Category Archives: Education

Education

Meet Our Visiting Scholar: Jonas Bååth

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This Friday marks the last day of Dr. Jonas Bååth’s two-week visit to the Rural Sociology Group. Jonas is Associate Professor in Sociology and Business Studies from the Department of People and Society at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Campus Alnarp. His work brings fresh perspectives on how markets, consumption, and economies can be understood and organised in more sustainable and socially just ways.

Research Focus

Jonas’s research explores the social and cultural dimensions of markets and economic organisation, with a particular focus on agri-food systems, sustainability, and alternative economies. His projects engage with questions of pricing, economic valuation, food waste mitigation, and democratic market organising—all aimed at understanding how markets can function beyond purely capitalist logics. As Jonas puts it, a question that often guides his work is: “What would a non-capitalist market for food look like?”

Current Work at RSO

During his two-week stay at RSO through the Erasmus+ Teacher Mobility Programme, Jonas is joining the course “The Politics of Food Systems Transformations,” hosted by Dr. Jessica Duncan. His visit focuses on exploring how social science teaching can be more deeply integrated into advanced transdisciplinary education—an area central to his teaching within SLU’s master’s programmes in agroecology and sustainable food systems.

Why RSO and Wageningen?

Jonas chose RSO for its strong educational profile and alignment with his own teaching philosophy. He highlights RSO’s involvement in programmes such as Resilient Farming and Food Systems, and notes that Wageningen University & Research enjoys a stellar reputation at SLU for the quality of its education.

“I’ve followed Dr. Duncan’s work for many years,” Jonas shares, “and I’ve always found it highly interesting and relevant. This visit is a great opportunity for learning and exchange.”

Beyond Research

Outside academia, Jonas lives in Malmö, southern Sweden, with his partner and two young children, aged seven and four. He enjoys a wide range of interests—from music, literature, and tabletop games to politics and gardening. His enthusiasm for culture, creativity, and community life reflects the same curiosity and engagement that he brings to his academic work.

We are thrilled to host Jonas at RSO and look forward to the conversations his visit will inspire about teaching, learning, and reimagining markets for more sustainable food futures.

NRC: Drie zij-instromers begonnen een duurzame boerderij: ‘We willen bijdragen aan de voedselproductie én gemeenschapszin’

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De NRC publiceerde op 1 september een achtergrondartikel over de Biesterhof, een boerderij die mede is opgericht door RSO-medewerker Howard Koster, samen met Claudi Rudorf en Eline Wilememaker. Met z’n drieën startten zij een regeneratief landbouwbedrijf dat gezonde voeding wil verbouwen, de bodem wil verbeteren, de biodiversiteit wil bevorderen en een gemeenschap wil opbouwen. “Er zijn momenten dat ik de natuur vervloek.”

Lees het volledige artikel hier: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/09/01/drie-zij-instromers-begonnen-een-duurzame-boerderij-we-willen-bijdragen-aan-de-voedselproductie-biodiversiteit-en-gemeenschapszin-a4904642

Opinie: Universiteiten, jullie beperken ook zelf de academische vrijheid

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De academische vrijheid staat onder grote druk in Nederland. Een recent KNAW-rapport is niet mild: Nederland zit op een glijdende schaal en doet het steeds slechter in Europa. Omdat academische vrijheid het fundament is van een goed functionerende academische sector, is het belangrijk dat universiteitsrectoren aangeven zich zorgen te maken over de bedreiging van de academische vrijheid in Nederland en een dialoog willen starten.

Als onderdeel van deze dialoog is het echter cruciaal dat rectoren en universiteiten ook naar hun eigen praktijken kijken die academische vrijheid steeds meer beperken. Dat dit niet naar voren komt in de verklaring is meer dan een gemiste kans.

Lees het volledige artikel hier: https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/opinie-universiteiten-jullie-beperken-ook-zelf-de-academische-vrijheid~b5cbf3d5/

A Place to Transit: The seasonal migrant workers of Huelva’s strawberry industry

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A new article by Merissa Gavin and Joost Jongerden explores the lived experiences of seasonal migrant workers in Lepe, who play an essential yet precarious role in the agri-food industry of southern Spain. By examining their experiences and actions through a temporal lens, this research offers deeper insights into the dynamics that sustain migrant vulnerability and the individualized strategies they employ to navigate these challenges.

Embodying the paradox of being essential yet unprotected, undocumented migrant agri-workers navigate a terrain of precarious in-betweenness. Policy-making affords little urgency to addressing their routine exploitation or facilitating dignified solutions for their working and living conditions. Focusing on seasonal migrant workers in the strawberry fields of Lepe (Huelva, Spain), this article examines how temporality structures endurance, agency, and vulnerability.

Drawing on four months of ethnographic fieldwork—including participant observation, informal conversations, and semi-structured interviews—this study reveals how workers endure exploitation in expectation of future documentation through arraigo policies. However, the temporal horizon of arraigo not only sustains individual endurance but also dampens collective resistance, rendering precarity a structured condition rather than a momentary hardship. Because arraigo systematically encourages endurance over resistance, precarity becomes a long-term structural reality, with temporality actively shaping workers’ vulnerabilities. This process individualises what is essentially a shared struggle, further sedating collective action and reinforcing exploitation. While migrants in Lepe internalise temporality as a survival strategy, disruptions—such as withheld contracts—demonstrate the limits of endurance and trigger resistance.

This study advances scholarship on migrant precarity by shifting the focus from spatial or economic dimensions to the performative construction of sequential time as a mechanism that both sustains and constrains migrant agency. In highlighting how European agricultural policies prioritise productivity while obscuring labour exploitation, these findings underscore the need for interventions addressing both the legal limbo of undocumented workers and the temporal structures that sustain their vulnerability.

Read the full article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718525000661

What is the power of citizenship?

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Elective evening course: Major Works in Social Sciences (RSO59030)

What is citizenship? Why does it matter? How does it help us understand power in society?
Citizenship serves on one hand, as an apparatus of governance—a mechanism through which power is exercised via institutions, policies, and practices that determine the conditions under which rights are granted or withheld. On the other hand, citizenship is also a tool for empowerment, enabling individuals and groups to claim rights and, on that basis, drive political, social, and environmental change. But how does this process work in practice? And why is it particularly relevant for students aiming to address pressing crises in the environment, ecology, and food systems?

In this elective course we will read and discuss a book that outlines a critical theory of citizenship, with an emphasis on how citizenship institutes power relations and organizes different rights and obligations.

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