Education Sara Geenen

Ongoing

Joseph Bahati Mukulu, PhD student in the VLIR TEAM project From handmade gravel to handmade urbanism

Philippe Dunia Kabunga, PhD student in the VLIR PSP Spring

Divin-Luc Bikubanya, assistant at IOB

Hadassah Arian, PhD student in the DOCPRO project Questioning legitimacy in the ‘responsible cobalt assemblage’

Maria Eugenia Robles Mengoa, PhD student in the FWO InForMining project

Mollie Gleiberman, Capturing the benefits of private sector investment in natural resource extraction for national development. A case study of labor and the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique

Defended

In 2021

Bossissi Nkuba, Mercury pollution, intoxication and remediation in the Kamituga gold mining area. PhD in Biology, co-supervised with Lieven Bervoets, in the framework of the CEGEMI project

In 2022

Francine Iragi, The hammer and/or the hoe? Analyzing the linkages between artisanal mining and agriculture. PhD in Development Studies, co-supervised with Marijke Verpoorten, in the framework of the CEGEMI project

Fergus Simpson, The political ecology of conservation at a violent frontier in South Kivu, Eastern DRC, FWO fellow, joint PhD University of Antwerp and Institute of Social Studies, The Hague

In 2023

Simon Marijsse, Ambient technologies: an ethnography of extractive pathways in Eastern DR Congo. PhD in Development Studies and PhD in Antrhopology (KULeuven), co-supervised with Filip De Boeck and Boris Verbrugge, in the framework of the FWO-EOS project Winners and Losers from Globalization and Market Integration.

I teach in the Advanced Course on the Governance of Natural Resources at the Université Catholique de Bukavu. The course is part of IOB’s ICP Connect project that aims to build a locally embedded teaching and research capacity in collaboration with three Congolese partner institutes: Université catholique de Bukavu, Université de Lubumbashi and Université catholique du Congo. 

The first edition of the course took place in February 2019, the second in February 2020, the third in November 2021, the fourth in June 2022; the fifth in April 2023 and the sixth in April 2024.

I teach ‘ethics’ and ‘qualitative research design’ in  the short course on Research Design in Social Sciences. The course is funded by USOS (University Foundation for Development Cooperation of the University of Antwerp), VLIR-UOS (Flemish Interuniversity Council) and organized with the Université Catholique de Bukavu in Bukavu, DR Congo. It is open to researchers from Bukavu as well as from the wider region. The teaching team consists of Tom De Herdt, Kamala Kaghoma, Marie-Rose Bashwira, Pierre Merlet, and Sara Geenen.

In October 2022 we organized the first edition with the Université de Lubumbashi in Lubumbashi, as part of our VLIR-funded ICP Connect Governance. Apart from myself, colleagues Sarah Katz-Lavigne and John Ndala were involved.

In March 2023 we organized the first edition with the Université Catholique du Congo in Kinshasa, as part of our VLIR-funded ICP Connect Governance. Colleagues Tom De Herdt, Bossissi Nkuba, Albert Malukisa, Félicité Langwana, and Claude Sumata were involved.

This course is part of the Advanced Master of Globalization and Development.  The specific learning outcomes are the following:

• Students comprehend the global organization of production and acquire theoretical and conceptual tools to analyse this, including from Global Value Chains, Global Commodity Chains, Global Production Networks and Global Supply Chains.
• Students can critically reflect on key concepts, such as value, governance, and economic and social upgrading, making use of a variety of sources and case studies.
• Students can analyse and present their own insights on issues such as ethical supply chain governance, extractivism, labour unfreedom, relating these to broader developments in globalization and historical trends.

In February 2023 students attended the UCSIA/USOS conference on Social Justice in Mining. As an assignment for the course they made a number of podcasts episodes that reflected upon the conference as well as the course content.

Here are some examples by Camila Salazar Nunez and Rebeca Lara Benavides, Balolage Gloire and Nonvignon Dossou Justin, Tewodros Mersha, Chau Ngoc San Nguyen, Mohammed Toyib and Ousmane Alpha Diallo, Ines Martin, Kevin Vega, Cynthia Cheshari, Bridget Thielens Lomo, Moira Cornejo Zambrana, Gurmessa Kenea Umeta, Vera Tjandrawinata, Yahui Chang, and Amalia Mimbar.

I teach a course on qualitative data analysis (principles, coding and the use of NVivo) in the master programme at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp. NVivo is the software programme for qualitative data analysis I use in my own research. The specific learning outcomes are the following:

• Students comprehend the basic principles of qualitative research and evaluate what their ontological and epistemological stance implies for the analysis and interpretation of qualitative data.
• Students can critically reflect on the validity of their interpretation.
• Students are able to code qualitative data.
• Students are able to organize and analyse qualitative data using NVivo software.

