the face, hands, or arms, these markings are composed of dots and simple geometric forms, each carrying spiritual, cultural, and personal significance. 

Besides being a deq artist, Fatê is also a researcher, traveling throughout Kurdistan to learn from the women who wear deq and from the people and places connected to its history. 

In our conversation, she reflected on her connection to deq, her efforts to sustain it as a living cultural practice, and the layered meanings these body inscriptions continue to hold today.

Read the full interview by Joost Jongerden with Fatê Temel in The Amargi here: Deq: tattoos made of breast milk and ash

Joost Jongerden

Introduction
Diyarbakir’s historic Hevsel Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has fed the city for centuries, face growing threats from pollution, monoculture farming, illegal construction, weakened municipal authority, and changes to the Tigris River.

Hevsel Gardens in Diyarbakir (Amed), Kurdistan in Turkey, have long been characterized by a “thrown togetherness” of agriculture, ecology, and everyday urban life. For generations, farmers cultivated a diverse range of vegetables and fruits in relatively small plots, supplying the city with fresh produce. Now, this historically layered landscape, shaped over many centuries, is undergoing profound transformation. 

Water management, shifts in agricultural practices, illegal construction, and the weakening of municipal authority to protect the area are all placing the gardens at risk. What was once a mosaic of diverse cultivation practices and shared use, sustaining ecological quality, is increasingly marked by monoculture, declining biodiversity, and pollution.