@article{AlffSpies2020, author = {Alff, Henryk and Spies, Michael}, title = {Pfadabh{\"a}ngigkeiten in der Bio{\"o}konomie {\"u}berwinden? Landwirtschaftliche Intensivierungsprozesse aus sozial-{\"o}kologischer Perspektive}, series = {Peripherie: Politik, {\"O}konomie, Kultur}, volume = {40}, journal = {Peripherie: Politik, {\"O}konomie, Kultur}, number = {159/160}, publisher = {Verlag Barbara Budrich}, doi = {10.3224/peripherie.v40i3-4.06}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-2280}, pages = {334 -- 359}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Der Wandel zu einer „bio-basierten" Wirtschaft, wie er in nationalen und internationalen Bio{\"o}konomie-Strategien propagiert wird, kann nur mit tiefgreifenden Ver{\"a}nderungen landwirtschaftlicher Systeme zur Steigerung der Agrarproduktion einhergehen. Besonders in L{\"a}ndern des Globalen S{\"u}dens gingen solche Prozesse jedoch meist mit unbeabsichtigten - oder in Kauf genommenen - negativen Konsequenzen wie Umweltdegradation oder die Versch{\"a}rfung gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheiten einher. Dennoch finden die Kenntnisse {\"u}ber die Risiken bisheriger landwirtschaftlicher Interventionen kaum in politischen Bio{\"o}konomie-Strategien Ber{\"u}cksichtigung, die auf wirtschaftlich-technische L{\"o}sungen einer „nachhaltigen" Intensivierung durch agrartechnologische Innovationen auf der einen, und eine Ausweitung von Produktionsfl{\"a}chen auf der anderen Seite setzen. Wie diese Produktionssteigerungen {\"o}kologisch und sozial nachhaltig gestaltet werden sollen, bleibt unklar, und bisherige Erfahrungen mit derartigen Interventionen lassen eher das Gegenteil bef{\"u}rchten. Anhand von zwei historischen Beispielen - der Gr{\"u}nen Revolution im Punjab Pakistans und der Neulandkampagne in Kasachstan - skizziert der Beitrag die vielschichtigen sozialen und {\"o}kologischen Folgen bisheriger, großangelegter landwirtschaftlicher Interventionen zur Produktionssteigerung und geht der Frage nach, inwiefern diese Erfahrungen (besser) in Bio{\"o}konomie-Strategien Ber{\"u}cksichtigung finden (k{\"o}nnen). Kritische Reflektion sollte dabei vor allem die Rolle institutioneller Pfadabh{\"a}ngigkeiten in der Gestaltung aktueller und zuk{\"u}nftiger Entwicklungen erfahren. Wie bisherige Erfahrungen im Landwirtschaftssektor deutlich machen, m{\"u}ssen Bio{\"o}konomie-Strategien ihren geforderten systemischen Ansatz ernst nehmen - was impliziert, dass technologie- und produktivit{\"a}tsorientierte Ziele stets sozialen und {\"o}kologischen Zielen untergeordnet werden m{\"u}ssen.}, language = {de} } @article{SpiesAlff2020, author = {Spies, Michael and Alff, Henryk}, title = {Assemblages and complex adaptive systems: A conceptual crossroads for integrative research?}, series = {Geography Compass}, volume = {2020}, journal = {Geography Compass}, number = {14}, publisher = {Wiley}, issn = {1749-8198}, doi = {10.1111/gec3.12534}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-2319}, pages = {13}, year = {2020}, abstract = {In human geography and beyond, assemblage thinking has increasingly gained attention as a perspective from which to investigate the emergence and dynamics of more-than-human entanglements. Similarly, in the interdisciplinary field of social-ecological systems analysis, theories of complex adaptive systems have been employed to investigate how social and ecological dynamics and actors interact with each other on different scales. Nonetheless, despite the success of these conceptual perspectives in their respective research fields, there have been few attempts so far to bring these theoretical strands together to explore their common ground and investigate how they could cross-fertilize each other. This contribution seeks to address this gap, by investigating the ontological compatibility of these two approaches and exploring the potential for meaningful syntheses that could be utilized for integrative research—combining perspectives, approaches, and methods taken from social and environmental sciences for the analysis of human-environmental relations. Based on a comparative discussion of four selected "guiding principles" found in assemblage thinking and complex adaptive systems, namely, socio-nature, emergence/historicity, relationality, and self-organization, we find not only significant common ground between the two perspectives but also discrepancies that may be utilized for cross-fertilization. In particular, we argue complex adaptive systems would benefit from a deeper engagement with society-nature theorizations found in the assemblage literature, while assemblage thinking could borrow from complex adaptive systems to broaden its conception of how elements relate to and co-function with each other.