Occasional Paper Series
The Paper Series aims to disseminate research findings before publication to share ideas, promote academic debate, and receive feedback on work in progress. Moreover, this series provides outstanding research conducted by our students to a broader audience.
Water Governance in Laikipia County, Kenya - Working Group Reports 2025
The reports present the findings of a research seminar on Political Ecology and Water Governance, with a focus on Water Resource User Associations in Laikipia County, Kenya. Research was carried out by mixed student groups from Bonn and Nairobi during two weeks in late July and early August 2025. The students stayed in small guest houses and tented camps in their study areas in Timau, Burguret and Naro Moru, where they conducted interviews, focus group discussions and mapping exercises with local stakeholders, smallholder farmers, and other inhabitants. The reports give evidence of the rich research findings: the causes and consequences of water scarcity, the mechanisms and transformation of water resources governance, and the impact all this has on the livelihoods of local populations.
Environmental problems today are either intrinsically global or closely linked to global pressures, requiring governance at multiple scales (DIETZ et al. 2003). The amount of water resources available per person per year in Kenya has been decreasing since the 1960s due to a lack of rainfall, intensive farming and changing land use (MULWA et al. 2021: 5; WILD 2023: 15-16). These dynamics manifest in competing water allocation, institutional vulnerabilities, and gendered disparities in access. Understanding water governance in the Burguret sub- catchment therefore requires situating local dynamics within broader governance levels and socio-ecological changes.
The Kenyan Constitution guarantees the right “to clean and safe water in adequate quantities” (Constitution of Kenya 2010: Art. 43(d)). At the local level, Water Resource Users Associations (WRUAs) were introduced in 2002 to promote decentralization and participatory management, and thereby to decrease water-related conflicts (Water Act 2016: Sec. 29(2)). The Burguret Water Resource Users Association (BWRUA), which is the focus of this study, plays a key role in providing domestic, livestock, and small-scale irrigation water to households (JEPTUM et al. 2018: 194). However, the implementation of the BWRUA commodifies water, (1) making it unaffordable for everyone and (2) constitutes that informal river water abstraction becomes illegal. This raises questions about how different social groups perceive rules regarding water use, and what role gender plays in water management in the Burguret sub-catchment.
Previous research showed that women’s involvement leads to a more collaborative and domestic approach, which is highly valuable for managing water at a household level (YERIAN et al. 2014). Our research is based on the premise that women’s participation in water-related issues generally improves water governance, therefore making it desirable. At the same time, we are cautious about assuming that participation inevitably leads to women’s empowerment. While women are central to ensuring household water security in rural Kenya, their influence in public decision-making and formal water governance often remains limited (COULTER et al. 2018). Barriers such as culturally rooted norms, time burdens, and financial constraints continue to restrict women’s participation in decision-making around water (COULTER et al. 2019: 495). In 2010, Kenya introduced several laws to promote gender equity in governance, including water policies requiring that no more than two thirds of decision-making positions be held by either gender (Constitution of Kenya 2010: ART. 27 (8)). However, these regulations have not been effectively enforced (COULTER et al. 201: 495).
Last year’s research in the Burguret sub-catchment examined women participation in the BWRUA with a Feminist Political Ecology approach and highlighted that women’s formal participation in the BWRUA has increased, but also revealed discrepancies in how this participation is perceived (MEHRSTEDT et al., 2024). This research therefore builds up on last year’s findings and examines how local rules and women’s everyday water practices intersect in the Burguret sub-catchment, and what this relationship reveals about the dynamics of formal and informal water governance.
