Tag Archives: Planning

Localizing Urban Food Strategies – Farming cities and performing rurality: call for abstracts for the 7th AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Conference

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The 7th Aesop Sustainable Food Planning (SFP) Conference entitled “Localizing Urban Food Strategies: Farming cities and performing rurality” will take place in Torino (Italiy) from 7 to 9 October 2015.

Localizing urban food strategies refers to embedding sustainable food planning issues in place and in time within each specific local context. Moreover, by targeting planners, agronomists, designers, geographers, administrators, activists etc. engaged in the urban food debate, Farming cities and performing rurality aims at representing a platform for the development of fruitful perspectives for sustainable food planning policies and practices.

On the one hand, Farming cities refers to the development of innovative roles for agricultural production in and around the city, approaching in a structural manner the way agricultural issues are dealt (or should be dealt) with in contemporary urban policies. On the other hand, Performing rurality considers urban food strategies as a tool to define a cooperating relationship between the urban and the rural, reversing in terms of equality the traditional ideological subordination of the countryside to the city.

The activities of the Conference will be articulated around the following tracks: (i) Spatial planning and urban design, (ii) Governance and private entrepreneurship, (iii) Relevant experiences and practices, (iv) Training and jobs, (v) Flows and networks. There will be a specific activity for PhD students and young scholars.

Abstracts for one of the aforementioned tracks can be submitted until the 31st of May via the submission form on the conference website.

Stedelijke herstructurering via onderhandeling

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Next to the many agricultural and food related researchers and PhD candidates, I sometimes feel a little bit odd within the Rural Sociology group. During my PhD research I study land transactions between governments and private landowners. The link to food is present, but not so obvious. Yet, land is a basic resource for food production. If you look at it that way, my research might be less ‘odd’ as it seems at first sight. Via my employer ‘Kadaster’ I write a monthly blog on urban renewal, that I would like to share with you. I think that some of the issues that I find during my research have similarities with issues during food research. Unfortunately for the non-Dutch readers, the blog is in Dutch.

Onderhandelen komt voor in alle tijden en culturen. We onderhandelen over de prijs van ons huis, de verdeling van de taken in het huishouden (doe jij de boodschappen, dan begin ik alvast met koken), onze arbeidsvoorwaarden en nog veel meer. Door te onderhandelen kunnen partijen met verschillende belangen tot een gezamenlijke overeenkomst komen. Maar we zijn het onderhandelen in Nederland de laatste jaren ook steeds verder verleerd. In veel oosterse landen is het nog heel gewoon om over de prijs van je dagelijkse boodschappen te onderhandelen. Wij hebben gewoon prijskaartjes. En mogen we een keer onderhandelen over bijvoorbeeld de prijs van een woning, dan laat menigeen dat liever aan een expert over.

Met regels en richtlijnen hebben we een samenleving gecreëerd waarin onderhandelen steeds minder nodig is. Vaak is dit maar goed ook. Ik moet er niet aan denken om dagelijks te moeten onderhandelen over de snelheid die ik op de weg mag rijden, of over de prijs van een brood. Maar met alle regels en richtlijnen die we in de loop der tijd hebben ontwikkeld is de flexibiliteit die aanwezig is tijdens een onderhandeling ook verdwenen. Want regels zijn regels, en daar hebben we ons dus aan te houden.

Een van de problemen bij stedelijke herstructurering is dan ook dat gebrek aan flexibiliteit en samenwerking. Onderhandelen zit niet in onze planningscultuur en systeem. De overheid is gewend een plan te ontwikkelen, daar eventueel de mening van de inwoners over te vragen, het op basis hiervan waar mogelijk wat aan te passen, om vervolgens het plan te gaan realiseren. Regelgeving is er voor vrijwel elke stap in het proces. Een nieuw plan moet bijvoorbeeld zes weken ter inzage liggen. En dan zijn we vervolgens verbaasd als dat hele proces moeizaam gaat of langer duurt dan gepland. Het belang en de mogelijkheden van onderhandeling zijn in dit proces schromelijk onderschat. We zouden inwoners en eigenaren als samenwerkingspartners moet zien, in plaats van als lastige burgers die moeten participeren. En ons echt verdiepen in hun belangen; met ze in gesprek gaan, luisteren en onderhandelen. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat je daar veel meer mee kunt bereiken dan met een starre planprocedure volgens de wettelijke kaders. Die kun je altijd nog gebruiken als je er echt niet samen uitkomt.

