Category Archives: General

General issues.

75th Anniversary: 14) Is the Future of Rural Sociology Urban? Is the Veluwe City?

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“Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe” by F.d.W. is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The functions and meaning attributed to the rural are manifold (Woods 2011: 1). Primarily, it operates as the intersection of “man and nature” (Ploeg 1997: 41), where for centuries most of our food, fiber, and fuel have been produced (Woods 2011: 1) but which now also provides the landscapes and scenery where visitors ‘slow-down’ or search for adventure and sensation (Buscher and Fletcher 2017) while comprising spaces of identification and belonging (Jongerden 2018). Further, the rural acquires meaning in relation to its complement: the urban. Often defined as opposites in terms of land use, population density, or social bonds, among others (Cloke 2006), these “constitute the complex unity of society viewed from a spatial angle” (Gilbert 1982: 609). This variety of functions and meanings has made the rural not only an epistemologically uncertain concept, but also a normative one.This normativity and uncertainty is part of the heritage of rural sociology. Continue reading →

Research and internship opportunities in regenerative agriculture

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Are you passionate about:
Food systems transformation?
Regenerative agriculture and agroecology?
Climate change and planetary health?
Farmers living amid the COVID-19 pandemic?
Qualitative and mixed method social science research?

We are looking for masters and advanced undergraduates who want an active role in data collection and data entry with a large-scale qualitative and quantitative research project led by the Midwest Healthy Ag research team.

Midwest Healthy Ag is a sociological research project launched by Regeneration Midwest in the United States, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health and Climate Solutions Program.

The study is currently entering the data collection phase, which will consist of over 200 interviews with farmers across six agrarian states in the Midwest United States. The interviews will ask farmers about their experiences dealing with multiple crises in conventional agriculture, regenerative farming practices, environmental health and climate change, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods and community health and wellbeing. The interviews will be taking place over the next six months.

You can join our team as an intern/research assistant by collecting historical and contextual information on selected agrarian communities, doing data entry of farmer interviews into Qualtrics, and participating in our extended research network as we conduct qualitative and quantitative data analysis. We can also explore possibilities for utilizing project data and materials for academic theses and papers.

Get in touch! We will be accepting interns and assistants in early January 2021.

For more information on the project and our team, our website: https://midwesthealthyag.org

Contact at WUR: Serena Stein serena.stein@wur.nl (Postdoctoral Researcher at SDC & RSO)

75th Anniversary: 13) Reflections: From Rural Sociology to a Sociology of Place?

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Place has figured central in the work of the Rural Sociology Group. In a way this is, of course, already implicated by the adjective “rural” which adds a spatial identity to the sociology we do. Taking this identity as a social practice and the production of meaningful differences as points of departure (Hofstee 1946, Ploeg 1993, Wiskerke 2007), my own research gradually started to crystalize around the emergence of new spatial realities beyond ‘rural’  and ‘urban’.  At the background of this interest is the will to understand how people address inequality and uncertainty, and how they sustain themselves individually and collectively, socially and spatially. Continue reading →

Symposium over de onderwijs-zorgboerderij

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Op woensdag 25 november is het wetenschapswinkelproject Leerarrangementen in het Groen – over de onderwijs-zorgboerderij – afgesloten met een (grotendeels online) symposium. Zelf heb ik de resultaten van het wetenschapswinkelproject gepresenteerd. Andere sprekers waren onder andere Natalie Jonkers (ministerie VWS) en Rene Peeters (ambassadeur programma ‘Met andere ogen’). Het publiek kon online volgen hoe de live presentaties werden afgewisseld met filmpjes opgenomen op de boerderij. De belangstelling was groot: ruim 115 deelnemers bleven tot het einde toe ingelogd. Dit laat zien hoe sterk dit onderwerp leeft.

In het wetenschapswinkelproject hebben onderzoekers en studenten van binnen en buiten Wageningen UR de onderwijs-zorgboerderijsector in kaart gebracht, onderzocht waarom onderwijs op de boerderij kan werken, en aanbevelingen gedaan voor het professionaliseren van de sector. Alle bevindingen zijn samengebracht in een uitgebreide eindrapportage en een kortere brochure. Daarnaast is een brochure verschenen met daarin de ervaringen van kinderen. Alle producten, en korte conclusies, zijn te vinden op onze projectpagina.

Het symposium is terug te kijken: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/Onderwijs-op-de-Zorgboerderij

MSc thesis vacancy: developing an urban agriculture typology within a European Context

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The European Forum for a Comprehensive Vision on Urban Agriculture (EFUA) has the objective to unlock Urban Agriculture’s potential by achieving better knowledge, better deployment, and better policies in this field. The Chair groups Rural Sociology and Health and Society and Wageningen Plant Research are managing a work package that aims to update knowledge on the types and benefits of Urban Agriculture (e.g. social cohesion, local food provision, health, biodiversity, business generation). We are looking for students who have an interest to collaborate in this European Forum to identify stakeholders and develop a typology of urban agriculture. Your work will be the starting point for understanding the benefits of Urban Agriculture. The research also supports a European agenda on urban agriculture, co-designed within EFUA.

Starting date is flexible. For more information, contact Esther Veen (RSO), Lenneke Vaandrager (HSO) or Jan Eelco Jansma (Wageningen Plant Research).