Request for (graduated) students (on short notice) interested in effective cooperation

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The province of North-Brabant is organising two events in September and October and is looking for student who want to take part in the preparation and participate in various activities, such as sessions with young students on ‘learn to cooperate’.

This in the context “Learning about cooperation” in the European Social Innovation Week ESIW.nl) in Tilburg from 15 till 19 september 2014 and the Dutch Design Week (DDW.nl) – from 18 till 26 oktober 2014.
In a creative process concepts will be developed so that participants in both events experience cooperation. Input will be provided on themes such as trust, connectivity and translation in the context of the topsectors (such as AGRO).
Students of various disciplines can contact the organiser and do these activities in combination with other activities such as a secondment or master thesis. Follow-up activities are also possible. This can offer graduated students experience, as a step towards employment.

Interested students should directly contact: Ernest van Hezik
Advisor TGLE. Tel.: 06-53296993

Ås – resultaten onderzoek naar volkstuinen in Oslo

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Esther Veen's avataronderzoekerstadslandbouw

Vorige week zat ik nog middenin mijn veldwerk in Ås; nu zit ik alweer op kantoor in Lelystad! De laatste week in Noorwegen was hard werken; ik heb veel interviews gedaan en het eindrapport geschreven, waar ik op het vliegveld de laatste hand aan heb gelegd (goed getimed, al zeg ik het zelf). In dit blog tijd om de voornaamste resultaten ook met jullie te delen.

Er zijn volkstuinders te vinden in alle segmenten van de Oslo’se samenleving. Ze zijn er in hippe buurten – goed opgeleide jonge stellen die met hun kinderen, hun vrienden en een kop koffie genieten van het groen middenin de stad. En ze zijn er in de wijken verder van het centrum, waar mensen wonen die naar Noorwegen zijn gekomen vanuit andere landen, soms gevlucht voor een oorlog, die groente kweken uit hun thuisland en vaak dagelijks op de tuin te vinden zijn.

parsellhager

 De plek van de twee tuinen; de twee rode stippen 

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What is your opinion about this new commercial?

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TuinkabouterLast night I saw this new commercial on Dutch television. It’s in Dutch, but you will get the idea just by watching it (otherwise, I can offer translation). I am curious about your opinion in the light of current discussions about our food system. Please leave your opinion on our Facebook page!

On the milk trail – Food provisioning in Dar es Salaam

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By Marc Wegerif. PhD Candidate, Rural Sociology Group Wageningen University, carrying out research on food provisioning in Dar es Salaam. Contact: marc.wegerif@wur.nl

It’s Saturday morning in Dar es Salaam, no rushing to school and work today. I walk to the duka (shop) a few metres from my house, (you can read more about the duka in http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/6/3747). After greeting the shop owner and another customer standing at the counter, I buy eggs, chapattis cooked that morning by one of my neighbours and fresh milk in a plastic half litre package for 1,100 Tanzanian Shillings (Euro 0.52). Ready for breakfast and I think it is time to write a few lines about where the milk I just bought comes from.

Man and Women after delivering milk to the collection centre in Pongwe Village

Man and Women after delivering milk to the collection centre in Pongwe Village

On a morning a few weeks earlier I was standing in Pongwe Village, Tanga Region, watching as buckets and other containers of milk were lined up at the Tanga Fresh milk collection centre. Most of the containers were brought by young men on bicycles and motorbikes, women of all ages came on foot buckets on their head or in their hands and some older men were there as well. Tatu (not her real name), in her twenties, dressed in a clean white coat, hair net and boots – the classic uniform of hygiene – was taking samples from every container to check the quality of the milk and for any impurities. The milk that met the standards (most of it did) was poured into a shiny stainless steel container, weighed, then filtered before being put into one of two large shiny and cooled tanks in the back room of the building. Later in the day a truck would collect the milk and take it to the Tanga Fresh dairy. Continue reading →

VALUES IN PLACE – MSc Thesis opportunity on the role of values in sustainable places

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At the rural Sociology Group we would like to do research on values, place and sustainability. Therefore we are looking for students who are interested in doing a MSc Thesis.

Place based approaches to sustainable development are increasingly favoured, assuming that place specificities really matter in the form of social, cultural and institutional characteristics. People shape places which is expressed in practices, relations, rules, symbols and place-identities. A central question is how human values play a role in place-shaping – aimed at sustainable development – and how to analyze and map values.

Values are not self-standing concepts which can be analysed as atomized issues, but intertwined, context determined, culturally varied and linked to how we see our self and how we perceive our environment. A value-driven perspective on sustainable place-shaping benefits dialogues based on people’s values and beliefs, and aims to provide a more in-depth insight in what people consider as worthwhile, feel responsible for and are willing to commit to in the context of their own place. This is relevant as we can see a trend towards forms of self-organisation, the ‘do-democracy’ and the participative society where people (are expected to) take responsibility for their own environment.

Our goal is to analyse how values are expressed in places, distinguishing between the following dimensions:
• The economic dimension: adding value to places;
• The intentional dimension: why people contribute to sustainable change in places
• The symbolic dimension: how people appreciate place and attach meanings to place
• The integral dimension: how cultural worldviews and levels of human behaviour play a role in place-shaping.
Does this make you curious and/or do you have an interest in this research theme, please contact Ina Horlings at: Lummina.Horlings@wur.nl