}, language = {en} } @article{SpiesZuberiMaehlisetal.2022, author = {Spies, Michael and Zuberi, Mehwish and M{\"a}hlis, Madlen and Zakirova, Aksana and Alff, Henryk and Raab, Christoph}, title = {Towards a participatory systems approach to managing complex bioeconomy interventions in the agrarian sector}, series = {Sustainable Production and Consumption}, journal = {Sustainable Production and Consumption}, number = {31}, publisher = {Elsevier}, issn = {2352-5509}, doi = {10.1016/j.spc.2022.03.020}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-4205}, pages = {557 -- 568}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Calls for a "sustainable bioeconomy" have recently begun to proliferate in academic and political circles as an answer to global challenges such as the rapidly increasing world population and changing environmental conditions due to climate change. To build economies that rely on various sources of biomass rather than on fossil-based resources, bioeconomy policies highlight a need to explore ways in which productivity in agriculture can be increased. While the focus on productivity growth has largely been inspired by technology optimism and modernisation thinking, the local knowledge of farmers and other rural stakeholders - as a means of contributing to socially and ecologically more sustainable bioeconomy pathways - has frequently been sidelined. This perspective article proposes and discusses a participatory approach to strategy formulation and evaluation in agricultural transformation and bioeconomy development that is based on the methodological toolbox MARISCO (Adaptive MAnagement of vulnerability and RISk at COnservation sites). By offering a means of developing a comprehensive knowledge map, bringing together both insights and perspectives from diverse local stakeholders, this approach enables a systemic evaluation of the social and ecological effects of intervention strategies on the ground. The article outlines the benefits - and challenges - of such a systemic and participatory approach and briefly sketches how the results can be utilised in more sustainable governance processes in the development of bioeconomy strategies. We conclude that our adapted MARISCO methodology offers a viable tool to make more visible the perspectives and knowledge of biomass producers for policymakers and to contribute to a much-needed discursive shift in bioeconomy debates towards more holistic and inclusive perspectives.}, language = {en} } @misc{LinYangAlffetal.2021, author = {Lin, Shaun and Yang, Yang and Alff, Henryk and Frost, Mark R. and Kaneti, Marina and Oakes, Tim and Rigg, Jonathan and Rippa, Alessandro and Wang, June and Winter, Tim}, title = {Review forum reading Tim Winter's Geocultural Power: China's Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (2019). 304 pp.; bibliog.; index. ISBN: 978-0-226-65835-3 US \$27.50 (paperback).}, series = {Political Geography}, volume = {84}, journal = {Political Geography}, publisher = {Elsevier}, isbn = {978-0-226-65835-3}, issn = {0962-6298}, doi = {10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102297}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6040}, pages = {10}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @misc{Alff2021, author = {Alff, Henryk}, title = {Book review to: Portuguese decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: history and ethnography. - by Pamila Gupta, London : Bloomsbury, 2019, 240 pp., ISBN: 978-1-350-17472-6}, series = {Journal of the Indian Ocean Region}, volume = {17}, journal = {Journal of the Indian Ocean Region}, number = {2}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, isbn = {978-1-350-17472-6}, issn = {1948-0881}, doi = {10.1080/19480881.2020.1852030}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6029}, pages = {263 -- 265}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @misc{Alff2020, author = {Alff, Henryk}, title = {Book review to: Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin. - by Alun Thomas, London et al.: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, ix‒xii + 257 pp., ISBN 9781350143685}, series = {Nomadic Peoples}, volume = {24}, journal = {Nomadic Peoples}, number = {2}, publisher = {White Horse Press}, isbn = {9781350143685}, issn = {0822-7942}, doi = {10.3197/np.2020.240214}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6037}, pages = {352 -- 354}, year = {2020}, language = {en} } @misc{Alff2022, author = {Alff, Henryk}, title = {Book review to: Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China. - by Alessandro Rippa, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020, 282 pp., ISBN 978-94-6372-560-6}, series = {Journal of Borderlands Studies}, volume = {37}, journal = {Journal of Borderlands Studies}, number = {3}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, isbn = {978-94-6372-560-6}, issn = {0886-5655}, doi = {10.1080/08865655.2022.2046485}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6055}, pages = {659 -- 660}, year = {2022}, language = {en} } @misc{Alff2022, author = {Alff, Henryk}, title = {Book review to: Beyond the Steppe Frontier. A History of the Sino-Russian Border. - S{\"o}ren Urbansky, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020, xiii + 367pp.