ESRS Newsletter 19.12.2011
Contents:
1. Greetings from the editor of the newsletter
2. Special greetings from president Jo Little
3. Introduction of the new secretary Kristina Svels
4. Congresses
5. New books
6. Job announcement
7. e-learning course on the Common Agricultural Policy
8. Improving ESRS archive
1. Greetings from the editor of the newsletter
As the editor of the newsletter, I am happy to receive any information the members of ESRS wish to publish: local or thematic congresses, job opportunities, new publications etc. Please send your news to me by email. The next newsletter will be published in March 2012.
Happy Holidays!
Tiina Silvasti
tiina.silvasti@helsinki.fi
2. Special greetings from president Jo Little
Happy New Year to all members of the ESRS from the President and members of the
Executive Committee.
As usual the newsletter provides information on some of our forthcoming events and
alerts members to items published on the ESRS newsletter.
ESRS Small Grant Scheme
At a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the Society we identified a need to try
to encourage more events from members of the Society, especially during years between
ESRS conferences. I am writing here to announce a new opportunity for members to obtain small grants to support the organization of ESRS events such as conferences and meetings focused on high priority areas of research and scholarship. We would like to make small
sums of money available (up to 300 Euro) to sponsor local workshops and meetings to help encourage ESRS events at the regional level. Members can apply for the money by contacting Jo Little with a description of their event and a justification for the money applied for (a brief budget and indication of how the money is to be used). These applications will be considered by members of the EC. Full details of this grant opportunity will be posted on the ESRS
website early in 2012.
Nominations for IRSA
The ESRS has two representatives on the IRSA council. The current representations (Paul Milbourne and Bettina Bock) have come to the end of their terms and we need to nominate
2 more people to serve. Ideally this would be people planning to attend the IRSA conference
in Lisbon in the summer of 2012. Please contact Jo Little (j.l.ittle@exeter.ac.uk) if you are interested in being one of the ESRS nominated representative on the IRSA council. I need names by the end of January.
3. Introduction of the new secretary Kristina Svels
Dear ESRS members,
My name is Kristina Svels and I was chosen to be secretary for ESRS on the 1st of December
at the executive meeting in London. I very much look forward to the challenge for the next years to come.
My academic background is in rural sociology and I have worked in the tourism and
hospitality industry both practising and as an educator. I’ve been working in many
countries and have gained both practical but also cultural experience and insight in
several languages.
In 2009 I started to work on my PhD and today I am half through this wonderful process.
My topic is rural development focusing on new rural goods and services. My special interest and empirical study for my thesis is the World Heritage Kvarken Archipelago on the west
coast in Finland. I am affiliated to Åbo Akademi University in Vasa, Finland.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me at ksvels@abo.fi
I wish you a joyful and relaxing Christmas holiday.
Kindest regards,
Kristina
4. Congresses
• Urgent: Agriculture in an urbanizing society in april 2012 in Wageningen. For example
WG 17 Social exclusion and poverty in rural areas. See: www.agricultureinanurbanizingsociety.com
• Urgent: Producing and reproducing farming systems: New modes of organization for sustainable food systems of tomorrow – International Farming Systems Association
(IFSA) symposium July 1-4, 2012 in Aarhus, Denmark. For further information
see: [website]
• Ongoing: Call for abstracts: Rural at the Edge – The Nordic Conference for Rural
Research. 21.-23.5.2012, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu. See: http://www.mua.fi/ruralattheedge/
• Ongoing: XIIIth World Congress of Rural Sociology, 29.7.-4.8. 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal.
For more information see http://irsa2012.com/event/irsa-2012/
5. New books
• The New Rural Europe: Towards Rural Cohesion Policy. Andrew Copus & Lisa Hörnström (Eds.). The book calls for a 'Rural Cohesion Policy' more attuned to contemporary realities
and issues which can help rural areas play their part in Europe’s emergence from the
current economic crisis. Please, load the free book: [website]
• Translocal Ruralism: Mobility and Connectivity in European Rural Spaces.
Hedberg, Charlotta & Carmo, Renato Miguel do (Eds.). Springer, Serie: GeoJournal Library,
Vol. 103. For more information see [website]
• Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century – Resilience and Transformation by
David L. Brown & Kai A. Schafft.
For further information see http://politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=9780745641270
• Naming Food After Places - Food Relocalisation and Knowledge Dynamics in Rural Development edited by Maria Fonte & Apostolos G. Papadopoulos. For more information please see: [pdf]
6. Job announcement
• Tenure-track faculty members (Assistant Professor) in Urban and Regional Planning in Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Focus on Food Systems. See: http://www.tcaup.umich.edu/planning/faculty/search/#seeking-faculty
7. e-learning course on the Common Agricultural Policy
• Groupe de Bruges is developing a comprehensive e-learning course on the CAP, in collaboration with SPERA (Interuniversity Centre for Studies on Economic, Rural and Environmental Policies and Associazione “Alessandro Bartola”/AGRIREGIONIEUROPA.
Leading experts from all over Europe contribute their knowledge and expertise to this
course.
For more information see: brochure [pdf] letter [doc]
8. Improving the ESRS archive
• We are building the archive page in the ESRS web pages. Do you have anything in
your files, which could be stored for the future actors of the society in the
ESRS-webarchive? If so, please send the material to the
web editor Ville Klemets, e-mail: ruralsociology@abo.fi