The Naro Moru Sub-Catchment on the leeward side of Mount Kenya region is a hydrologically complex and contested area. More than 25,000 people rely on the river system, especially because of their extensive agricultural practices for domestic and commercial use (NM WRUA 2020: 33). The sub-catchment stretches over an area of approximately 185 km² and is characterized by an upper, middle and lower foot zone with varying climatic and agricultural conditions (CETRAD 2014: 74; Sun 2022: 127). Therefore, (water) resource conflicts between the upper and lower sub-catchment can occur. Increasing water scarcity due to irregular rainfall patterns, heightened glacial melt, land use changes and population growth have heightened these dynamics (Lagat et al. 2024; Sun 2022; World Bank 2019). Traditional irrigation strategies like furrow irrigation or crop choice are challenged by water resource changes. This can lead to increased unauthorized water abstraction – adding conflict potential (Sun 2022). Since the early 2000s, Kenyan Water Resources Users Associations (WRUAs) have been institutionalized as “community-based associations for collaborative management of water resources and resolution of conflicts concerning the use of water resources” (Water Act 2016, Section 29 (2)). This establishes the creation of a participatory water governance system representing water users’ rights and needs. At the same time, WRUAs are situated under the National Water Resources Authority (WRA) and are delegated to implement top-down national water regulations (Water Act 2016: 28). This creates a ‘dual mandate’ of the WRUA, who are expected to reflect the needs and priorities on institutional and local levels.
This report aims to summarize and discuss the observations of a nine-day field research trip conducted in early August 2025 in the Naro Moru Sub-Catchment. First, the Problem Statement (Section 1.1) and the Research Questions (Section 1.2) deepen the understanding of the entry points of the study. Secondly, the Conceptual Framework (Chapter 2) guiding the research will be presented. Thirdly, the use of Methods (Chapter 3) will be described and reflected. Fourth, the observations are aggregated in the form of First Findings (Chapter 4). The Discussion (Chapter 5) elaborates and interprets the observations in the context of the underlying theoretical thoughts. Finally, a Conclusion (Chapter 6) is provided.
“Clean water?... no, we simply consume that river water and trust that God purifies it once it gets to our intestines.”
The quoted statement reflects the experience of most individuals residing in the Timau sub-catchment area who lack access to clean water and the necessary amounts. Water emerged as a significant concern following the events of the 2002 water crisis, which also led to the establishment of Kenya's National Water Act in 2002 aimed at addressing water-related challenges. Water management is a critical concern in numerous areas globally, particularly in regions experiencing shortages. In other parts of the world, this has led to conflicts fueled by water as a trigger (for instance, in India), water used as a weapon (such as among the nomadic pastoralists in West Africa), and water being a casualty (for example, in Yemen) (Gleick et al., 2020a). In line with Gleick et al. (2020a) water resources or infrastructures become victims of conflict, functioning as targets or casualties of violence. The Timau sub-catchment area exhibits characteristics akin to those in Yemen, where water infrastructure has evolved into essential components for water supply and a source of conflict, particularly in the presence of disputes (notably illustrated by the damaged water systems (also called intakes) at the Rugirando spring area, as depicted in Appendix 1). Although the constitution of Kenya, Article (43) 2010, ensures that every individual has the right to clean and safe water in sufficient amounts and acceptable sanitation standards, a significant number of people in Timau encounter the opposite.
The Timau Sub-Catchment in Kenya is crucial for water resource management, influenced by socio-political, institutional, and environmental factors. The 2002 Water Act facilitated decentralization, creating community-based organizations like Water Resource User Associations (WRUAs) to improve Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) (K'Akumu, 2009; Ngigi C Macharia, 2007). WRUAs function as joint management entities for water resources and conflict resolution, situated within the governance schema between the Water Resources Authority and water users (Water Act, 2016, p. 28). However, complexities regarding infrastructure management, participant involvement, and local participation factors remain inadequately explored. This research focused on water governance dynamics and conflicts related to infrastructure in the Timau Water Sub-catchment Area.
Kenya is facing numerous water-related challenges which extent across the area of the entire country. With 90% of the country being arid or semi-arid (ASAL) and a growing proportion of water-intensive (economic) activities, from domestic to commercial level, water management and further water governance play an important role deciding over living conditions of the people, especially in rural areas like the Sirimon catchment. A Water Poverty Index (WPI) study conducted in 2022 concluded that the Sirimon catchment is facing “acute water poverty” (Mwaura et al. 2022, p. 41).