}, series = {Europe-Asia Studies}, volume = {74}, journal = {Europe-Asia Studies}, number = {3}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, isbn = {9780691181684}, issn = {0966-8136}, doi = {10.1080/09668136.2022.2050559}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6067}, pages = {508 -- 510}, year = {2022}, language = {en} } @incollection{AlffSchmidtSpiesetal.2021, author = {Alff, Henryk and Schmidt, Matthias and Spies, Michael and Steenberg, Rune}, title = {Layered legacies - an introduction}, series = {Beyond post-Soviet: layered legacies and transformations in Central Asia}, booktitle = {Beyond post-Soviet: layered legacies and transformations in Central Asia}, editor = {Schmidt, Matthias and Steenberg, Rune and Spies, Michael and Alff, Henryk}, publisher = {Institut f{\"u}r Geographie, Universit{\"a}t Augsburg}, address = {Augsburg}, organization = {Universit{\"a}t Augsburg}, isbn = {978-3-948283-05-6}, issn = {1862-8680}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-4160}, publisher = {Hochschule f{\"u}r nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde}, pages = {4 -- 6}, year = {2021}, language = {en} } @article{ZakirovaAlffSchmidt2023, author = {Zakirova, Aksana and Alff, Henryk and Schmidt, Matthias}, title = {Cash crop or food crop? socioeconomic and geopolitical factors affecting smallholder farmer crop selection in times of crisis in southwestern Tajikistan}, series = {Frontiers in Agronomy}, journal = {Frontiers in Agronomy}, number = {5}, publisher = {Frontiers}, issn = {2673-3218}, doi = {10.3389/fagro.2023.1228165}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7972}, pages = {14}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Tajikistan's agricultural sector, primarily dominated by cotton cultivation, has experienced significant changes since the Soviet era. Although farmers introduced food crops into agricultural production to ensure food security after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the government still mandates that cotton cultivation occupy a considerable portion of Tajikistan's limited irrigated land. However, following the recent Covid-19 pandemic crisis, farmers have encountered the need to reassess their agricultural practices, given constrained governmental assistance and a range of socioeconomic considerations. This research adopts resilience as a conceptual framework to examine the coping strategies of smallholder farmers in the Khatlon region of Tajikistan, with a specific emphasis on the period spanning from 2019 to 2022. At the outset, our research employed the snowballing technique to increase respondent participation, later transitioning to a representative sample size that facilitated the collection of qualitative data from around 100 semi-structured interviews, 10 focus groups, and personal visits to agricultural fields over the course of four years. The paper not only demonstrates the overall creativity of Tajikistani farmers in growing and selecting non-cotton crops in this most recent period of crisis, but also points to wealthier farmers' generally greater willingness to adopt technological innovations and gain new knowledge to apply to them. Although these strategies have been taken in order to address farmers' immediate needs in troubled times against the backdrop of the existing state cotton policy, their sustainability remains uncertain. While the qualitative focus of this study bears certain inherent limitations, the data collected nevertheless show that this period of crisis has been generative for many farmers as they seek out new methods of subsistence.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{ZuberiSpiesAlffetal.2021, author = {Zuberi, Mehwish and Spies, Michael and Alff, Henryk and Raab, Christoph and Zakirova, Aksana}, title = {Participatory knowledge mapping as a basis of decision making for sustainable agrarian land use systems}, series = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, booktitle = {Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021}, editor = {Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF),}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7716}, pages = {64}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Agricultural systems world-wide are facing an increasing level of uncertainty and risk in light of unprecedented climate and environmental change. The ecological challenges for agrarian sectors are further complicated by social factors such as growing world population and an expanding demand for biomass-based products. Formalized knowledge structures can benefit from approaches that consolidate informal local knowledge networks in understanding social and ecological change related causal chains (Teng{\"o} et al., 2013). This is especially relevant for the research-policy interface concerning sustainable agrarian system management. As part of the junior research group TRANSECT, which investigates the social-ecological effects and interdependencies of agrarian transformations in Central and South Asia, a framework for knowledge mapping on sustainable land use systems is under development. We aim to bring together knowledge from local land users and other relevant stakeholders to develop future policy scenarios related to bio-based economy in the agrarian sector and to critically assess their social and ecological consequences on the ground. Our proposed framework is inspired by previous experiences with the MARISCO method (Ibisch and Hobson, 2014; www.marisco.training), a methodology for the adaptive management of risk and vulnerability, developed at the Center for Econics and Ecosystem Management in the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. This approach has been applied in various projects of natural resource management as a tool that allows the collection of complex and diffused knowledge from different sources, and to