TY - JOUR A1 - Luo, Anran A1 - Zuberi, Mehwish A1 - Liu, Jiayu A1 - Perrone, Miranda A1 - Schnepf, Simone A1 - Leipold, Sina T1 - Why common interests and collective action are not enough for environmental cooperation – Lessons from the China-EU cooperation discourse on circular economy JF - Global Environmental Change N2 - Scholars have argued that circular economy (CE) must be upscaled and globalized to address excessive resource extraction and waste generation. Many CE practitioners consider the first international CE agreement between China and the EU a milestone towards such an effort. This analysis shows why this expectation is premature. European and Chinese stakeholders’ optimistic and depoliticized CE narratives disable communication regarding development disparities, negative competition and distrust, which shape geopolitical rivalry. While skeptical narratives that address political barriers exist, they fall short of suggesting alternatives. Based on 72 stakeholder interviews, 40 documents and participant observation, these results highlight the critical importance of investigating narrative strategies to repoliticize environmental cooperation. Such narrative strategies would support contestation and negotiation on development disparities and open channels for joint conceptualization of implementation scales for environmental strategies, circular or otherwise. We therefore propose using constructivist perspectives of international relations to explore discursive barriers and enablers to global environmental action. KW - Development KW - Trust KW - Circular economy KW - China KW - EU KW - International trade KW - Environmental cooperation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-2554 VL - 71 PB - Elsevier 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 - Zuberi, Mehwish T1 - Between Disconnects and Flows: Reflections on Doing Fieldwork in Rural South Punjab during the Covid-19 Pandemic JF - Südasien-Chronik - South Asia Chronicle KW - Qualitative Fieldwork; Rural; Covid-19; Insider-Outsider; Positionality; Geography; Pakistan Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-6186 SN - 978-3-86004-348-6 VL - 11 SP - 521 EP - 540 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Zuberi, Mehwish ED - Follmann, Alexander ED - Müller, Judith ED - Falk, Gregor C. T1 - Agriculture in flux : Insights into agricultural transformations and possible scenarios in South Punjab, Pakistan T2 - Aktuelle Forschungsbeiträge zu Südasien: 10. Jahrestagung des AK Südasien, 24./25. Januar 2020, Freiburg KW - Agricultural intensification; Green Revolution; Climate Change Adaption; Pakistan Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7556 SN - 978-3-948791-04-9 SP - 31 EP - 34 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 - Zuberi, Mehwish A1 - Raab, Christoph A1 - Spies, Michael T1 - Landnutzungswandel im Baumwollgürtel Pakistans : Gen-Baumwolle, Agrardiversifizierung und ökologische Herausforderungen im Süden des Punjab JF - Geographische Rundschau N2 - Baumwolle ist die ökonomisch wichtigste Nutzpflanze Pakistans, weshalb die Region Südpunjab mit dem dort gelegenen Baumwollgürtel eine zentrale Rolle für die Landwirtschaft des Landes darstellt. Berichte über einen drastischen Rückgang der Baumwollproduktion in der Region haben in den letzten Jahren landesweit Besorgnis ausgelöst. Die derzeitige Baumwollkrise ist zumindest zum Teil auf die unkontrollierte, massive Verbreitung von gentechnisch veränderten Baumwollsorten, auch bekannt als Bt-Baumwolle, zurückzuführen. Im Distrikt Multan, dem Zentrum des Südpunjab, haben viele Baumwollproduzenten auf alternative Anbaukulturen umgestellt. Die Diversifizierung als Anpassungsoption steht jedoch nicht allen zur Verfügung und schließt insbesondere ärmere bäuerliche Haushalte aus. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-5265 SN - 0016-7460 IS - 4 SP - 20 EP - 25 PB - Westermann Bildungsmedien Verlag GmbH ER -