WG Development Research: Rural Change & Development (Pohle)
Our working group addresses questions of rural change and development in a globalized world, while social/cultural and ecological dimensions, either for their own or intertwined (socio-ecological), are at the core of scientific interest.
Group members
Former group members
- Dr. Viviana Buitron Cañadas
- Dr. Martina Kreß (née. Park)
- Dr. Maria Fernanda López Sandoval
- Dr. Adriana Tutillo Vallejo
Research foci
Main subjects to be considered encompass (im)mobilities, i.e., tourism, temporary and permanent in- and out-migration as well as rural staying in various regional contexts, e.g. Europe and Latin America, and “use of space”. Regarding the latter, investigations include both, land use, its evaluation, spatial patterns and dynamics, and the appropriation of space by various stakeholders and groups, e.g. transnational firms, subsistence farmers or migrants. Within these subjects, our research focuses on the topics “power and conflicts”, e.g., access to resources, “territory and place”, as well as “identity and belonging”, e.g., negotiation of migrant identities in light of specific structures in rural areas.
By means of place-based and/or participatory approaches, we center our investigations around at least one of the elements “individual & collective meanings”, “everyday practices”, “strategies”, “empowerment” and thus focus on analytical and applied questions.
Projects
- Climate Change – Housing – Health: Design of Residential Quartiers in Terms of Climate Protection and Health Promotion (2023-2026, Gothaer Stiftung, Lead: Dr. Klaus Geiselhart)
- International Nursing Campus – Accompanying Research (2023-2024, Hospitals of the rural district Neustadt a.d.Aisch-Bad Windsheim)
- Health! Participation in the Health and Care Sector (2022-2025, Stiftung Mercator, in cooperation with the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nuremberg, Lead: Prof. Petra Bendel)
- Migration – (Linguistic) Identity – Citizenship: “Bateyes” in the Dominican Republic (2022-2025, DFG, in cooperation with the Institute for Romance Studies at FAU)
- EMILIE – Voluntary Engagement for and by Migrants in Rural Areas: Social Conditions, Potentials and Activation Strategies (2021-2024, within the framework of the Federal Programme Rural Development, BMEL)
- Impact of Market-Based Conservation on the Cultural Capital of Indigenous Peoples in Amazonia (2020-2023, DFG)
- Biosphere Reserves and Biodiversity Conservation in Megadiverse Ecuador (2019-2022, German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD)
- BLIZ – Blick in die Zukunft: interactions between society, land-use, ecosystem services and biodiversity in Bavaria until 2100, 2018-2022, StMBW)
– Sub-project 6: Multi-functional rural areas in Bavaria in the context of climate change: perception and evaluation of social-ecological transformations and acceptance of sustainable land use options) - Community-based Ethno-Eco Tourism in the Apolobamba Range/Bolivia: Trekking as an Instrument for Sustainable Regional Development? (since 2014, own funding)
- Touristic Valorisation of Rurality in a Continuum of Authenticity and Staging (since 2012, own funding)
Former projects
- MATILDE – Migration Impact Assessment to Enhance Integration and Local Development in European Rural and Mountain Regions (2020-2023, within the EU H2020 research framework)
- ZukunftGeflüchtete: Future for Refugees in Rural Regions of Germany (2018-2020, Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, BMEL, based on a decision of the German Bundestag)
– Sub-project 2: Perspectives of refugees - Denkwerkstatt “Potential of Immigration for Rural Development” (2019-2020, Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH)
- New Migration Processes and Rural Development in Rural Peripheral Areas: Status Quo and Strategies (2016-2017, German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD)
- Came, to Stay! Residential Location Choices of Recognized Refugees in Rural Lower Bavaria – a Retrospective Analysis, 2016-2017, Staedtler Stiftung)
- Human Ecologial Parameters in the Biosphere Reserve Podocarpus – El Cóndor (2010-2012, prolonged until 2015, German Research Foundation, DFG/Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ)
Research project in the course of the DFG-Research group FOR 816 “Biodiversity and Sustainable Management of a Megadiverse Mountain Ecosystem in South Ecuador” - For a list of all former projects, see here.
Network
- Section Latin America (Sektion Iberoamerika) of the Zentralinstitut für Regionenforschung, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
- Institute of Rural Studies, Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut. Bundesforschungsinstitut für Ländliche Räume, Wald und Fischerei, Braunschweig
- Professorship Political Science with focus on Migration Policy, University of Hildesheim
- Professorship Human Geography with focus on European Migration Studies, TU Chemnitz
- Institute of Forest Management (Fachgebiet für Waldinventur und nachhaltige Nutzung), TU München
- WG High Mountain Ranges (Hochgebirge, DGfG)
- WG Latin America (Lateinamerika, DGfG)
- WG Comparative High Mountain Research (Vergleichende Hochgebirgsforschung)
- WG Andean Countries (Arbeitsgruppe Andenländer) of the German Research on Latin America (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Lateinamerikaforschung, ADLAF)
- WG Rural Spaces (Ländliche Räume, DGfG)
- Department of Development, Environment and Territory, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Ecuador
- Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), Bolivien
- Institute for Negotiation (Institut für Verhandlungsprozesse) Zürich, Schweiz
- Department of Geography and Economic History, University of Umeå, Schweden
- Lifestyle Migration Hub
Research-oriented teaching