structure, evaluate, and prepare for the development of integrated solutions. The visual presentation of existing knowledge in the form of 'knowledge maps' that raise awareness of ignorance, and the systemic identification of knowledge gaps and risks are central features of MARISCO method (Ibisch and Hobson, 2014). While the original methodology provides an established and proven toolbox for evaluating the ecological dimension of complex socio-environmental challenges, our inspired methodology elaborates on the social dimension of environmental and societal threats as well as policy interventions, for which we find it crucial to put a stronger emphasis on equity. In contrast to the more ecosystem-focused MARISCO method, a central feature of our approach is a socially differentiated analysis that distinguishes between different social groups or strata when evaluating social (and ecosystem) services and the (social) impact of stresses or threats. We will introduce and elaborate on our proposed participatory and socially differentiated approach for knowledge mapping on sustainable land use systems with illustrative examples from experiences in Central Asia. As our current experience shows, a key challenge in designing and implementing such approaches is to take social-ecological complexity seriously while keeping the method manageable for regular workshop settings without overburdening participants.}, language = {en} } @article{AlffKonysbayevSalmyrzauly2023, author = {Alff, Henryk and Konysbayev, Talgarbay and Salmyrzauly, Ruslan}, title = {Old stereotypes and new openness: discourses and practices of trans-border re- and disconnection in south-eastern Kazakhstan's agricultural sector}, series = {Eurasian Geography and Economics}, journal = {Eurasian Geography and Economics}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, issn = {1538-7216}, doi = {10.1080/15387216.2023.2169184}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6340}, pages = {23}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Since the Soviet breakup, rural communities in the Kazakhstan-China borderlands have faced cataclysmic social, economic, and ecological transformations. Collective and state farms have been replaced by precarious smallholder agriculture suffering from a decline in financial inputs and the deterioration of infrastructure. At the same time, dynamic transformations of border permeability (and trans-border reconnections) between Kazakhstan and China have challenged the until relatively recent widespread Soviet rhetoric on Western China (or rather Xinjiang) as an underdeveloped space across the border. This article is based on several months of fieldwork between 2019 and 2021 in Panfilov District, located at major cross-border road and railway intersections and hosting important infrastructural objects, such as a dry port, a major railway transhipment hub, and a trans-border special economic zone. The article explores how the border situation (and the border's changing permeability for people, commodities, and ideas since the early 1990s) as well as the implementation of new trans-border infrastructures eventually shaped local discourses and practices in the socio-economic development of south-east Kazakhstan's agricultural sector. It is scrutinized herein how various forms of trans-border socio-economic interactions (although heavily regulated) and China's (agri-) economic policy in Xinjiang started to affect farmers' ambitions and practices across the border.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Alff2022, author = {Alff, Henryk}, title = {Post-Soviet Decline or China-Induced Prosperity? Agricultural and Socio-Economic Change in the Kazakhstan-China Borderlands}, series = {Post-Soviet Borders : A Kaleidoscope of Shifting Lives and Lands}, booktitle = {Post-Soviet Borders : A Kaleidoscope of Shifting Lives and Lands}, editor = {von L{\"o}wis, Sabine and Eschment, Beate}, publisher = {Routledge}, isbn = {9781003169376}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6176}, publisher = {Hochschule f{\"u}r nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde}, pages = {15}, year = {2022}, language = {en} } @article{Alff2020, author = {Alff, Henryk}, title = {Belts and roads every- and nowhere: Conceptualizing infrastructural corridorization in the Indian Ocean}, series = {Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space}, volume = {38}, journal = {Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space}, number = {5}, publisher = {Sage}, doi = {10.1177/2399654420911410c}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-5508}, pages = {815 -- 819}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This article scrutinizes the Maritime Silk Road Initiative by framing it not as a static, state-centric device to channel Chinese developmental ambitions, but by emphasizing the flexible character of its production and the provisional configuration of its materialization. It draws on assemblage theory as a conceptual angle to, on the one hand, focus on the agentive character of human and non-human 'actors' such as 'traveling' discourses of development or infrastructures to explore Maritime Silk Road Initiative's materialization 'on the ground' in its emergent rather than resultant way, on the other.}, language = {en} }