Wageningen and the Nitrogen Crisis

Posted on January 10, 2024 by Joost Jongerden

Join us in a collective reflection on the role of Wageningen University and Research in the formation and solution of the current nitrogen crisis, and the larger agricultural crisis in general. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg (emeritus professor agricultural sociology) shares his vision on the past, and present of the nitrogen crisis. He is accompanied by Esther Turnhout (chair of Science, Technology & Society aan de University of Twente) and Henk Oostindie (researcher at Rural Sociology of Wageningen University), who will enrich his story. With questions and discussion with the audience, we will reflect on the situation and think of lessions and steps for the future.

24 January 2024, 19:00-21:00
Venue: Wageningen Campus, Impulse, Speakers Corner (Building115)

Video series “RSO: Passionate@Work”

Posted on January 8, 2024 by Christianne

Discover the heartbeat of our workplace in the video series “RSO: Passionate at Work”. Join us as team members share the driving forces that make working at RSO a fulfilling experience. From shared values to exciting projects, get an inside look at what fuels our enthusiasm and commitment. Find out why we are more than just colleagues – we are a community driven by passion at work.

In this episode, we feature Mark Vicol, enthusiastic about sharing his passion for students.

‘Let it flow: Navigating hydropower conflicts in southern Chile’ – PhD thesis defense by Maite Hernando Arrese

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Han Wiskerke

On Monday 4 December 2023 at 16.00 CET Maite Hernando Arrese will publicly defend her PhD thesis entitled ‘Let it flow: Navigating hydropower conflicts in southern Chile’. The defense will take place in the Omnia Auditorium and will also be broadcasted live (a link will appear in the events box, in the upper left corner of the screen). The full thesis can be read online or downloaded (usually from the first day after the PhD defense onwards) from the repository of Wageningen University PhD theses or by clicking on the DOI link.

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Migrant agricultural workers in search of a dignified life – new publication by Pedro Navarro-Gambin and Kees Jansen

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Dirk Roep

What is a ‘dignified life’ for those people who migrate to South Spain to work in ‘the orchard of Europe’? How their working conditions are connected to their life quality? Does working in agriculture make people socially vulnerable?

These questions are addressed in a paper by Pedro Navarro-Gambin and Kees Jansen in a paper published in Sociologia Ruralis: Migrant agricultural workers in search of a dignified life: Labour conditions as a source of vulnerability in Spain.

Abstract
This study analyses the dynamics of agency and social vulnerability of international migrant agricultural workers in intensive agriculture in Murcia (South-East Spain). It engages with the work of a group of scholars who analysed the emergence and reproduction of Murcia as an intensive agricultural enclave by taking an expanded vision of social reproduction, which includes a subjective and contextual dimension in the definition of what constitutes a ‘dignified life’. Based on a qualitative study of the life stories of foreign migrant agricultural workers and ex-workers in Murcia, two main arguments are developed. Firstly, the idea of migrant workers’ agency as intrinsically positive is evaluated as problematic. Secondly, agricultural labour conditions should be conceptualized as an independent social vulnerability driver. These findings contribute to the existing literature on migrant agricultural labour in Europe’s intensive agriculture by pointing at migrants’ exploitative and undesired labour market position rather than just at their suffered citizenship inequalities.

Rebel governance without territorial control: The experiences of the PKK in 1970s Turkey

Posted on November 17, 2023 by Joost Jongerden

In this article published in Geoforum Francis O’Connor and Joost Jongerden discuss the politics of citizenship in Turkey – and how voices that represent “otherness” – Kurds, peasants, women – are supressed.

Insurgent movements rely on popular support using varying strategies to build supportive constituencies, including forms of rebel governance. The rebel governance literature explicitly limits its scope to insurgent cases with territorial control, excluding all groups that did not obtain territorial control, areas of weaker insurgent presence and early phases of mobilisation. This article focuses on Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) use of rebel governance (1977–1980) through municipal politics prior to the launch of its insurgency. The article makes two important contributions: firstly, it demonstrates the need to broaden the scope of the rebel governance literature to include phases where insurgent movements do not control territory. Secondly, it critiques the linearity of retrospective readings of insurgent trajectories that downplay the role of interactions and contingency in early mobilizational phases. It is based on original data including primary source documents and qualitative interviews with people involved in the PKK’s municipal politics between 1977 and 1980 in Batman and Hilvan, towns marked by conflicts among (agricultural) workers, villagers, and landlords.