Alle eerdere blogs zijn te vinden op: http://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/ruimte-en-milieu/partners/kadaster/sanne-holtslag-broekhof.9175800.lynkx

 

New course: CPT-54306 Geopolitics and strategic communication – serious gaming

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NEW COURSE: Geopolitics and Strategic Communication – Serious gaming, serious theory, serious reflection CPT-54306 – period 4

geopoliticsThis course engages students with theories on interpersonal relations and strategic communication in the context of geopolitics. It addresses the dynamics of negotiation processes and the verbal and non-verbal ways to influence, persuade or even manipulate other people. Students will discuss and experience the importance of different aspects like trust, framing, persuasion, power-relations. These aspects play a pivotal role in negotiation and decision-making processes and are studied in a wide variety of disciplines such as policymaking, planning, communication, and international development. The course combines theoretical and experimental learning. Learning processes are enhanced through serious gaming and conscious reflections upon theory and practice. During the course knowledge about theories, concepts and different methods for observation, analysis and reflection will be provided through (guest)lectures and reading materials. Serious gaming will be used to link theoretical reflections and observation skills with practicing persuasive and negotiation skills. Playing the game Diplomacy will allow the students to engage with the students with the real practices of geopolitics and strategic communication. As the developer of the game stated, ‘‘The notion that a player may tell all the lies he wants and cross people as he pleases etc., make some people almost euphoric and causes others to “shake like a leaf”, as one new player put it, came up almost incidentally, because it was the most realistic in international affairs and also far and away the most workable approach’’ (Calhamer, 1993).

After successful completion of this course you are able to:

  • Demonstrate knowledge of theoretical concepts for understanding interpersonal relations
  • Reflect upon geo-politics and strategic communication
  • Understand and apply strategies influencing negotiation processes
  • Be strong like a lion and cunning like a fox

More information :

Raoul.beunen@wur.nl

Introduction into Sociology and Anthropology of Place Shaping – optional course and free choice minor

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Poster RSO-56806Starting Monday 17 Februray 2014,  in the 4th educational period of Wageningen University, the optional course RSO-56806 Introduction into Sociology and Anthropology of Place Shaping will be offered again in collaboratyion with Cultural Geography Group and Land Use Planning Group. For more information on the course contact the course coordinator Joost Jongerden: joost.jongerden@wur.nl

The course can be the first of four succeeding courses in period 5 and 6 up to a total of 24 ects as part of the free choice minor ‘Place and space in planning and development‘ open to BSc-students from WU and other high education institutes, such as the Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences.

The course offered as part of the minor are:

  • Period 4: RSO-56806 Sociology and Anthropology of Place-Shaping, whole days
  • Periode 5: RDS-30306 Sociological Theories of Rural Transformations, morning or GEO-23306 Cultural and istorical Geography, afternoon
  • Period 6: LUP-33306 Methods for strategic planning, whole days in week 34-39 and LUP-32306 Studio strategic planning, whole days in weeks 40-43

For more information contact minor coordinator Dirk Roep: dirk.roep@wur.nl

New book – Sustainable Food Planning: Evolving Theory and Practice

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Half the world’s population is now urbanised and cities are assuming a larger role in debates about the security and sustainability of the global food system. Hence, planning for sustainable food production and consumption is becoming an increasingly important issue for planners, policymakers, designers, farmers, suppliers, activists, business and scientists alike. The rapid growth of the food planning movement owes much to the unique multi-functional character of food systems. In the wider contexts of global climate change, resource depletion, a burgeoning world population, competing food production systems and diet-related public health concerns, new paradigms for urban and regional planning capable of supporting sustainable and equitable food systems are urgently needed. This book addresses this urgent need. By working at a range of scales and with a variety of practical and theoretical models, this book reviews and elaborates definitions of sustainable food systems, and begins to define ways of achieving them. Four different themes have been defined as entry-points into the discussion of ‘sustainable food planning’. These are (1) urban food governance, (2) integrating health, environment and society, (3) urban agriculture (4) planning and design. Continue reading →