In last year’s course, the students investigating the Sirimon catchment highlighted several critical challenges within the area, including a commodification of water which is excluding low-income users, power imbalances favouring large-scale farmers, and a lack of clarity around the roles and responsibilities within governance structures. The most relevant governance bodies in this context are the Water Resources User Associations (WRUAs), further described in chapter 4.1. Despite the detailed identification of these problems, the existing literature offers limited insights into how such challenges might be practically addressed or resolved through inclusive, community-informed approaches.
This study seeks to fill that gap by co-developing pragmatic and context-relevant solutions with both communities and authorities in Sirimon. A participatory approach is critical, as community members often experience water scarcity firsthand and may already possess local knowledge or practical strategies that remain unrecognized. Similarly, incorporating authorities’ perspectives, along with those of upstream users like large-scale farmers, will provide a more balanced and integrative view of the governance landscape. This collaborative approach aims to not only surface solutions but also empower marginalized voices in shaping future governance frameworks, leading to the study’s key research question:
How can community-driven opportunities in water management contribute to
enhancing inclusive and equitable water governance in the Sirimon catchment?
The approach of this key question started with an overview of the research area and local governance actors and structures followed by an analysis of their interconnectedness, guided by the following objectives:
1. How is water access in the Sirimon catchment distributed and managed?
2. How do different stakeholders engage in local water governance and which water related constraints and opportunities result from their behaviour?
3. How does people’s position along the river influence their experienced constraints and to what extent do the river sections influence each other?
Producing one single rose generates a profit of 0,08 - 0,15 € while consuming between 7 and 13 litres of water per stem (LANARI et al. 2018, MEKONNEN et al. 2012). It might only cost an average of 2,35 € in Germany, but before any imported flower reaches the shelves of European supermarkets as an appealing bouquet, it goes through a complex system shaped by global trade, human labour, power dynamics and resource competition (GEMÄHLICH 2022). Since the 1990s, Kenya has emerged as a leading exporter of cut flowers, accounting for around 40% of all European Union (EU) flower imports. After tea, it is Kenya’s second biggest export product, making up around 14% of total exports (GEMÄHLICH 2022). That highlights how crucial the flower industry is to the country’s economy, with generating approximately 1 billion USD in annual export earnings, contributing almost 1% of the GDP and directly and indirectly supporting the livelihoods of over one million individuals (ibid., KARIUKI 2024, NDIRANGU 2024). However, the industry has also faced severe criticism around intensive water abstraction, pollution from pesticides and chemicals, poor labour conditions, low wages and high numbers of sexual harassment cases, especially in the Lake Naivasha region (GEMÄHLICH 2022, HALE & OPONDO 2005, KUIPER 2023). Commercial horticulture farms require year-round irrigation to meet the export market demands, making them significant water consumers (LANARI et al. 2016, NGUTU et al. 2018).
One of Kenya’s first flower farms was established in 1991 in Timau (0.11, LANARI et al. 2018). Being near the equator, at a high elevation and providing nutrient-rich soils from Mount Kenya’s volcanic history, Timau boasts of great conditions for horticulture met with infrastructure and labour availability. While Lake Naivasha still remains one of the main hubs for flower growing in the world, there have been several migrations of flower farms from Naivasha to Timau or even to Ethiopia in recent years because of overcrowding or a want for privacy (0.1). As large- scale water users, major taxpayers, and providers of jobs and infrastructure, flower farms are important actors in Timau and the surrounding sub-catchments of the Mount Kenya area, heavily influencing hydro-social relations. As they compete for the same scarce water and land resources as small- and middle-scale farmers, conflicts are bound to arise. In our research, we aimed to analyse the flower farm’s water practices with a lens on their sustainability and how their impact on the environment, economy and communities is perceived locally.
