As announced before the Farm Experience Internship (FEI) will be organized for the second time this summer. A clip has been of previous year’s FEI. ILEIA is one of the supporting partners and offers more information the FEI at their website.
Tag Archives: Agroecology
Edible Academic Garden in the making…
Since half a year, an enthusiastic group of students has set as their goal to establish a productive landscape garden in which education of various disciplines and agroecological design will fuse in a space where students and staff can learn and relax at the new University Campus. The process so far has shaped itself organically as a learning opportunity for many, very much in line with the principles behind the garden. Around 20 students take care of the daily organisation with around 80 active followers and up to 300 students interested. After an initial pre-proposal supported by many chairgroups that was received well by the Board of the university, the phase of making a full proposal has now arrived, including a design, the budget, and issues such as care taking and maintenance.
Last night, the first of two public participatory design sessions was held. It was inspiring to put our dreams of the space around the new Orion building on paper. Next week Monday the second one will be held. If you want to participate, please register yourself through this link or look at the website EAT website/email
Grassroots Science course with Boerengroep and St Otherwise
Last year’s Food Farmer Fork series organised by Boerengroep and Otherwise was a big success. Some 750 people came to one or more of the 9 evening lectures and activities. The series could also be followed as a Capita Selecta course with the Rural Sociology group. Initially, 40 students enrolled and 20 students finalised the course successfully with the writing of an essay. All in all, it inspired both participants and us as organisers. So, the new series until the summer is again available for students to follow as a capita selecta course. Please look at the websites of Boerengroep and Otherwise where you can subscribe to the course and download the course outline. The current topic; grassroots science. Why? Continue reading
Social movement and Brazil
Last week friday’s lecture in the course ‘People Policy and Resources’ discussed theory and practice of social movements. Social movements can be defined as social forms through which people:
“coordinate and act together as collectives, respond to shifting environments and conflicts, dramatize and frame shared understandings of grievances, solidarity and visions, and challenge and influence existing political and cultural systems of authority.” (Karpantschof 2006)
One of the examples in class was the Landless People’s Movement in Brazil (MST). As a background to this example students had to read about the history and community-making of the MST (Wolford, 2003) and about the adoption of agroecology as “the science of sustainable agriculture” within the movement (Delgado, 2008: 563).
Thanks to the cooperation of our group with the Rural Development Post Graduate Program in Brazil, of the Federal University of Rio Grande de Sul (see earlier blogs 27 January, 13 February, 6 March) the students could also see how the movement works through part of a dvd ‘Agriculacao National de Agroecologia’. Together we watched a documentary about IL ENA, the national meeting for agroecology in Brasil which took place in 2006. The documentary clearly showed how social movements work through both practice ánd language. On the one hand the struggle for the material; actions for rights and resources. And on the other hand the struggle against dominant discourse; the construction of alternative conceptions and significations which politicizes dominant understandings and creates room for change.
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 