MSc Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology - Research opportunity

In recent times, the visualization of landscapes has become an important instrument in debates on sustainability. In coverage of the recent fires in the Amazon, images from google earth play an important part. In what ways do they testify to the precarious state of - parts of - the earth? 

Information is also used in scientific studies that try to assess the impact of various forms of land use, for instance, cocoa farming and artisanal gold mining.  IUCN and their Ghanaian partner A Rocha have developed future scenarios based on aerial photography. They call these studies Living Landscapes, and they try to picture various trajectories of future situations depending on whether interventions are carried out or not  (e.g. what would the region look like 10 years from now in case exploitation forms remain the  same as in the present, what would it look like if mining is banned etc.). 

The MA student will define a research project around these forms of ‘seeing the world and predicting the future’. Most importantly, the student will study how these studies and visualizations are used in development projects aimed at people who are residing and working in the areas covered by studies like Living Landscapes.

It is most likely that this project can be carried out in collaboration with IUCN and A Rocha. We can discuss whether it is best to turn it into a Policy in Practice project or that it remains a Global Ethnography project.

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