I currently serve as Professor and Chair at the Sociology of Development and Change group at Wageningen University. I also hold appointments as a visiting Professor at the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies of the University of Johannesburg and a Research Associate at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology of Stellenbosch University. From April – June 2017, I held a Van Zyl Slabbert Visiting Professorship at the departments of politics and sociology at the University of Cape Town. From 2008 – 2014, I was as an Assistant and later Associate Professor of Environment and Sustainable Development at the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University.
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If you’re interested to read a bit more about my main concerns around the links between neoliberalism, conservation and development, the politics of energy and the current ‘green economy’, some of these short pieces might be of interest:
- Interview by Laura Fano Morrisey for a special issue of the journal Development (January 2012) on the Green Economy. Click here for the PDF file or go to the website of the journal.
- One-page article ‘beyond placebo discussions’ in Current Conservation on why neoliberal conservation models are going to do little for conservation (October 2008)
- Interview on the illusion of the green economy in Down to Earth magazine (November 2012, in Dutch).
- Short piece for Milieu Defensie Magazine on ‘conservative green’ (January 2009, in Dutch).
The following link has a PDF copy of my Inaugural lecture as Professor in the Sociology of Development and Change at Wageningen University:
- Life and Capital: Development and Change in the 21st Century
- You can watch the inaugural address itself via this link: http://wurtv.wur.nl/p2gplayer/Player.aspx?id=dN7XFc.
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My formal education:
- 2009 – Ph.D. (Cum Laude) in Political Science / Anthropology, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Title of PhD dissertation: Struggles over Consensus, Anti-Politics and Marketing. Neoliberalism and Transfrontier Conservation and Development in Southern Africa. Promotor: Prof. Ton Dietz. Co-promotors: Prof. Henk Overbeek and Dr. Bernhard Venema.
- 2002 – Political Science at the VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Social-Cultural Sciences, with specialization in International Relations / Develop ment Studies.
- 1995-1997 – Journalism and Corporate Communication at the Hogeschool Windesheim, Zwolle.
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I am currently involved with three journals, which I highly recommend:
Conservation & Society (as senior editor): I was an associate editor from 2010 and from 2012 joined the group of editors of the journal. Conservation & Society is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary open access journal dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practice of conservation.
Geoforum (as member of the editorial board): an international, inter-disciplinary journal, global in outlook, and integrative in approach, with a broad focus on the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time.
Geo: Geography and Environment (as member of the editorial board): Geo is a fully open access journal publishing high quality articles from across the spectrum of geographical and environmental research. It has an interdisciplinary focus that spans the sciences, social sciences and humanities.
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Some of my recent (and upcoming!) readings:
