Do you want to contribute to solving societal issues in the domain of food systems? Do you have a MSc degree in sociology, anthropology, development studies or related field with an interest in food systems? If yes, then we may be looking for you!
The Social Sciences Group (SSG) at Wageningen University is looking for a motivated PhD candidate to study relations between food system transitions and community resilience. The position is based in the Rural Sociology Group (RSO) and will be supervised by Professor Han Wiskerke and Dr Jessica Duncan with active supervision and collaboration with Dr Sietze Vellema from the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group (KTI), and Dr Marion Herens from Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (WCDI).
Tag Archives: community
SCORAI Working Group on Community, Collective Action, and Alternative Pathways calls for new participants
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
Interreg project Rural Alliances: final report
The Interreg project Rural Alliances brought together 12 partners from North West Europe to tackle the challenges of demographic change in rural areas. These challenges included: young people leaving rural towns and villages; the elderly becoming increasingly isolated & in need of social and medical care; shops, post offices, pubs, public toilets and telephone boxes closing; and increasingly difficult environments for setting up and running sustainable businesses.
The project tackled these challenges by actively bringing rural communities and businesses together, capitalising on their two distinct attributes: rural businesses with their “make it happen” attitudes, with the values of rural communities of loyalty, pride and self-esteem to create over 76 Rural Alliances. Together they have reshaped their areas to make them friendly, buzzing and vibrant, creating a more stable future for all their residents.
Ina Horlings from the Rural Sociology Group was a member of the Policy and Advisory Panel of Rural Alliances. The project developed handbooks on rural governance and financial engineering, inspiring videos, a skils plotting exercise, and various fact sheets and policy papers, all available on the website. For communities who want to know how vibrant their community is, a new tool was developed to measure rural vibrancy.The final report can be downloaded here.
Edible public space eaten by whom?
Growing food in public spaces can be a great awareness raising campaign. A beautiful example is given here from the city of Adernach which was in the news this summer at various German tv stations (quite appropriate that the Dutch call the news in the summer “cucumber times”). There are also projects in England such as in Leeds or in The Netherlands such as the one in my neighbourhood (see earlier posts here and here). Continue reading
Urban Ag – Stadslandbouw
Grow your own is emerging as a trendy urban activity. Although allotment gardens often exists for over 50 years, their image is drastically changing. Until recently, these spaces were ignored by any city with promotional aspirations. Rather, they were tolerated at fringes or near railroad tracks. Quite different from the central place ‘community gardens’ are conquering now, increasingly heralded as ‘healthy’ spaces in and for neighborhoods. For a closer connection to nature, for the educational value of food growing, for the connection to better diets, for improvement of the social fabric of the ‘hood’.
What is policy aspiration and what is real in this? An interesting question for sociologists trying to understand contemporary society. Colleague Esther Veen is studying various forms of allotment/community gardens throughout the Netherlands. She is making her research accessible through the blog; www.onderzoekerstadslandbouw.wordpress.com. In Dutch.
Moreover, there are opportunities for students to study specific gardens in The Netherlands, recently a Master Thesis on an allotment garden in Ede was completed. A new research question comes from a garden in Sliedrecht (see blog in Dutch) and also the city of Rotterdam is interested in a city-wide study on the functioning of their community gardens.
For more information on Master Thesis possibilities in this field, please contact Els Hegger; Els.Hegger@wur.nl
Rural Sociology Wageningen University 