Blog Post

TRANSECT at DKG ’23 and Tropentag 2023

Oct 09, 2023

In September, the TRANSECT team co-organized various panels and presented their project findings at the DKG’23 (German Congress for Geography) in Frankfurt am Main and at the Tropentag 2023 in Berlin, Germany.


At DKG’23, Michael and Henryk co-organized paper and discussion panels on various themes related to the TRANSECT research themes:

Double panel “The Great Convergence? Agricultural Modernization and its Others in Global Perspective”, with Stefan Ouma, Bayreuth University

Modernization, originating from different power centres (‘the West’, the former Soviet Union, China), remains the dominant paradigm of agrarian change. This session discusses points of con- and divergence among discourses on agrarian change in different parts of the world.

Panel “Putting China’s belt and road initiative into perspective”, with Matthias Schmidt, Augsburg University

This session investigates China’s and other transnational investments and development interventions abroad, with a focus on the Global South. Exploring local implications in the receiving countries, it questions the idea of a ‘Chinese exceptionalism’ in overseas engagements.

Panel discussion “Contested ecologies in Eastern Europe: Crises, politics, and activism” with Alexander Vorbrugg, Bern University

Russia’s 2022 invasion caused ecological havoc within Ukraine. It also had more indirect effects on environmental regulations and policies, and further issues, in neighbouring countries and internationally. Authoritarian tendencies in some Eastern European countries have an increasing impact on state environmental governance as well as activism, while past involvement of Western European countries and the EU in respective policy fields brought mixed results. The climate crisis, too, has an increasing impact on eco-politics in the region. Drawing on diverse, rich, and longstanding engagement with ecological issues in different Eastern European countries, the panellists address current events and their environmental implications, and geographers’ and activists’ responses to them. They also give insights into the longer traditions of environmental research and activism in ‘the region’, and how these matter for thinking about and conceptualizing political ecology and environmental issues more broadly and beyond this region.

Moreover, Michael, Henryk, and Aksana shared their TRANSECT research in three different presentations:

“Chinese hybrid rice seed and the corporatization of agriculture in Pakistan” (Michael Spies), “Socio-economic factors affecting smallholder farmer decision-making in times of crises in south-western Tajikistan” (Aksana Zakirova), and “Modernisation beyond Soviet and Western technocracy? Lessons from agrarian practice for future sustainable agricultural development across the Central-South Asian divide” (Henryk Alff).

At Tropentag 2023, Mehwish contributed with a poster presentation on “Is there a future for smallholder farmers in Bioeconomy? ‘Improved seeds’ based intensification in south Punjab, Pakistan” (Mehwish Zuberi). This presentation was part of the session on governance and (bio)economic aspects of food systems transformation which brought together several contributions on the complexities of governing bioeconomic transitions in Global South agriculture.

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