Water is scarce, but scarce for whom? In public discourse and policy debates, water insecurity is often framed as a biophysical or technical challenge: periods of drought, climate variability, or supply–demand imbalances. While these are real constraints, treating scarcity as a purely hydrological problem risks obscuring how access, ownership, and power fundamentally shape who suffers and who thrives. Access to water and land are foundational resources that structure livelihoods, agricultural productivity, and social equity. Understanding water insecurity thus demands shifting from a narrowly technical approach to a socially grounded one, where access and control matter as much as supply (Meehan, 2023).
In Kenya, water insecurity manifests in multiple, overlapping deprivations: lack of proximity to safe sources, unaffordability, and insufficiency during dry seasons, and poor water quality (i.e. safety). These deprivations are not evenly distributed: they tend to correlate with household income, dwelling type, and rural or urban location, thereby reinforcing vulnerability and inequality. The challenge is not only to increase aggregate supply, but to interrogate who can claim and hold water in times of shortage (Goodman et al., 2022). The Burguret catchment, located on the slopes of Mt. Kenya, offers a striking illustration of how these social–hydrological dynamics play out. Although the Burguret River flows through the area, downstream users face dry periods or extremely low flows during dry seasons, partly because upstream users abstract large volumes via gravity pipes, often beyond their allocations. One study found that upstream abstractions accounted for 67 % of total daily discharge, whereas downstream users accessing via pumps took only 16 %, a stark illustration of spatial inequality in de facto access (Jeptum et al., 2018). In sum, scarcity in Burguret is mediated less by total lack of water than by its uneven appropriation and storage, especially when infrastructural capacity is limited.
Land tenure in Kenya further compounds the inequity of resource access. Across many rural regions, a mix of customary and statutory tenure regimes prevails. Secure land rights are strongly associated with incentives for sustainable land management, investment, and enhanced food security. But insecure or ambiguous tenure, fragmentation, and legacies of dispossession have led to skewed land ownership patterns and constrained opportunities for marginalized groups (Mwangi, 2005; Di Matteo, 2021). Colonial and post-colonial policies such as the Swynnerton Plan and various land adjudication schemes contributed to consolidating land in elite hands, while sidelining customary tenure claims (Munro, 1960). The ongoing tensions between communal land, individual titles, and state control complicate both land and water governance reforms.
The interrelations of land and water are especially poignant in settings like Burguret. Large estate owners or agricultural enterprises, often with more secure land interests and the capital to build storage or diversion infrastructure, are better able to buffer seasonal water shortages. Smallholder farmers who lack storage capacity or upstream access endure a more volatile water supply, which undermines their agricultural productivity, income stability, and food security. In effect, the scarcity problem becomes a question of differential capacity to appropriate and adapt, not merely one of physical shortage.
Given these dynamics, this paper contends that effective interventions in Burguret, and by extension similar rural catchments, cannot treat water scarcity in isolation. Rather, solutions must recognize and address the intertwined political ecologies of land and water: strengthening tenure security, clarifying water rights, investing in equitable storage infrastructure, and redistributing access to historically marginalized groups. Only by situating the hydrological challenge within its social, institutional, and historical dimensions can policy and practice deliver more just and sustainable outcomes. Jepson et al. (2017) provide a definition for water security that builds from the aforementioned approach:
“[W]ater security, [...] is not simply a state of adequate water – however defined – to be achieved, but rather
a relationship that describes how individuals, households, and communities navigate and transform
hydro-social relations to access the water that they need and in ways that support the sustained
development of human capabilities and wellbeing in their full breadth and scope.” (Jepson et al., 2017)
Water security is a core responsibility for a community. This report finds answers to the central question: How is water security of the local community in Burguret related to land ownership dynamics of the past and present?