During Covid I have made 5 short tutorials explaining the basic features of NVivo (version 12).

Together with IOB colleagues (Catherine Windey, Richard Toppo, Pierre Merlet) I teach a course in Transformative methodologies in development in the Advanced master programmes at the Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp.

In this course students learn about the paradigms and principles of transformative research. They assess the transformational potential of produced knowledge, evaluate existing kinds of transformative methodologies and critically reflect upon issues of power and knowledge, including the dominant Eurocentric epistemological and methodological foundations of research. The specific learning outcomes are the following:

• Students understand the paradigms and principles of transformative research in development studies (such as participatory methods, action research, feminist approaches)
• Students can critically reflect upon the validity of transformative research, on the researchers’ positionality, power/empowerment, and knowledge creation, including from a decolonial perspective.
• Students can apply some concrete, transformative methods of data collection and analysis.

E-waste workers

The global ‘e-waste problem’ is often framed as a problem of rich countries dumping their toxic waste in poor countries in the Global South. Commonly cited figures on the magnitude of the problem say that global e-waste production is estimated to be between 20 and 50 million tonnes and that e-waste has been the fastest growing segment of the global waste stream at 3 to 5% per year over the past decade. Between 50 to 80% of e-waste produced in the USA is said to be exported rather than being recycled domestically. And around 80% of e-waste in the Global North is believed to be shipped – often illegally – to developing countries, where it is recycled by hundreds of thousands of informal workers working in conditions that are extremely harmful to both workers’ health and safety, and the environment. In this exercise we simulate a negotiation process between different stakeholders in Ghana’s e-waste sector. The objective of the simulation is to come to a negotiated consensus between these stakeholders on the question how to improve workers’ conditions in the e-waste value chain.

Development Monopoly

Development Monopoly is a simulation game that makes players experience how power relations influence the agency of different socioeconomic groups, and how this can induce poverty and inequality. Players alter the original rules of the Monopoly board game in order that they would more accurately reflect social stratification and inequalities in the context of developing countries. After the game, the players reflect on how the rules could be made more inclusive and pro-poor. In an individual debriefing, they are invited to think about the connections between game dynamics and contemporary evolutions in developing countries. In a final collective debriefing phase, participants discuss the ways in which the simulation experiences enhanced their understandings of poverty and inequality.

Development Monopoly was conceived by An Ansoms (UCL) and Sara Geenen in 2008-2009. A ready-to-use guide for playing the game is available and an analysis of its learning effects has been published in the journal Simulation and Gaming.

Land rush

Land Rush is a game that simulates the complex reality of access to, and management of, natural resources in developing countries. Over the past decade, developing countries have experienced an increased process of commercialisation of natural resources, and especially of land. This has lately been framed as the process of land grabbing: the acquisition of land by private and/or public investors with the aim of producing food crops, crops for biofuels or to provide land for growing urban areas. Next to foreign investors, local elites and influential groups may also join the scramble for land and natural resources. However, this does not have the same effects on everyone! Rural dwellers in Africa, Asia and Latin-America may be more or less poor and more or less powerful.

Land Rush plunges the gamer in a simulation of a rush for land and natural resources. Players take up the role of poor, middle-class or rich farmers. They compete for scarce natural resources. They make choices about crop and production techniques. And they face unforeseeable events with a positive or negative impact upon their livelihoods.

Mining in Maba

In this exercise we simulate a negotiation process between the multinational company, local authorities and the local population in and around a new mining concession. Each participant takes up the role of one of the actors in the process, and receives a detailed individual role description. The eventual aim of the exercise is to design a Protocol of Understanding between the different parties on the issue of resettlement and compensation and local development. The Protocol should contain some general guidelines and some more specific provisions on how to resettle and compensate, and how to implement local development programmes. This simulation game has been played by IOB master students and by Congolese students of the master programme in Development Studies and Public Administration at the Catholic University of Bukavu.

The Great Lakes Region: from conflict to inclusive development

In 2009 and 2010 we organized a simulation game/ role play in the IOB Master Governance and Development on the conflict in the Great Lakes Region. Students get a scenario, which is partly based on facts, partly fictitious, and they are assigned the role of one of the (real) actors in the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The simulation stimulates them to analyze the current situation in the region, to take a stance on some important issues – with which they personally do not necessarily agree -, to formulate arguments and communicate them in bilateral and plenary meetings. An important disclaimer to be made is that this simulation, though based on real-life events, leaves room for personal interpretation, creativity, and fiction.