TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Spies, Michael T1 - Pfadabhängigkeiten in der Bioökonomie überwinden? Landwirtschaftliche Intensivierungsprozesse aus sozial-ökologischer Perspektive JF - Peripherie: Politik, Ökonomie, Kultur N2 - Der Wandel zu einer „bio-basierten“ Wirtschaft, wie er in nationalen und internationalen Bioökonomie-Strategien propagiert wird, kann nur mit tiefgreifenden Veränderungen landwirtschaftlicher Systeme zur Steigerung der Agrarproduktion einhergehen. Besonders in Ländern des Globalen Südens gingen solche Prozesse jedoch meist mit unbeabsichtigten – oder in Kauf genommenen – negativen Konsequenzen wie Umweltdegradation oder die Verschärfung gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheiten einher. Dennoch finden die Kenntnisse über die Risiken bisheriger landwirtschaftlicher Interventionen kaum in politischen Bioökonomie-Strategien Berücksichtigung, die auf wirtschaftlich-technische Lösungen einer „nachhaltigen“ Intensivierung durch agrartechnologische Innovationen auf der einen, und eine Ausweitung von Produktionsflächen auf der anderen Seite setzen. Wie diese Produktionssteigerungen ökologisch und sozial nachhaltig gestaltet werden sollen, bleibt unklar, und bisherige Erfahrungen mit derartigen Interventionen lassen eher das Gegenteil befürchten. Anhand von zwei historischen Beispielen – der Grünen Revolution im Punjab Pakistans und der Neulandkampagne in Kasachstan – skizziert der Beitrag die vielschichtigen sozialen und ökologischen Folgen bisheriger, großangelegter landwirtschaftlicher Interventionen zur Produktionssteigerung und geht der Frage nach, inwiefern diese Erfahrungen (besser) in Bioökonomie-Strategien Berücksichtigung finden (können). Kritische Reflektion sollte dabei vor allem die Rolle institutioneller Pfadabhängigkeiten in der Gestaltung aktueller und zukünftiger Entwicklungen erfahren. Wie bisherige Erfahrungen im Landwirtschaftssektor deutlich machen, müssen Bioökonomie-Strategien ihren geforderten systemischen Ansatz ernst nehmen – was impliziert, dass technologie- und produktivitätsorientierte Ziele stets sozialen und ökologischen Zielen untergeordnet werden müssen. KW - Landwirtschaft KW - Bioökonomie-Strategien KW - Produktionssteigerung KW - Grüne Revolution KW - Neulandkampagne KW - Pakistan KW - Kasachstan Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-2280 VL - 40 IS - 159/160 SP - 334 EP - 359 PB - Verlag Barbara Budrich ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spies, Michael A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - Assemblages and complex adaptive systems: A conceptual crossroads for integrative research? JF - Geography Compass N2 - 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. KW - historicity KW - more-than-human social theory KW - relationality KW - social-ecological systems KW - socio-natures Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-2319 SN - 1749-8198 VL - 2020 IS - 14 PB - Wiley ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Schmidt, Matthias A1 - Spies, Michael A1 - Steenberg, Rune ED - Schmidt, Matthias ED - Steenberg, Rune ED - Spies, Michael ED - Alff, Henryk T1 - Layered legacies - an introduction T2 - Beyond post-Soviet: layered legacies and transformations in Central Asia T3 - Geographica Augustana - 33 Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-4160 UR - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/89035 SN - 978-3-948283-05-6 SN - 1862-8680 SP - 4 EP - 6 PB - Institut für Geographie, Universität Augsburg CY - Augsburg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spies, Michael A1 - Zuberi, Mehwish A1 - Mählis, Madlen A1 - Zakirova, Aksana A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Raab, Christoph T1 - Towards a participatory systems approach to managing complex bioeconomy interventions in the agrarian sector JF - Sustainable Production and Consumption N2 - 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. KW - Bio-based economy; Participatory methods; Social-ecological systems; Intensification; Agriculture Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-4205 SN - 2352-5509 IS - 31 SP - 557 EP - 568 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - Belts and roads every- and nowhere: Conceptualizing infrastructural corridorization in the Indian Ocean JF - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space N2 - 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. KW - Maritime Silk Road Initiative; development; assemblage theory; area studies Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-5508 VL - 38 IS - 5 SP - 815 EP - 819 PB - Sage ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zakirova, Aksana A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Schmidt, Matthias T1 - Cash crop or food crop? socioeconomic and geopolitical factors affecting smallholder farmer crop selection in times of crisis in southwestern Tajikistan JF - Frontiers in Agronomy N2 - 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. KW - resilience; coping strategies; subsistence; post-Soviet; Covid-19; Central Asia Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7972 SN - 2673-3218 IS - 5 PB - Frontiers ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Zuberi, Mehwish A1 - Spies, Michael A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Raab, Christoph A1 - Zakirova, Aksana ED - Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF), T1 - Participatory knowledge mapping as a basis of decision making for sustainable agrarian land use systems BT - Book of Abstracts T2 - Landscape 2021 Diversity for sustainable and resilient agriculture, Online conference, 20.