In the scope of the seminar “Water Governance in Rural Kenya”, a two week field research was conducted to research the dynamics of land ownership and water access along the Burguret river. The results are presented in this report. Chapter 2 gives an introduction into the study area, its geography, and water governance and provision of infrastructure. Chapter 3 presents the conceptual background of the report, with a special focus on political ecology. The methods, research design, limitations and positionality are introduced in chapter 4. The findings and results are presented in Chapter 5. The discussion and conclusion in chapters 6 and 7 set the results into the current academic debate and draw a concluding thought.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2025
Landfills are essential for managing municipal solid waste (MSW), yet their impact on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and community vulnerabilities is underexplored. This study investigates DRR measures within municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in Uganda, with a focus on the Kiteezi landfill to improve resilience. Employing a mixed-methods approach, including field observations, household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and GIS analysis, the research specifically evaluates landfill management practices on DRR, examines residents’ perceptions of disaster risks, and assess social vulnerabilities. Findings reveal significant regulatory non-compliance, such as inadequate leachate treatment, poor waste segregation, and violations of buffer zone requirements, exacerbating disaster risks. Communities such as Kitetika and Lusanja, exhibit higher Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) scores (1.0 and 0.7) due to their proximity (1039m, 850m), reliance on hazardous waste-related livelihoods, and inadequate disaster preparedness. In contrast, communities farther away, such as Lubatu, Masooli and Bumbu-Kiteezi, show lower SVI values (0.6, 0.2 and 0.0 respectively), reflecting reduced exposure and more diversified livelihoods. Notably, 83.14% of respondents acknowledge landfill risks, with 40% of nearby households highly concerned, 37% mostly informal waste workers moderately concerned, 18% dismissing risks, and 5% indifferent due to distance. Governance failures, insufficient risk communication, and inadequate community preparedness emerged as critical barriers to resilience. This study underscores the need for integrated DRR frameworks, stricter regulatory enforcement, community-centered preparedness plans, sustainable waste management practices and regional engineered landfills. The findings align with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and offer actionable insights for improving urban waste management and building resilience in vulnerable communities across the Global South.
The United Nations World Water Development Report of 2023 highlights that increasing water scarcity and conflict require renewed efforts of cooperative water governance. Like many countries, Tanzania has responded to its emerging water crisis with ambitious hydro-development plans and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) to manage scarce resources more efficiently and sustainably. Yet, the effect of this combination of supply-led infrastructure and demand management strategies is ambiguous. On the one hand, the construction of water-related infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with growing competition for the new water between different user groups, economic sectors, and regions. On the other hand, the nationwide integration of infrastructure and governance reforms mean that conflicts transcend catchments and play out at multiple levels. To investigate the dynamics and tensions between water infrastructure development and governance reforms, we analyse the trajectory of Tanzanian hydro-development in the context of IWRM. We find that the construction of infrastructure within this governance framework connects waterscapes in a way that enables the prioritisation of water transfers from Dar es Salaam to its rural periphery. We argue that IWRM does not necessarily complement new infrastructure, but rather reinforces the redistribution of water scarcity from urban to rural uses. We thus urge caution around the assumed complementarity between these approaches.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2023
Community-based water governance (CBWG) approaches aspire to alleviate multiple challenges around water. They aim to facilitate participation, promote sustainable practices, and create awareness. However, outcomes of community-based projects sometimes fall short of expectations and can even exacerbate the same power asymmetries they attempt to mitigate. In the study area of Mount Kenya West Region (Kenya), land use change, political-institutional restructuring, development inequalities, and climatic changes constitute a contested socio-environmental space. Framed by a multi-scalar Political Ecology and a hydrosocial cycle approach, this study investigates how community-based Water Resource Users Associations (WRUAs) are embedded in this region in water-related challenges and uncertainties, land use change, and transforming power relations. Specifically, the study emphasizes the multiple ways in which hydrosocial interactions shape exclusion and participation around CBWG, as well as different governance performances of two case study
