Title of the PhD project: "The negotiation of displacement and emplacement at contested agrarian borders: (im)mobility, resistance, and adaptation in Paraguay".
The project explores how Paraguayan smallholder farmers defend their livelihoods and negotiate collective visions of a better future while facing a dual crisis. On the one hand, an increasing concentration of land under the control of export-oriented agribusinesses and the reduction of state support are leading to a crisis of smallholder agriculture. While a part of the rural population remains local, adapts to shrinking possibilities of social and economic reproduction, resists or waits, others seek their future in regional centres, neighbouring states or Europe and especially Argentina. Here, however, the lives of Paraguayan migrants are being shaken by a second crisis. Ever worsening exchange rates prevent remittances, and rising inflation calls into question the security and hope of a new home. Displaced by economic crisis and discrimination, many migrants return to their communities of origin.
Multi-local field research examines the translocal lifeworlds that span three rural communities and urban destinations in Paraguay and Argentina, and reconstructs how Paraguayan smallholders deal with current crisis phenomena and try to shape social change. The analysis shows that smallholders are continuously balancing between leaving and staying, renegotiating their aspirations and hopes in the face of new fears and times of uncertain waiting. As they navigate between alternative places and strategies, mobile and seemingly immobile options for action become intimately interwoven. The dissertation uses the conceptual pair displacement and emplacement to describe, first, the creeping cumulative process of displacement in rural areas and urban arrival spaces (displacement) and, second, to explore how actors use and expand their agency to create places to which they can attach their hopes for a better life (emplacement).
Procedure and milestones:
The dissertation is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2018 and 2019 in three rural Paraguayan communities and three migration destinations in Paraguay and Argentina.
Contact:corinna.land(at)sk.hs-fulda.de
Curriculum vitae:
- Since 09/2017: PhD in the Sylff Microcollege Forced Migration, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), research interests: Sociology of development and transnational migration, land conflicts and displacement, protest and movement research. Regional focus: Latin America
- 10/2017-08/2020: Lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB).
- 11/2016-08/2017: Research assistant at the Chair of Sociology/Organisation, Migration, Co-determination, Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB)
- 10/2009-10/2016: Bachelor's and Master's degree in Social Science at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum with field research stays in Nicaragua, Mexico and the USA.
Awards:
11/2017 RUB student award for the best final thesis at the Faculty of Social Sciences 2017.
Start of PhD project:
since September 2017
Scholarships:
09/2016-11/2020: Tokyo Foundation PhD scholarship
01/2019:04/2019: Sylff Research Abroad scholarship for a stay in Paraguay and Argentina
Erstbetreuerin
Zweitbetreuerin
Publications
(2021) 'Desperate Aspirations among Paraguayan Youths: The Renegotiation of Migration and Rural Futures'. In: Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies 11 (2), https://doi.org/10.3167/TRANS.2021.110203.
(2019): "Periphery Cue: Accumulation through Dispossession." In: Periphery 39 (154/155): 292-295. to full text.
(2019): Productive Power Participation., with Tino Towara. Literature study and recommendations for action on strategic change in organisations, commissioned by IG BCE.
(2017): "Uprooted Belonging: The Formation of a 'Jumma Diaspora' in New York City", with Eva Gerharz. In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44 (11): 1881-1896, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1373594.
(2015): "Actor Constellations in Resource Conflicts", with Nina-Kathrin Wienkoop. Conference proceedings in: Science and Peace 2015 (4): 49-50. To full text.
Lectures
06/2021 "The (un)making of rural homes in times of neoliberal development": presentation at the symposium "Making Home, Doing Belonging: Mobilities and Immobilities in Experience, Theory and Policy" by MIDEX (University of Central Lancashire) and HOMinG (University of Trento).
02/2021 "Coping with Displacement: Hope, Despair and (Im)mobility in Translocal Lifeworlds": presentation at the "IV ISA Forum of Sociology" of the International Sociological Association.
11/2018 "Dealing with Displacement: Mobile Livelihoods at Contested Agrarian Frontiers": Poster presentation at the "7th PhD Conference on International Development".
07/2016 "Belonging Uprooted: The Formation of a 'Jumma Diaspora' in New York City" (with Eva Gerharz): Paper presented at the "24th European Conference on South Asian Studies" of the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS).
Organisation of conferences and meetings
04/2022 Organisation of the workshop "Struggles for Hope: Negotiating the Future in Times of Global Crises" at the Fulda Graduate Centre of Social Sciences FGCSS (with Anja Habersang). To the Call for Papers.
11/2021 Organisation of the first Fulda International Autumn School "Global Inequalities and Human Rights" at the Fulda Graduate Centre of Social Sciences FGCSS in the framework of the project Transnational Governance and Human Rights. To the programme.
11/2019 Organisation of the interdisciplinary conference "Forced Migration in Transition: Perspectives from Social Science and Law" at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (with Benedikt Behlert, UK Mong Marma and Robin Ramsahye). To the conference report.
07/2015 Organisation of the workshop "The State and Beyond: Actor Constellations in Resource Conflicts" of the AK Natur-Ressourcen-Konflikte (with Nina-Katrin Wienkoop and Annegret Kuhn). To the conference report.