Centre for Space, Place and Society (CSPS)
The Centre for Space, Place and Society (CSPS) brings together researchers from four chair groups within Wageningen University & Research and beyond to advance critical-constructive scholarship within the social sciences.
Our particular focus is on issues of socio-spatial and environmental justice. In investigating dynamics of spatial and social rootedness, connections, and circulations, with special attention to questions of inequality, exclusion, difference and plurality, CSPS seeks to translate knowledge into practical action in pursuit of a more just and equitable world.
Participating chair groups
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Rural Sociology Group
The Rural Sociology Group recombines different sociological theories and interdisciplinary approaches to study the many forms of power, inequality and unevenness. It starts from the everyday life of people to understand transformation processes in agriculture, food provisioning, and rural development from a comparative perspective. Our research provides a theoretically informed understanding of issues of equity, governance, oppression, resistance, and hope by rethinking of possible alternative futures for a more sustainable, just and inclusive society.
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Health and Society Group
We, in the Health and Society Group, see ourselves as embedded in widening circles of engagement with the major challenges facing human and planetary health today. Whether we are studying the domain of people, places, policies, or the planet more broadly, we engage with these domains with the aim to improve health and society.
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Sociology of Development and Change Group
The Sociology of Development and Change group (SDC) focuses on the structures and practices of development and change with a particular scientific interest in inequality, marginalization and political agency. We are a politically engaged and interdisciplinary research and educational centre in development studies, political ecology, anthropology of law and crisis and disaster studies.
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Cultural Geography Group
The Cultural Geography (GEO) chair group is committed to social theory in all its spatial articulations. The group advances creative, critical-constructive scholarship through exploring the ecological and social challenges facing all life on earth. Researching space, place and culture, engaging with current, historic and future dynamics of societies globally, the group pays special attention to questions of inequality, exclusion, mobility, plurality along with deploying critical tourism studies to all aspects of social and environmental sciences, unravelling relational complexities in wilderness to urban settings. Thereby the group translates knowledge into practical action in four closely related fields of application. These are: health & care, tourism, nature and landscape.
Weblog
Our colleagues and students regularly share their research, field experiences, educational journeys, and more. Dive into their stories for an insiders’ perspective.
CSPS team
