As part of the seminar series “Current Theoretical and Methodological Affairs”, guest lecturers from various research institutions in Latvia and abroad will present their latest research findings, explaining their significance and the methods used.
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The seminar series primarily focuses on research conducted in the fields of food and health, using these studies to discuss:
- Innovative methodological solutions in research;
- Disciplinary, thematic, and methodological diversity;
- Sustainability and society's resilience to crises;
- Potential future challenges.
Goal
The seminars will help participants navigate both national and international research issues, as well as thematic and methodological challenges. The seminars will assist young scientists in establishing and expanding their professional networks.
Frequency
The seminars take place on the second Thursday of each month.
13 Feb16:00
Process-Oriented Research, Planning, and Design of Urban Public Spaces
This presentation focuses on my research on user experience-based design and human-nature interaction, using case studies from Poland and Estonia. It highlights projects on the perception of nature in urban green and blue spaces, bottom-up urban planning, co-management of public spaces, and the design of temporary housing for resilient communities. The presentation will discuss the methods I have used, demonstrating how qualitative and quantitative approaches support landscape research and planning focused on processes rather than product.
About the lecturer
Anna Wilczyńska is a landscape architect and researcher specializing in sustainable urban landscapes, human-nature relationships, and cultural landscape theories. She holds an MSc and PhD from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Her work has focused on the perception and use of blue and green spaces in Warsaw, informal green and blue spaces, public participation, and bottom-up landscape design. She was also involved in the Horizon2020 BlueHealth project at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, where she lectured for eight years on landscape design topics. Currently, as a post-doc researcher funded by the KONE Foundation, she studies temporary housing and assembling home processes within the HoPE project and is a guest researcher at RSU in Latvia. With experience in landscape design in Paris and Warsaw, she is also passionate about graphic design, science communication, and nature illustration.
Moderator
Prof. (Dr. of Social Sciences) Miķelis Grīviņš is a tenured professor at RSU. For the past ten years, he has been researching various aspects of food systems, focusing on the interaction between food circulation and dietary habits, as well as food policy and alternative food sources.
Past events in the series
- The promises of regeneration: Tracing a theory of change among climate activists (30 May 2024)
At present, ‘regeneration’ receives renewed interest. Conservationists seek to render ‘regeneration’ as guiding principle for environmental management. Non-mainstream farmers propagate the benefits of ‘regenerative agriculture’. And climate activists bet on the ameliorative effects of ‘regenerative culture’ for their movements, and the world at large.
What kind of transformations do proponents of regeneration seek, and where? How do they try to intervene? What is their theory of change? And what implication does this have for Anthropocene anthropology?
In this talk, I begin addressing these questions based on ethnographic research among climate activists in Germany. I make three interlocking claims. I first demonstrate that activists invested in regeneration seek to create new forms of relating “in the shell of the old.” Second, I show that activists see desired changes to flow from rethinking temporal registers. This involves replacing trajectories of linear development with cyclicities; and, on another level, attempts to rediscover and repurpose techniques buried, as it were, by late capitalism. Third, I reveal how activists seek to combine inner and outer transformations in order to enable mutual flourishing.
I conclude by outlining how activists consider regeneration and the transformations it entails as a modality of striving for the ‘Good Anthropocene’ – a hopeful aspiration to sustain less bad futures enabled by decolonizing environmental relations.
Lecturer
Arne Harms is a PostDoc Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. He is an environmental anthropologist working on slow disasters, everyday activism and ethics. His first monograph analyses coastal displacement in South Asia and will be published by University of Hawai’i Press in 2024. Currently, he is working on his second book, exploring intimate politics among climate activists based in Europe. On the side, he also studies the so-called Psychedelic Renaissance.
Moderator
Prof. (Dr. of Social Sciences) Miķelis Grīviņš is a tenured professor at RSU. For the past ten years, he has been researching various aspects of food systems, focusing on the interaction between food circulation and dietary habits, as well as food policy and alternative food sources.
- Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora (5 Dec 2024)
Sociologist Sharon M. Quinsaat sheds new light on the formation of diasporic connections through transnational protests. When people migrate and settle in other countries, do they automatically form a diaspora? In Insurgent Communities, Quinsaat explains the dynamic process through which a diaspora is strategically constructed. She looks to Filipinos in the United States and the Netherlands — examining their resistance against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, their mobilization for migrants’ rights, and the construction of a collective memory of the Marcos regime — to argue that diasporas emerge through political activism. Social movements provide an essential space for addressing migrants’ diverse experiences and relationships with their homeland and its history. A significant contribution to the interdisciplinary field of migration and social movements studies, Insurgent Communities illuminates how people develop collective identities in times of social upheaval.
Lecturer
Sharon Madriaga Quinsaat is a scholar of social movements and migration and currently Associate Professor of Sociology at Grinnell College. She has conducted research using both qualitative and quantitative methods and published on a wide range of topics, including migrant conservatism, diaspora formation, transnational repression, news frames and discourses on immigration, women’s international nongovernment organizations, coalition-building in the World Trade Organization, and movement against free trade. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the American Philosophical Society, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Midwest Sociological Society, and the Association for Asian Studies and has been recognized by the American Sociological Association, the Association of Asian American Studies, and the International Studies Association through research paper awards. She has published her research in in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Mobilization, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Mass Communication and Society, Sociology Compass, and Asian Survey.
Moderator
Prof. (Dr. of Social Sciences) Miķelis Grīviņš is a tenured professor at RSU. For the past ten years, he has been researching various aspects of food systems, focusing on the interaction between food circulation and dietary habits, as well as food policy and alternative food sources.
- Diverse pathways to rural prosperity – from digitalisation to nature based solutions (2 Oct 2024)
Lecturer
Leanne Townsend is Senior Social Scientist and Group Lead of the Land and People group within the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences department in the James Hutton Institute, Scotland. She has close to 15 years of experience researching rural digitalisation, with a particular focus on rural community and economic development. Currently Leanne is leading research on the role of digitalisation in supporting the resilience of crofts and small farms, as well as exploring the role of digital tools and methods in increasing participation and decision making in nature-based initiatives. She is particularly interested in the role of digital tools in participatory research and communication processes. Leanne will talk about her research on rural digitalisation, focusing on projects in which she explores the role of digital platforms for supporting small-scale and diversified farms, as well as other small businesses operating in rural regions. She will also introduce research exploring innovative methods for more inclusive nature-based solutions and initiatives.
Moderator
Prof. (Dr. of Social Sciences) Miķelis Grīviņš is a tenured professor at RSU. For the past ten years, he has been researching various aspects of food systems, focusing on the interaction between food circulation and dietary habits, as well as food policy and alternative food sources.
(R)E-TIES: Managing mobility and human relations in digitally saturated social worlds
Location
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