Category Archives: Events

Events

Saving the world – Cultivating the city: Invitation to the 14th Weihenstephan forum (21 & 22 October 2021)

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How food production in the city contributes to a sustainable future

21 & 22 October, 2021 [Hybrid Event]

The industrialization of our global food system and growing urbanization not only exacerbate the effects of climate change and accelerate the loss of biodiversity, but also significantly cause the spatial and mental decoupling of food production and consumption.

Against the backdrop of the associated socio-ecological challenges, a “renaissance” of various forms of urban agriculture can be observed worldwide over the last decade, accompanied by the emergence of new multifunctional productive ecosystems in urban spaces. Especially in the Global North, the manifold forms and different dimensions of urban agriculture increasingly show potentials how negative effects along the food value chain can be reduced and how ecological, economic and social added values can be created.

The 14th Weihenstephan Symposium will therefore revolve around a provocative question:

“Urban agriculture – A trend phenomenon or transformative element for the development of resilient cities and food systems?”

To explore this controversial question, the professorship for Urban Productive Ecosystems at Technical University of Munich invites practitioners from science, business, politics and civil society to debate their expertise and experience in the form of keynote speeches and subsequent discussion. Different forms and aspects of urban production – their limits and potentials – will be critically examined and their practical potential discussed from ecological, social and economic points of view.

We invite you to participate in the forum and discuss with us – participation is open to the interested public.

Registration & Participation

Due to the current Covid-19 related regulations, the event will take place hybrid, i.e., with a limited number of participants at TUM Campus Weihenstephan in Freising (Konferenzsaal iGZW, 3G rules apply) and the possibility to participate in the full program via Zoom. Please note that registration for on-site participation is required by October 18 to allow for planning the logistics and catering according to Covid rules. All admitted registrants will receive final information and the access link for Zoom closer to the event. The event will be held partly in German (GER) and partly in English (ENG) with no simultaneous translation. It is open to all and is free of charge.

Registration for participation in presence or in digital form for both event days: https://wiki.tum.de/display/WeiFo21Reg/Registrierung+-+Weihenstephaner+Forum+2021

If you have any questions, please contact stefanie.burger@tum.de.

75th Anniversary: 42) Renowned Academics teaching in PhD Course Agrarian and Food Citizenship

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We are excited to announce that three world-class academics will co-teach in our PhD course on Agrarian and Food Citizenship: Prof. Hannah Wittman, Prof. Aya H. Kimura and Prof. Haroon Akram-Lodhi. For participants in this course this provides a unique opportunity for learning and exchange.

Hannah Wittman is professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Her research examines the ways that the rights to produce and consume food are contested and transformed through struggles for agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and agrarian citizenship. Her projects include community-based research on farmland access, transition to organic agriculture, and seed sovereignty in British Columbia, agroecological transition and the role of institutional procurement in the transition to food sovereignty in Ecuador and Brazil, and the role that urban agriculture and farm-to-school nutrition initiatives play in food literacy education. http://ires.ubc.ca/person/hannah-wittman/

Aya H. Kimura is professor of sociology at the University of  Hawai`i-Manoa. Her research analyzes the intersections of technoscience, gender, and  sustainability. She has had research projects in Indonesia, Japan, and Hawai`i, and has written on agrobiodiversity, fermentation, food safety, nutrition science and the idea of “smart food.”  Among others, she examines diverse practical experiences with citizen science on a range of food and farming issues, from seed development to toxicants to biodiversity. https://ayakimura.weebly.com/

Haroon Akram-Lodhi is professor of economics and international development studies at Trent University, Canada. His research interest is in the political economy of agrarian change, the future of smallholder peasant communities in the world food system, on the sustainability of rural social structures, relations and institutions, and gender and rights based economics. https://sites.google.com/site/aharoonakramlodhi/home

The course is organized as a one-week intensive discussion seminar.

For more info and registration see: https://www.wur.nl/en/activity/Agrarian-and-Food-Citizenship-3-ECTS.htm

CONVIVIALITY: a virtual, open-access conference

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Join us for CONVIVIALITY

October 4-9, 2021

Have you heard there is an exciting all-virtual, all-free, all-asynchronous experimental conference taking place October 4-9, 2021, organized by Wageningen University and Massey University Political Ecology Research Centre?

CONVIVIALITY brings us together to ask, “How can we live – not at the expense of others?”  Together, we will explore predicaments of agriculture, biodiversity, and conservation with a focus on the ways humans, animals, plants, and broader ecologies attempt to live and thrive together.