WRUAs at Likii and Nanyuki river. This thesis employs an exploratory qualitative research design with semi-structured interviews, participatory observations, and subsequent qualitative content analysis. Results show that first, perceptions around the attribution of water-related challenges differ remarkably among stakeholders and affect WRUAs’ operations. Second, skyrocketing land acquisitions and intensified land use – mostly through increased small-scale farming – disadvantage specifically pastoralists and altogether overwhelm CBWG capacities. Third, (perceived) crossscalar power asymmetries around water impair governance success, albeit differently among WRUAs. Fourth, in the face of multiple pressures, some WRUAs yield important best-practices and innovations on adaptation and participation. Overall, the study illustrates the importance of scrutinizing hydrosocial processes, underlying governance visions and knowledge forms, and the resulting heterogeneous achievements of WRUAs. A clearer definition of responsibilities, awareness creation, and addressing multi-dimensional inequalities around water can crucially advance CBWG to be truly inclusive, resilient, and versatile.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2022
Along global textile supply chains, the dark side of globalization is repeatedly revealed in the form of human rights violations and environmental damage, the costs of which are usually not borne by those who cause and consume them, but are unevenly and unfairly distributed worldwide. The aim of this master thesis is to work out the connection between social justice and textile supply chains and which role legal regulation mechanisms such as the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act play in this context. By means of interviews with experts, various actors were asked about their interests and expectations of regulatory mechanisms. The political-ecological analysis of the qualitative data shows that socially just textile supply chains depend on the interests and agency of actors. Regulatory mechanisms such as the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act continue to grant a lot of agency to the currently most powerful actors in supply chains, the transnational textile companies, and remain within the capitalist economic system. Civil society actors in particular are using scale jumping to improve the rights of those affected by human rights violations in production countries, to strengthen their agency, and thus to work towards more socially just conditions. With reference to the Politics of Scale coined by Smith (1992, 2008) and Swyngedouw (1997, 2000, 2004), this paper concludes that regulatory mechanisms should be more closely aligned with the needs of workers and that their agency should be strengthened in order to shape more socially just textile supply chains in the long term.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2021
Re-greening the planet by planting trees and restoring forests follows the global trend of increasing environmental awareness. Various concepts have been developed to stop de-forestation and degradation as well as revive forests and forested lands. As such, Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) is a state-of-the-art approach for ecosystem restoration while simultaneously improving people’s livelihood. In this context, Ethiopia, a country particu-larly affected by the implications of climate change, shows a high commitment to various reforestation initiatives to restore its forests and forest lands. However, sustainable FLR implementation faces tremendous challenges, as the success does not solely depend on technical or ecological aspects: supportive governance architectures seem to be even more critical for successful restoration. Based on this, actors, institutions, and policies shape the governance arrangements and influence FLR outcomes in various ways. The entanglement between the three governance dimensions is expressed by conflicting interests as well as diverging power resources. Especially problems, such as overlapping responsibilities, insti-tutional capacity, land tenure and power asymmetries may endanger the success of resto-ration. By means of a case study of Ethiopia, the thesis examines the research question on how far governance influences FLR outcomes. Various facets of forest restoration are un-covered, including their reciprocal political relation, particularly noticeable on one specific scale: the landscape.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2020
Although crucially responding to humanitarian needs in complex crises, the international humanitarian system (IHS) faces severe criticism that it perpetuates the same inequalities it is trying to alleviate. Informed by decolonial theories and practices, this research aims to investigate the impacts that coloniality as the endurance of a colonial system of power, knowledge and being has on the IHS and its problematic outcomes. This research utilized a case study design of humanitarian assistance in Jordan and employed semi-structured expert interviews. Results show that local employees, volunteers, and local NGOs face disproportionate difficulties in the competitive environment of the IHS which hinders the outcomes of humanitarian assistance. At the base of these inequalities lies a division of humanitarians into locals, volunteers, and internationals that hierarchizes these actors and their knowledges along the line of coloniality. This divide privileges mostly White/Western internationals as well as local elites in terms of access to decision-making, employment and tangible assets. Although localization is currently treated as a means to enhance the IHS and its outcomes, the case study illustrates that an uncritical view on localization that ignores the diverse understandings of and intentions behind localization, entails the danger to perpetuate these inequalities. However, it also suggests that localization as aspirations towards decoloniality has potentials to improve humanitarian assistance and to reduce inequalities and power asymmetries within the IHS. This, however, requires to fundamentally challenge the hegemonic nature of the IHS and its understanding of humanitarianism and instead move towards a pluriverse of humanitarian actors and knowledges.
