Research team
Expertise
My broad scholarly interest lies in environmental politics, in uneven landscapes’ structures and histories, and in changing human-nature entanglements and their spatial-temporal aspects. My PhD thesis entitled "From geocoded to entangled landscape: Forests, REDD+ environmental rule and every practices in DR Congo" has explored Congolese forested landscapes as constituted both by renewed geoplanning attempts to reorganize forests and livelihoods into a ‘green plantation economy’ and by everyday lived practices that draw humans and nonhumans together. I have been working on the politics of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy scheme adopted by the Democratic Republic of Congo. I show that the natural forests REDD+ is concerned with, are in fact naturalcultural landscapes that are continuously shaped, over time and across scales, by multiple (violent) practical encounters between people and between people and things (such as land, trees, crops or weeds). My current postdoc research project focuses on the agriculture-conservation nexus in the Congo Basin and the multiple socio-ecological lifeways of native and nonnative tree (mono)crops, i.e. oil palm and cocoa, across space and time. My research works across the disciplines of anthropology, critical geography, science and technology studies, and related fields. I have conducted extensive fieldwork in DR Congo. My theoretical thinking is inspired by multidisciplinary posthumanist currents, and by feminist and decolonial epistemologies. While my work engages with complexity and multiplicity rather than linear thinking, it draws explicit links to various historical structures of domination and inequalities such as (neo)colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and racism in which the co-production of the human and nonhuman is embedded.
Multifrictional Crops: The Social Lives of Cacao and Oil Palm in Times of Extinction and Hope.
Abstract
From wild trees to world crop commodities, from forest destroyers to forest saviors: cacao and oil palm have a special place in histories of global socio-environmental connections. Responding to threats posed by the expansion of commodity agriculture to climate and biodiversity, policy-makers now seek solutions in these tree-crops themselves. They are deemed to be able to integrate multiple ecosystem services with commodity production to improve communities' livelihoods. This project engages with the analytical challenge of an improved understanding of the complex relationships between the material specificities of cacao and oil palm, and the human meanings and values that make them drivers of both extinction and hope. Through the innovative conceptual approach of multifrictional crops, this research follows cacao and oil palm from Congolese forests to Dutch and Belgian cities and ports. It looks at how various forms of environmental governance and knowledge, everyday practices, and multispecies relations come in tension to shape the social-ecological lives of these crops, and those of the people and landscapes who grow them. Comparing a nonnative to a native crop in the Congo Basin allows to explore the importance of cultural-environmental histories and of place-based knowledge to (agro)biodiversity. As such, it will critically broaden conceptions of sustainability and justice to ask how ethical human-nonhuman encounters can be built so as to produce just outcomes.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Van Hecken Gert
- Fellow: Windey Catherine
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Research Stay as 'Visiting Scholar' at Columbia University (USA).
Abstract
This stay as a Visiting Research Scholar at Columbia's Department of Anthropology is an entire part of my PhD research project, training and research career development. Its added scientific value is threefold. First, under the supervision/mentorship of Prof. Paige West, I will deepen my data analysis by better integrating my empirical findings with conceptual frameworks from anthropology and ontological/epistemological questions. Second, I will collect some additional empirical data on the interface between science and technology and forest politics. I will carry out in-depth interviews with geospatial experts from the Global Forest Watch project (based at University of Maryland and World Resource Institute in Washington) and with other important stakeholders based in the USA. It will also serve as an exploratory research for building a future research project. Finally, with its essential interdisciplinary character, American academia will challenge me to further develop critical and innovative thinking, as well as better communicate my expertise and exchange ideas through participation in seminars at the Anthropology Department and other scientific events at Columbia University.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Windey Catherine
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Political ecology of forest resource management: the missing link.
Abstract
In a context of increasing deforestation and forest reform policies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this project aims to understand the political and socio-economic aspects of forest resource use and deforestation. Through this political ecology approach, an increased collaboration will be established between three academic institutions (UNIKIS, ISDR-Bukavu and IOB) and two civil society organizations (Tropenbos DRC and Africapacity). This project is part of a research-action approach aimed at strengthening the voices and participation of local and indigenous people in these forest reform processes, and to contribute to better environmental and social justice.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Titeca Kristof
- Co-promoter: Windey Catherine
Research team(s)
Project type(s)
- Research Project