Meet the WUR UN Food Security Bloggers

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cfs43_150_enFor the next week, 6 WUR students will be participating in the UN’s Committee for World Food Security (CFS) annual meeting as part of the official Social Media Team, an initiative coordinated by the CFS and the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR).

Their contributions will be posted here as well as on this blog.

If you are on Twitter, follow the meeting and the  #CFS43 Social Media Team by following this list.

The CFS is the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all. The Committee reports to the UN General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and to FAO Conference.Using a multi-stakeholder, inclusive approach, CFS develops and endorses policy recommendations and guidance on a wide range of food security and nutrition topics.

Click here for more information about the 43rd session of the CFS. Continue reading →

Nominate your greenest teachers!

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green-officeThis week the Green Office of Wageningen is launching this year’s Green Teacher Award !

Last year the Green Office selected the teachers. This year they will do things differently.

Their aim is to let the members of the WUR community  nominate themselves, their colleagues and/or their teachers.  After this, the nominated teachers will get a questionnaire and a jury will use different criteria to select the ‘Green Teacher(s) of 2016’.

To nominate a Green Teacher, you can fill in this short form: https://goo.gl/forms/H6yeYLl7HPtauJmT2

The objective is to celebrate green teachers and to encourage teachers to think (more) about sustainability and how to implement this in their lectures.

 

SCORAI Working Group on Community, Collective Action, and Alternative Pathways calls for new participants

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By Flora Sonkin, Jordan Treakle and Robert Orzanna,

A diverse group of scholars participated past summer in a series of special sessions on the theme of “Re-embedding the Social: New Modes of Production, Critical Consumption, and Alternative Lifestyles” that was part of the annual conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics held at the University of California Berkeley. In the aftermath of the conference there was considerable interest in trying to maintain momentum and extend the circle of participation. Continue reading →

Register now for RSO-55306 ‘A Global Sense of Place’

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In period 2, from October 31 till December 19, we’ll be teaching again RSO-55306 A Global  Sense of Place: Place-based approaches to development.  Registration for the course is open until October 2, 2016.

A Global Sense of Place  is an optional interdisciplinary course on sustainable place-based development for students from various master programmes (e.g. MDR, MES, MID, MLP, MUE, MOA, MFN). The course builds on the BSc course RSO-56806 Sociology and Anthropology of Place-shaping providing an introduction to place-based approaches in development. Knowledge of this introductory course is an advantage, but is not assumed. The course aims to make students acquainted with an interdisciplinary and place-based approach to development.

A relational place-based approach is seen as key to the understanding of interrelated rural and urban transformation processes and ergo sustainable development. In a relational approach places are considered as contingent,but in time and space differentiated outcomes of three interrelated interdependent and unbounded transformative processes: political-economic, ecological and social-cultural. Places are time and space specific constructs, like their boundaries and connections.

figureplace

Shaping resilient places. Source: Roep, D., Wellbrock, W, Horlings, I, 2015. Raising Self-Efficacy and Resilience in the Westerkwartier: The Spin-off from Collaborative Leadership, In: J. McDonagh, B. Nienaber, M. Woods (Eds.), Globalization and Europe’s Rural regions. Ashgate, Surrey, pp.41-58

By means of this course students will achieve profound understanding in key-concepts and methods on place-based sustainable development. Work from key thinkers in sustainable place-making will be critically discussed and examined on the basis of various cases. Guest speakers are invited to reflect on place-based approaches to sustainable development and illustrate these through case studies. Ultimately students will acquire a place-based perspective on development.

Language of instruction and examination is English. Classes are taught on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10.30 -12.30.

Key lecturers: Dr. ir. Joost Jongerden (RSO), Dr. Ir. Dirk Roep (RSO) and dr.ir. Martijn Duineveld (GEO)

For more information, please contact Anke de Vrieze, anke.devrieze@wur.nl.

Resistance in action in the Mayan region: “NO to GMO’s”

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Mayan women in a concert of the Ma OGM campaign. Source Maria Boa

Mayan women in a concert of the Ma OGM campaign. Source maria Boa

August 18 María del Refugio Boa Alvarado successfully defended her MSc-thesis ‘Resistance in Action; Mobilization of Mayan beekeepers against GM soy: The case of the ‘Colectivo MA OGM‘ for the Master International Master in Rural Development. Below a post by Maria.

Are you interested on social movements? On Indigenous rights? On collectives and their practices? For years, many social scientists have been fascinated by the study of social movements and collective action. In my case, I am fascinated by the research of complex associations that frame and articulate their claims or grievances. Particularly, the processes of social transformation that have their grassroots within indigenous communities. Continue reading →