In her master thesis, Melanie Deter explored different life situations of elderly people in rural Tanzania. The thesis carves out how the process of ageing impacts these elderlies’ lives, highlights the heterogeneity within Eastern Africa’s older populations and thereby calibrates the "dominant narrative of Africa’s older people as homogeneously disadvantaged” (ABODERIN 2017: 644). Importantly, the starting point of this thesis is not the interest in the elderlies’ old age security alone but it overcomes this vulnerability-oriented perspective: it is interested in what actually matters to the elderlies not only for their livelihood security but for their individual wellbeing.
By taking a relational perspective, this thesis investigates the disparities amongst the elderly people: it views their lives with regard to their life courses, in relation to intergenerational aspects as well as in interconnections with social markers, particularly class and gender.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2017
Masterstudenten des Seminars "Politik internationaler Klimaverhandlungen" vom Geographischen Institut der Universität Bonn nahmen im Dezember 2015 an der COP 21 in Paris als Beobachter teil. Angelehnt an die Debatte zur De-Politisierung der internationalen Klimapolitik gingen die Studenten Fragestellungen bezüglich der Negation der Pluralität des Klimawandels, dem Re-Politisierungspotenzial zivilgesellschaftlicher Proteste sowie der Problematisierung der Klimawandels durch LDC-Repräsentanen nach. Diese Fragestellungen werden in den Artikeln dieses Themen-Occasional Paper behandelt.
As part of their thesis Lena Rott and Roxana Gabriel analysed the urban refugee accomondation in the city of Remscheid. Thereby they made use of a socio-geographic perspective.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2016
As part of her Master thesis Saskia Antonia von Werder analyzes REDD+, a market-based climate mitigation instrument designed by the UNFCCC to reduce and prevent carbon dioxide emissions from tropical regions. The analysis presented hereafter aims at both understanding the preconditions for REDD+ to be implemented globally, and the examining the impacts of REDD+ on peoples' everyday lives in rural Indonesia. This thesis presents a novel approach to analyze REDD+ by using Henri Lefebvre's theory on "the production of space" as theoretical background.
As part of her bachelor thesis Florence Nick examined the dimension of post-political structures in the current international climate politic. Thereby she analyzed the work of the NGO Climate Action Network International (CAN), a parent organization of more than 950 NGO, and made use of the Grounded Theory approach.
As part of her bachelor thesis Mara Mürlebach applies Erik Swyngedouw's argument of the postpolitical condition to the case of Fairtrade. She argues that Fairtrade not only depoliticizes the strive for change in global trading practices, but also represents Southern producers of Fairtrade goods as powerless figures waiting for the white savior.
Form the 30th of July to the 7th of August 2015 the participants of an excursion to Kenya of the Geographical Institute of the University of Bonn conducted a field school in Naivasha. Focus groups worked on topics like waste management, tourism, consumption, water management or fishery and organized their own empirical study with the support of research assistants from the University of Nairobi for five days under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Detlef Müller-Mahn, Dr. Samuel Owuor and Andreas Gemählich.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2015
As part of her master thesis Katharina Jung raised the question to the degree the volunteers programme Don Bosco Volunteers changes existing patterns of perception and action of the participating volunteers as well as their cultural affiliation and how these experiences can be transferred to the respective social environment.
Helena Inkermann's case study was conducted to investigate the rapid socio-economic and environmental transformation process, its impacts on Afar women living in Baadu, and the options and constraints of social practices of Afar women deriving from the transformation process.
Hannes Lauer, who graduated from the Department of Geography, follows in his paper the ongoing process of mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into development strategies in The Gambia.
Development Geography Occasional Paper 2014
Supervised by Benjamin Etzold, a collective of undergraduate students engages with the transnational lives of migrants.
Luise Meyer, who graduated from the Department of Geography, interrogates in her paper the contested making of urban spaces in Rio de Janeiro in the context of mega-events and urban revitalisation strategies.