-22.09.2021 N2 - 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 (Tengö 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. KW - Participatory knowledge mapping; social-ecological systems Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7716 SP - 64 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Konysbayev, Talgarbay A1 - Salmyrzauly, Ruslan T1 - Old stereotypes and new openness: discourses and practices of trans-border re- and disconnection in south-eastern Kazakhstan’s agricultural sector JF - Eurasian Geography and Economics N2 - 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. KW - Agriculture; infrastructures; China; Central Asia Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6340 SN - 1538-7216 PB - Taylor & Francis ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Alff, Henryk ED - von Löwis, Sabine ED - Eschment, Beate T1 - Post-Soviet Decline or China-Induced Prosperity? Agricultural and Socio-Economic Change in the Kazakhstan-China Borderlands T2 - Post-Soviet Borders : A Kaleidoscope of Shifting Lives and Lands Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6176 SN - 9781003169376 PB - Routledge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - 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 JF - Journal of the Indian Ocean Region Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6029 SN - 978-1-350-17472-6 SN - 1948-0881 SN - 1948-108X VL - 17 IS - 2 SP - 263 EP - 265 PB - Taylor & Francis ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - 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 JF - Nomadic Peoples Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6037 SN - 9781350143685 SN - 0822-7942 SN - 1752-2366 VL - 24 IS - 2 SP - 352 EP - 354 PB - White Horse Press ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lin, Shaun A1 - Yang, Yang A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Frost, Mark R. A1 - Kaneti, Marina A1 - Oakes, Tim A1 - Rigg, Jonathan A1 - Rippa, Alessandro A1 - Wang, June A1 - Winter, Tim T1 - 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). JF - Political Geography Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6040 SN - 978-0-226-65835-3 SN - 0962-6298 SN - 1873-5096 VL - 84 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - 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 JF - Journal of Borderlands Studies Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6055 SN - 978-94-6372-560-6 SN - 0886-5655 SN - 2159-1229 VL - 37 IS - 3 SP - 659 EP - 660 PB - Taylor & Francis ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - Book review to: Beyond the Steppe Frontier. A History of the Sino–Russian Border. - Sören Urbansky, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020, xiii + 367pp. JF - Europe-Asia Studies Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6067 SN - 9780691181684 SN - 0966-8136 SN - 1465-3427 VL - 74 IS - 3 SP - 508 EP - 510 PB - Taylor & Francis ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Spies, Michael A1 - Zakirova, Aksana A1 - Zuberi, Mehwish A1 - Schick, Axel A1 - Alff, Henryk T1 - Participatory Strategy Development for Sustainable Biomass Production (PARSCO): A Practical Guide Using the MARISCO Toolbox N2 - This guide provides a structured methodology for developing and critically assessing strategies for sustainable food and biomass production through a participatory and systemic approach. It responds to the limitations of mainstream policies and strategies in agriculture and bioeconomy, which often prioritize technological solutions and lack bottom-up engagement of local stakeholders in knowledge-building and decision-making. The PARSCO methodology presented in this guidebook is an adaptation of the MARISCO toolbox (Adaptive MAnagement of vulnerability and RISk at COnservation sites) developed at the Centre for Econics and Ecosystem Management. It has been tailored to assess and improve food and biomass production systems based on local knowledge, diverse stakeholder perspectives, and a systemic situation analysis using knowledge mapping and multi-criteria analysis tools. PARSCO is a landscape-based method primarily designed for application in local or regional settings, involving a series of participatory workshops with local stakeholders. It was developed over a period of five years at Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development and tested in workshops with smallholder farmers and other local actors in rural Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. The guidebook serves as a step-by-step manual for practitioners, planners, and transdisciplinary researchers applying PARSCO in project planning, policy evaluation, and sustainable land management. It emphasizes the importance of systemic thinking—understanding the interconnectedness and complex dynamics of social-ecological systems—and participatory decision-making to ensure inclusive, effective, and context-specific solutions. As a standalone guidebook, it can also be used as a complementary resource to existing MARISCO guides by offering more detailed guidance on the facilitation of participatory processes. KW - participatory methods KW - knowledge co-creation KW - bioeconomy KW - agriculture KW - ecosystem management Y1 - 2025 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-9928 CY - Eberswalde ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zakirova, Aksana A1 - Alff, Henryk A1 - Schmidt, Matthias T1 - Unequal fields: Political ecology perspective on organic cotton production in Tajikistan JF - Organic Agriculture N2 - Abstract The paper explores the adoption of organic cotton production by smallholder farmers in Tajikistan’s northern Sughd and southwestern Khatlon regions through the lens of political ecology. The research focuses on the complex interactions among socio-economic, environmental and political variables that influence the decision-making processes of Tajikistani smallholders as they navigate the transition towards adopting organic farming practices. This transition, initiated and guided by the external actors, largely from high-income nations, emphasizes broader power dynamics and asymmetries inherent within the global agricultural system. In addition to illuminating the pivotal role of smallholder farmers in sustainable agriculture and rural development, we ask how power relations, institutional frameworks, and market dynamics impacts the adoption of organic cotton by smallholders in Tajikistan, and the implications this has for local communities. By exploring these dimensions, we emphasize the need for supportive policies and the development of inclusive market mechanisms. This study acknowledges the vulnerability of smallholders to the volatility of the global organic cotton markets, influenced by external shocks such as pandemics, wars, and natural hazards. Considering the absence of domestic markets for organic produce in Tajikistan, we stress the reliance of smallholders on turbulent external markets, highlighting the urgent need for resilient and diversified market linkages to safeguard their livelihoods. KW - - KW - Organic cotton KW - Tajikistan KW - Smallholder farmers KW - Foreign aid KW - External actors Y1 - 2025 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-10242 SN - 1879-4238 SN - 1879-4246 VL - 15 IS - 2 SP - 183 EP - 198 PB - Springer Netherlands CY - Dordrecht ER -