Panels, such as:

Cultivation Beyond Productivism | Indigeneity and Decolonization | Extraction, Labour, Ecologies

Botanical Relations | Multispecies Relations |Ideologies, Tools, and Advocacy |Convivial Placemaking

Highlights

(see the full program):

A traditional Maori welcome: the conference opens with a livemihi whakatau, including a kōrero/word performance on Monday 4th October at 9:00 AM NZST (or Sunday October 3rd at 22:00 PM UCT+2 / CEST). The video will be available to watch on the site afterward. https://massey.zoom.us/j/3573384756 

6 keynote provocations from scholars, indigenous practitioners, and farmers from around the world share what is urgent about building convivial worlds! For example, indigenous cultivator Pounamu Skelton tells us how Maori wisdom infuses her approach to agroecology,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9HUIp0FC64, while Maywa Montenegro de Wit relates the latest scholarship and mobilization critical of the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit, Annu Jalais considers convivial politics of water, and Bram Buscher reflects on the promises and limits of entanglement.

Accessible content to watch at your convenience! Each day will focus on a theme and 1-2 panels of research presentations, with commentary from scholar discussants. Each panel has a unique comments section for participants to engage in with written, video, and audio submissions, which will continue through the conference and following weekend.

Making an international distanced conference ‘convivial’? In a time of pandemic and unprecedented demands on our time and attention, the asynchronous, virtual format means that your engagement can be as flexible or immersive as you can accommodate at this time. We view the experimental format as a proof of concept toward reimagining academic mobility, emissions, accessibility, and connection. The model rests on dynamic engagement: attendees are asked to watch presentations and engage creatively, with written comments, while audio and video interventions are possibilities, as well.

We hope you join us!

Serena Stein and Sita Venkateswar, Co-convenors

Serena S. Stein

Postdoctoral Researcher

Wageningen University & Research

The Netherlands

75th Anniversary: 40) Registration open for PhD Course on Agrarian and Food Citizenship

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The PhD course Agrarian and Food Citizenship gives participants an opportunity to intensively engage with some of the major debates about the democratization of our agricultural and food practices, so that they can continue to explore and expand these debates in their own research. The main analytical lens to this democratization of agriculture and food practices in this course is that of citizenship. The course is organized as an one-week intensive discussion seminar.

Each session in this course will have its own set of required readings, which include both foundational literature and new research perspectives on agricultural and food citizenship. Completing these readings is necessary for all students to contribute to discussion during the seminar meeting. These readings will require a substantial time commitment outside of the meeting hours, so participants will need to budget time accordingly in order to fully participate in the course.

Click the link below for more information and registration:

https://www.wur.nl/en/activity/Agrarian-and-Food-Citizenship-3-ECTS.htm

75th Anniversary: 37) Pre-announcement: PhD Course Agrarian and Food Citizenship, May 6–13, 2022

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Introduction

We are delighted to announce our PhD course on agrarian and food citizenship. The course gives participants an opportunity to intensively engage with some of the major debates and approaches on the democratization of our agricultural and food systems so that they can continue to explore and expand these in their own research. The course is organized as a one-week intensive discussion seminar in the week of our 75th anniversary celebration

Agrarian and Food Citizenship

Rooted in a shared belief that our agricultural and food system has produced unsustainable social and environmental cleavages, social movements like Via Campesina have called for the right of people to define their agricultural and food practices. At the same time, various initiatives have emerged that bring this principle into practice. Instead of assuming our relationship to agriculture and food to be that of a consumer making individual decisions in the marketplace, these movements and initiatives have focused on how we organize our agriculture and food practices, and how this can be done different. The aim of this course is to investigate the shift away from a consumerist perspective in which we shop our way to a better agricultural and food system (”vote with our fork”) and towards a citizenship perspective based on the right to have a say in, as well as actively shape, our agriculture and food system. Applying a citizenship lens to an understanding of how our agriculture and food system are organized implies a consideration of the power-relations and identities concealed. In addition, is raises the question how to understand “citizenship”? Various scholars (Isin and Nielsen 2008, Wittman 2009, Carolan 2017) have argued that citizenship is not a formal status, and that people establish themselves as citizens by enacting rights. In this course we will consider agrarian an food citizenship from this perspective of “citizenship acts”.

Target Group and Min/Max Number of Participants

This course is intended for students doing a research master, PhDs, postdocs, and staff members who want to expand their engagement with the democratization of our agricultural and food practices and the citizenship approach to this. In order to ensure opportunities for full discussions during the sessions, the minimum number of participants is 10 and the maximum 20.

More information about the instructors in this course and registration will follow soon.

References

Carolan, M. (2017). No One Eats Alone: Food as a social enterprise. Washington, Island Press.

Isin, E. and G. Nielsen (2008). Acts of Citizenship. London, Zed Books.

Wittman, H. (2009). “Reframing agrarian citizenship: Land, life and power in Brazil.” Journal of Rural Studies(25): 120-130.