Category Archives: Education

Education

Interested in multidisciplinarity and traditional food?

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Rural Sociology has been participating in an intensive programme on Micro-organisms and Traditional Food since last year. In the beginning of this year the first students experienced this programme by spending 2 weeks in Rumania; see the experiences of Cho-Ye Yuen, Hylke Sibtsen and Rineke Boonen. During these intensive weeks, you follow lectures by various scholars from around Europe focusing on both social and microbiological sciences, you work on group assignments and go on excursions. This time the IP takes place in Ghent from 4 to 15 February 2013.

If you are a Master student at Wageningen University and would like to join this programme, please contact Els Hegger for more information. To get a better idea of the programme, our colleague Petra Derkzen blogged about her experience last year during four different days; first, second, third and fourth.

Beyond Divides: An International Winter School and Forum on Contemporary Agri-food Issues

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The Marie Curie Initial Training Network PUREFOOD project team will host a winter school and forum in Barcelona from 12-22 November 2012. The forum will be a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary event, with the joint participation of the PUREFOOD research fellows and supervisory team, a diverse group of external Ph.D. students, and respected local and international scholars and practitioners. The forum will create an atmosphere of debate, exchange, and collaboration.  The academic program will feature three distinct learning modes – expert-led discussions, peer-led paper review, and thematically integrated site visits – and will include modules oriented to some of the most prominent themes in agri-food system scholarship today.

Key themes are:

  • Food security, rights and sovereignty;
  • Social imperatives, ethics and justice;
  • Food and alterity;
  • Food policy and governance;
  • State, market and society;
  • Innovation;
  • Tradition.

Speakers at the Winter school are:

  • Dr. Patricia Allen, Director of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, University of California, Santa Cruz, United States
  • Dr. Jesús Contreras Hernández, Professor of Social Anthropology, Director of the Food and Foodways Observatory, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
  • Dr. Mike Goodman, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography, King’s College London, United Kingdom
  • Dr. James Kirwan, Reader in Food Studies and Society, Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
  • Dr. F. Xavier Medina, Director, Department Food Systems, Culture & Society at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Academic Director at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

For more information about the Winter School click on  Beyond Divides – Program and Application Form. If you want to participate, please complete the application form and send it to Jessica Spayde (spaydejj@cardiff.ac.uk) by 3 October 2012.

Course Global Sense of Place starting on October 29th!

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For whom?

We invite all master students interested in sustainable development, spatial development, community building, place-based policy, rural socio-logy and anthropology for this course.

What?

This course gives an overview of place-based approaches in development. A relational place-based approach is key to the understanding of interrelated rural and urban transformation processes and sustainable development. Places are considered as contingent but in time and space differentiated outcomes of three interrelated, unbounded, transformative processes: political-economic, ecological and social-cultural.
We will have discussions about:

  • Sense of place
  • Places as sites of negotiation and power struggles
  • The constitution of identities, subjectivities and difference.
  • Politics of place.

Why should you follow this course?

  • Interesting international guest lectures (if enough students attend the course)
  • Inter-disciplinary approach
  • Urban and rural cases
  • Interactive discussions in small groups

Some practical information:

Course code: RSO 55306;   ECTS: 6,  When: Period 2;

Lectures and Workhops on: Monday-, Tuesday-, Thursday- mornings.

Interested? For more information on the course see the online study handbook or send  an email to L.G. Horlings: lummina.horlings@wur.nl. A detailed Course outline will be available soon.

Project “Weerbaar vee” – thesis onderzoek

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Voor het project “Weerbaar Vee” moeten data geanalyseerd en geïnterpreteerd worden, afkomst uit gesprekken die het afgelopen jaar met een groep van 45 veehouders zijn gevoerd. Deze melkveehouders nemen allen deel aan het project “Weerbaar vee” dat in 2010 is gestart. Het projectteam is momenteel naarstig op zoek naar een student Agrarische of Rurale Sociologie die in nauwe samenwerking met Ingrid den Uijl onderzoek wil doen naar verbanden tussen karakteristieken van bedrijven, stijlen en persoonlijkheden enerzijds, en parameters van weerbaar vee anderzijds. Het onderzoek staat gepland voor najaar 2012.

Contactpersonen zijn onderwijscoordinator Jan Schakel (Leerstoelgroep Rurale Sociologie; jan.schakel@wur.nl) of Dr. Ingrid den Uijl, Veterinair epidemioloog Geneeskundige Dienst , Deventer (i.d.uijl@gddeventer.com)

Project ‘Weerbaar Vee’

Kunnen we het niveau van natuurlijke weerstand meten? En zo ja, kunnen we die meetwaarden dan gebruiken als navigatiemiddel voor het voorkomen of beperken van dierziekten? Die vragen staan centraal in het project Weerbaar Vee dat, na jaren van voorbereiding, in 2010 van start ging. Het project Weerbaar Vee is een onderzoek naar biomarkers voor weerbaarheid op het melkveebedrijf. Een biomarker is een parameter die gemeten kan worden in melk, bloed of weefsel van een dier. In dit onderzoek wordt gezocht naar biomarkers die gemeten kunnen worden aan een gezond dier die een maat zijn voor de weerbaarheid van het dier. Het project borduurt voort op en maakt gebruik van resultaten van het project Natuurlijke Weerstand van Wageningen Universiteit in samenwerking met het UGCN.

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Next student seminar August 29th afternoon: programme

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The Section ‘Sociology and Anthropology of Development’ offers students every two month the possibility to present their thesis or thesis proposal. All students doing a thesis with one of the chair groups within the SAD section, are requested to present during one of these student seminars.

The next seminar will take place Wednesday August 29th, starting from 13.00 hours, room C76 at De Leeuwenborch. This will be the last opportunity within the academic year 2011/2012. The seminar is open to everyone, student or staff. Please, join (part of) a session (or more)!

If you are interested to present either a thesis proposal or a thesis report, please contact Jan Schakel (Jan.Schakel@wur.nl, room 3013)

Programme August 29:

13.00 – 13.30 Evelien Hennekens (MID): ’Biogas as domestic energy solution? Potentials and barriers of the technology for low-income households in South Africa’.

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