News

A trip across Galician territory: building the rural and the commons

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By Marta Nieto Romero On the 26th of November I attended a collective hike in Galicia (North West Spain). Organized by the Commons Study Program they invited members of Ergosfera, an association of architects, who guided us in an amazing trip throughout the rural space of Galicia under the lenses of: Commons, Feminism and Rurality. … Read more

New, big and beautiful – reflections on rebuilding Utopia

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By Malin Bäckman On the 16th of November I attended the event Cities: Ensuring Prosperity, Equality and Well–one of the Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning’s 50th anniversary celebration events. The presentations covered topics such as city economies, resilience and homelessness. One of the presentations Neo-Cities: rebuilding Utopia seemed to confuse and provoke many … Read more

Renee Lertzman on Environmental Melancholia: facing the unbearable.

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How do live with the knowledge of global climate change? On November 6th, during the InScience Festival in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, the American psychologist Renee Lertzman gave a presentation on how to cope with ‘climate depression’. Climate depression refers to the feelings of anxiety which people experience in dealing with wicked issues such as climate change.

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Food for thought: reducing waste and encouraging pro-environmental behaviour

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From 10-14 October 2016, the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance Nam Dinh visited the University of Leuven to learn about Community Supported Agriculture. I was able to accompany them on some of their excursions, with the most fascinating being a lunch at a restaurant called Noordoever. Noordoever provided the catering for the group for the entire week, … Read more

First steps in participant observation: Brecon Beacons National Park

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By Catia Rebelo Brecon Beacons is one of the fourteen of the National Parks in Britain and was established in 1957. Located in South Wales the National Park comprises an area of 1,344 km2 and its landscape is a ‘protected area’ according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Part of the … Read more

SUSPLACE’s second training in Wageningen

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by Marie Quinney and Anastasia Papangelou Is there such a thing as a silent conversation? How can we support (and be supported by) our peers in the cumbersome writing process? How can one, as a facilitator, deal with demotivated participants or conflicts during a workshop? Is there a good energiser that doesn’t exclude less mobile … Read more

ESRS Autumn School 2016 – Researching Globalization in a Rural Context

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By Alanna K. Higgins From the 3rd to 7th of October I – along with my fellow ESRs Lorena Axinte, Catia Rebelo, and Alessandro Vasta – attended the biennial ESRS Autumn School. This year’s school was facilitated by Prof. Michael Woods and the Global-Rural Research group from Aberystwyth University. The School focused on examining globalization … Read more

Eco-cultural traditions and contemporary societal challenges: an account from the Green Care Days 2016, Finland

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By Angela Moriggi It’s a chilly September morning in Helsinki. My destination is more than 300 km away, but I am lucky enough to get a lift from a friendly acquaintance, a Finnish rural development consultant, who, as myself and other roughly 140 people, will be participating to the Green Care Days 2016. The place … Read more

BrEPS annual conference: Healthy and Sustainable Places

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By Sara Grenni On September 22nd – 23rd the third annual conference of the British Environmental Psychology Society took place at the University of Surrey’s Environmental Psychology Research Centre. This year’s edition focused on two key themes, both of great relevance for our SUSPLACE programme: Environment, health and well-being: including areas such as environmental stress and … Read more

RegPol² – Research on the development of peripheral regions

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RegPol² By Lummina Horlings The European Marie Curie ITN project RegPol² on Socio-economic and Political Responses to Regional Polarisation in Central and Eastern Europe centres on new patterns of regional disparities between metropolised regions and the remaining parts of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The program is coordinated by The Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography and … Read more

The UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference 2016: Planning for Future Generations

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By Lorena Axinte and Cátia Rebelo The UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference is an annual event which this year was hosted by Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning. The event celebrated the school’s 50 years of existence, bringing together academics and practitioners interested in sharing knowledge on spatial, regional, neighbourhood and community planning. The theme … Read more