News Archive - PhD IDS News

PhD Exchange student from ISS

PhD IDS News

06-09-2019

Yukari Sekine is a PhD Candidate of Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. She is part of the Political Ecology Research Group and will be joining the IEE from September 2019 to February 2020 for a PhD Exchange, funded by the RUB Research School. At the ISS, she was part of the MOSAIC Research Project: "Climate change mitigation policies, land grabbing and conflict in fragile states: understanding intersections, exploring transformations in Myanmar and Cambodia", under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Saturnino ('Jun') Borras Jr. which was concluded in 2018. In Myanmar, her PhD research covers rural politics, the intersection of climate change mitigation and land grabs, and struggles for agrarian, environmental and climate justice. She has conducted fieldwork in the southern Tanintharyi region, a hub of palm oil, extractivism, conservation and land related conflicts. She is also interested in reflecting on the challenges of scholar-activism and the role of academics in their collaboration with grassroots partners. At IEE, she will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Löwenstein and Dr. Gabriele Bäcker, and will collaborate with Anne Siebert on a joint paper, to link conceptually the issues of sovereignty, territory and citizenship. Yukari has an M.A. in Global Studies from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and a B.A. in Journalism from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, in Brazil. She is looking forward to interacting with the researchers and students and getting to know the IEE.