2019

Science, Policy Forum article

A greener path for the EU Common Agricultural Policy

It’s time for sustainable, environmental performance

by Guy Pe’er; Yves Zinngrebe; Francisco Moreira; Clélia Sirami; Stefan Schindler; Robert Müller; Vasileios Bontzorlos; Dagmar Clough; Peter Bezák; Aletta Bonn; Bernd Hansjürgens; Angela Lomba; Stefan Möckel; Gioele Passoni; Christian Schleyer; Jenny Schmidt; Sebastian Lakner

Science 365 (6452), 449-451. DOI: 10.1126/science.aax3146

New Book out

Governing Complexity: Analyzing and Applying Polycentricity

Thiel, Andreas; Blomquist, William A; Garrick, Dustin E. (Eds.) (2019): Governing Complexity: Analysing and Applying Polycentricity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

[more]

Excursion “Sustainable agricultural practices in the Mediterranean region”

Dr. Hussam Hussein participated in the excursion of the module “Sustainable agricultural practices in the Mediterranean region” as a co-organiser with Dr. Cristina Quintas-Soriano, Dr. Ilze Dzene, and Prof. Andreas Bürkert. [more]

Tropentag 2019

The Section was well represented at the Tropentag 2019 with the Section organizing a pre-conference workshop on “Exploring Agroecology: An interdisciplinary exchange” on Tuesday (17 September 2019). Professor Andreas Thiel and Dr. Ariane Goetz, chairing the oral and the poster session on Governance and Sustainable resource management respectively. Further two posters were also presented by Grace Mudombi-Rusinamhodzi and Arvind Lakshmishain the session on Agricultural transition and rural employment and Governance and sustainable resource management respectively. [more]

Further details of the visit: http://www.tropentag.de/conference/program.php

Sustainability Assessment of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus for Irrigated Agriculture: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Central Asia (WEFCA)

Dr. Hussam Hussein participated as a lecturer in the International Summer School “Sustainability Assessment of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus for Irrigated Agriculture: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Central Asia (WEFCA)”. The summer school was organized by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers (TIIAME). It took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, during 29 April – 5 May 2019. In particular, Dr. Hussein delivered lectures on “The WEF Nexus in a Transboundary Dimension” and on “The Science-Discourse-Policy nexus”.
 
Dr. Hussein has also visited the TIIAME Bukhara institute, meeting the director and dean of the institutes. He delivered a public lecture in Bukhara on the 28th of April 2019 at the TIIAME Bukhara institute on “An Introduction to Critical Hydropolitics and Transboudnary Water Governance”

We are happy to announce that the module “Institutional analysis of social-ecological systems” taught by the Section as part of the PromotionsKolleg Agraroekonomie is now listed as a “Local Commons Event” as part of the IASC World Commons Week 2019.

For more details on the PromotionsKolleg Agraroekonomie visit: https://www.agraroekonomik.de/index.html

Visit of Project partners from the University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore (UASB)

Visit of Project partners from the University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore (UASB) 29 June 2019 to 4 July 2019
As part of the Exchange program under the Graduate Program for Bangalore Dynamics (GP BangaDyn), Dr. Thimmegowda, Senior Scientist of the Dryland Agriculture Project within the University of Agricultural Science, Bangalore. He spoke on the topic of “Water Productivity Enhancement – Initiatives and Achievements” covering the various initiatives and achievements for agricultural production in the state of Karnataka, as part of the ICDD Breakfast talks on 4 July 2019.  
Dr. Thimmegowda was part of the visiting scholar group consisting of Dr. Vasundara Devi, Professor of Animal Genetics and Breeding and Dr. Suvarna Chavannavar, Professor of Microbiology with the University of Agricultural Science, Bangalore.

Wir begrüßen unsere neuen Mitarbeiter

Dr. Ariane Götz und Jens Stanzel

an unserem Fachgebiet!

Announcement of public lectures, Summer Term 2019

"LIQUID POWER: Water and the contested politics of modernisation in Spain, 1898-2010" per Skype
Prof. Erik Swyngedouw, University of Manchester
Monday, 27 May 2019, 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
H 21, Campus Steinstraße, University of Kassel, Witzenhausen

"Tierwohlpolitik in Deutschland und der EU"
Dr. Colette Vogeler, TU Braunschweig
Freitag, 7. Juni, 8:15 – 9:15 Uhr
H 33, Campus Steinstraße, Universität Kassel, Witzenhausen

"Environmental conflict and environmental justice”
Dr. Sören Köpke, Universität Kassel & TU Braunschweig
Monday, 3 Juni, 2pm – 6 pm
H 21, Campus Steinstraße, University of Kassel, Witzenhausen

"The political ecology of land grabs in Ethiopia"
Jonah Wedekind, HU Berlin
Monday, 1 July, 4:30 pm – 6 pm
H 21, Campus Steinstraße, University of Kassel, Witzenhausen

Sustainability Assessment of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus for Irrigated Agriculture: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Central Asia (WEFCA)

Dr. Hussam Hussein participated as a lecturer in the International Summer School “Sustainability Assessment of the Water–Energy–Food Nexus for Irrigated Agriculture: Interdisciplinary Approaches for Central Asia (WEFCA)”. The summer school was organized by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers (TIIAME). It took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, during 29 April – 5 May 2019. In particular, Dr. Hussein delivered lectures on “The WEF Nexus in a Transboundary Dimension” and on “The Science-Discourse-Policy nexus”.
 
