Thesis subject

Thesis topics Kees Jansen

Latin America is the region where I have done most of my own field work, but shorter stays in a number of Asian and African countries have been important for grasping the significance of comparative research. By working on an organic farm in France, by living with small potato producers high in Andes and with maize-bean producers in Honduras, through interviewing export crop producers in Costa Rica and Mexico, and by visiting farmer co-operatives in the Philippines, I have experienced the multiple pressures on different types of farmers in this globalizing world. I am always interested in exploring new, creative and challenging ideas of prospective thesis students within the broader domain where international development studies and agrarian studies intersect.

Fields of expertise

• Agriarian political ecology
• Risk governance
• Theoretical issues in agrarian studies
• Intersection development studies and agrarian issues

Topics for thesis

• The greening of the agrarian question
• Nature-society issues
• Pesticides
• Labour conditions of flexible (migrant) labour force
• Social conditions for agroecology
• Social responses to risks of agricultural technologies
• Counter-experitses and social movements
• Adaptation to climate change
• Agribusiness strategies
• The future of corporate social responsibility
• Hunger and food security
• Sociology and politics of knowledge (including interdisciplinarity)
• Autonomy/dependence in agrarian change
• Food sovereignty actions in the Global South