Dr. Hussein has also visited the TIIAME Bukhara institute, meeting the director and dean of the institutes. He delivered a public lecture in Bukhara on the 28th of April 2019 at the TIIAME Bukhara institute on “An Introduction to Critical Hydropolitics and Transboudnary Water Governance”

Participation in the Arab Council for Social Sciences conference (Kopie 1)

Dr. Hussam Hussein participated in the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) fourth conference titled “Power, Borders and Ecologies in Arab Societies: Practices and Imaginaries” on April 12-14, 2019 in Beirut, Lebanon.
The Conference sought to examine new emergent ecologies (political, economic, urban, geographical, social and cultural) both in terms of the practices of multiple actors on the ground as well as through the imaginaries that represent, legitimize and contest them. It also aimed to better understand social science and humanities knowledge production itself. Dr. Hussein presented a working paper co-authored with Alberto Natta, Abed Al Kareem Yehya and Baha Hamadna, titled “The Impact of the New Refugee Discourse on Water Governance in Lebanon and Jordan”.

For more information: http://www.theacss.org/pages/fourth-conference

Water Heroes – 2019 World Water Day Youth Workshop

Dr. Hussam Hussein participated in the 2019 World Water Day Youth Workshop led by the Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI) and organized jointly with the World Bank and the CMI-managed Mediterranean Youth for Water Network (MedYWat). The conference took place 25-28 March 2019, in Marrakech, Morocco. During this 4-day-workshop, participants connected with experts from international development organizations and exchange knowledge and ideas on the links between water scarcity and migration, notably water governance and forced displacement, climate change and migration, the water-employment-migration nexus as well as water entrepreneurship for Mediterranean migrant youth. Dr. Hussein presented a working paper co-authored with Alberto Natta, Abed Al Kareem Yehya and Baha Hamadna, titled “The Impact of the New Refugee Discourse on Water Governance in Lebanon and Jordan”.

For more information: https://www.cmimarseille.org/highlights/young-mediterranean-water-heroes-water-and-migration

Workshop on interactions in polycentric governance at Käte Hamburger Kolleg – Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg – Essen – organized by Andreas Thiel and colleagues

Trust and a common language among researchers are essential for advancing our scientific perspectives and understandings. For decades, the Bloomington School of Political Economy at Indiana University, USA, has successfully operated according to these principles. A worldwide community working on common pool resources - such as water, forests, the marine environment but also the Internet or Public health- has been established in this process. Substantial work on the determinants of successful social problem-solving has emerged. A recently reiterated interest of this community addresses polycentric governance, i.e., higher scale and cross-scalar processes of governance relating to collective goods management. Differing from the approach undertaken generally at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research, in this workshop, polycentric governance addresses processes and constellations involving multiple actors and actor groups from an institutional economics perspective.
These elements: a common language, trustful relations between researchers, the Bloomington School approach to polycentric governance and a substantive interest in problems and change of governance of agri-environmental systems at different scales, were the starting points of a highly productive series of events held at the Centre between March 11 and 13, 2019. Particularly, the aim was to address interactions of competitive, coercive and cooperative governance arrangements in polycentric governance. First, the purpose of the Book Workshop was to sound out common foci and language, in order to allow for scientific rigor. Second, this was followed by a Special Issue workshop that aimed at furthering scientific curiosity and providing an overview of cutting edge scholarship in the field. Under the guidance of Andreas Thiel, fellow at the Centre and of  University of Kassel, Germany, Liz Baldwin of University of Arizona, Mark Stephan of Washington State University and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas of Autonomous University of Barcelona, altogether twenty one scholars from Northern America and Europe came together at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research to ideate throughout these two events. Indeed, a very productive mix of people – some who knew each other well already and others who were meeting for the first time, junior and senior scholars, scholars who have been engaging with polycentric governance for a long time and those who have begun to do so recently - gathered with a common purpose for this workshop.
Through these three days it became clear that explicit focus on interactions and relations in polycentric governance holds potential and has been overlooked thus far in scholarship on polycentric governance. Quite naturally, it brings together aspects of larger scale dynamics affecting governance and it fosters a combination of Social Network and Institutional Analysis. With this combination of workshops, a focused illustration of how the analysis of interactions in polycentric governance can bear fruit was accomplished. Additionally, the workshops also provided an overview of methods and frames that can be associated with it. In the foreseeable future, an edited volume as well as a Special Issue are planned as outputs from these meeting. An important takeaway from the workshop for the academic community was thatirrespective of how coherent a community is and for how long the members have  know´n each other, at some point detailed discussions in person are essential,  to bring such a project to fruition. None of this would have been possible without the kind support of the Centre and the professionalism of its Events Team.

Wir begrüßen unsere neuen Doktoranden

Selam Sileshi und Rezaul Karim

an unserem Fachgebiet!