Now that Christmas is so near (and it's really quiet at work) - I should be heading home soon. There is, however, some time left for a cup of tea and rounding up the autumn term. So, what has happened the past few months?
Well, the second article has undergone minor revisions and is submitted to a journal about a week ago. The third article has been revised and resubmitted halfway into November. The fourth article is sent for review together with the other chapters (by other authors) to be combined into an anthology on "Place and Identity".
We have moved to Forumhuset at Örebro University and two of us who started their PhD studies in september 2007 have finalised their project: November set the scene for Sanna's and Marcus' Dissertation parties. Moreover, Peter has had his final seminar and will be defending his Dissertation in April. Also, the organisation of CUReS is being revised and next year will bring some changes: from an institutionalised research centre, we will become a more loosely organised network.
Next year will probably also bring a trip to Los Angeles, where the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers will be held. Some weeks later, in May, I'm supposed to have my Kappa finished for a final seminar. So, that's what I should start with right after the Christmas break: writing a Kappa (synthesis)!
But first, Merry Christmas and a Mobile New Year!
Friday, 21 December 2012
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Lifestyle Migration Hub
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Almost a year...
Almost a year has passed since the latest item was published on this blog. I have been meaning to write, but "time flies", as the spatio-temporal saying goes...
Those 12 months in retrospect:
Since 1 August 2012, I am back at work after 8 months of paternity leave. Besides much administrative efforts, some reading and writing has been done during the past weeks.
Hopefully, the next item on this blog will not take another year to be published!
Those 12 months in retrospect:
In November 2011, a manuscript on international rural placemarketing was finalised and submitted. In that month and the next, I was teaching on a course on population, mobility and urbanisation. In January, a conference on Place Branding was organised, in Utrecht, on which I gained many interesting insights in (mainly) city branding, and how it may or may not be translated into rural areas. I also presented a paper on rural place branding, which may be published in an e-book on the organisors website.
Since 1 August 2012, I am back at work after 8 months of paternity leave. Besides much administrative efforts, some reading and writing has been done during the past weeks.
- For a course on Classical Geographical Texts, in which I have been enrolled since 2008, I finally found time and inspiration to write the final paper. I decided to focus on senses of place (Tuan) and affect (Thrift).
- Simultaneously, I have been working on an article about Lifestyle migration to the North, for which I received comments in July. This article was the subject of a short seminar at Aspa Mansion south of Örebro, as part of the annual internal meeting with CUReS in August.
- At that meeting, plans were discussed for the publication of a reader on place and identity, which may be on it's way before the end of the year. Ten texts/chapters are written. Contacts with the publisher will hopefully result in more information and perhaps more concrete planning.
- A schedule is planned for a course on population, mobility and urbanisation, to be taught in November and December 2012.
- Preparations are made for a final Seminar (Slutseminarium) for one of my colleague PhD Candidates, on Thursday 12 September.
- A lot of reading rather theoretical texts needs to be done, in order to prepare for writing a synthesis (Kappa) for my upcoming dissertation.
This gives rise to looking forward. Also in this case, one can speak of almost a year. Either in June, September or October 2013, I will probably defend my dissertation. But first, around March next year, my final Seminar is due. Untill that time, so much work is to be done; finalising two articles and a chapter, writing a Kappa, finding an opponent for the final Seminar, etc.
Also next year, two interesting events are organised, in which some of our Human Geography department may participate; the biannual Nordic Geographer's Meeting (NGM), in June 2013 in Reykjavík (IS) and a conference on Emotional Geographies in Groningen (NL) a month later.
Hopefully, the next item on this blog will not take another year to be published!
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Articles, Conferences, Lectures
It's been a month now, since I started working again after the long summer holidyas and paternity leave. At the moment, it feels like I'm there again, in the middle of the PhD jungle! In 6 weeks time, my real period of paternity leave will start, so I am about half way this autumn period, that was supposed to be a very productive time.
First of all, it took about two weeks to start it all up again. I transcribed an interview, which was a lot of work, but valuable. During this work, reflections came up about how to organise the autumn months. It all centres around three manuscripts;
- one about rural Swedish municipalities engaging in rural place marketing efforts, as descirbed earlier by Niedomysl and Heldt Cassell. However, a nordic dimension, an international approach and rural destinations make this study timely. This is supposed to result in an article, number 2 so far.
- one about ambivalence and identity shift after migration. How things that we moved away from in the country of origin can develop into triggers of return migration. This is supposed to become a chapter in an anthology with the working title "Place and Identity".
- one about the decision making process prior to moving from urban Netherlands to rural Sweden. This is the least develoepd one so far, but still it is supposed to result in article number 3.
In order to test some ideas, I will be attending the second edition of the Nordic Urban Workshop in Stockholm next week. This is a valuable platform as it consists mainly of PhD students, some of whom we met during the first edition in Örebro one year ago. A month or two later - yes I'll take a day off from my leave - I hope to attend an international conference on Place Branding in Utrecht. Many presentations are scheduled for this event, and at least two may prove interrelated with the article I'm currently working on (Art.2). One about marketing rural areas in general and another about branding coal mining identities of South Wales. Looking forward to those presentations!
In the mean time, of course, I prepare lectures for the course on Population Geography. After all, that seems to be my field!
First of all, it took about two weeks to start it all up again. I transcribed an interview, which was a lot of work, but valuable. During this work, reflections came up about how to organise the autumn months. It all centres around three manuscripts;
- one about rural Swedish municipalities engaging in rural place marketing efforts, as descirbed earlier by Niedomysl and Heldt Cassell. However, a nordic dimension, an international approach and rural destinations make this study timely. This is supposed to result in an article, number 2 so far.
- one about ambivalence and identity shift after migration. How things that we moved away from in the country of origin can develop into triggers of return migration. This is supposed to become a chapter in an anthology with the working title "Place and Identity".
- one about the decision making process prior to moving from urban Netherlands to rural Sweden. This is the least develoepd one so far, but still it is supposed to result in article number 3.
In order to test some ideas, I will be attending the second edition of the Nordic Urban Workshop in Stockholm next week. This is a valuable platform as it consists mainly of PhD students, some of whom we met during the first edition in Örebro one year ago. A month or two later - yes I'll take a day off from my leave - I hope to attend an international conference on Place Branding in Utrecht. Many presentations are scheduled for this event, and at least two may prove interrelated with the article I'm currently working on (Art.2). One about marketing rural areas in general and another about branding coal mining identities of South Wales. Looking forward to those presentations!
In the mean time, of course, I prepare lectures for the course on Population Geography. After all, that seems to be my field!
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Spring & Summer 2011
In the midst of Summer 2011, it's finally time for only the second item of the year. Now that I've been on paternity leave and waiting for the second little one to come since the 4th of July, I've some spare time for an attempt to summarise the past months of 2011:
- lecturing; the course on Population, Urbanisation and Mobility in a slightly altered format, as well as a complete new format for the course on writing a minor academic thesis (B-uppsats). This second course was joined with the former course on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to result in an integrated map-and-report assignment.
- conferences; the final week of the GIS-report course coincided with the 4th biannual Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM) in Roskilde, Denmark. Thus, this week at the end of May was quite a challenge, where Anders and me found ourselves replying to students' e-mails before breakfast at 7 am in our B&B at the Danish countryside. The other conference was the 6th International Conference on Population Geographies (ICPG) in Umeå with many interesting contributions and a conference diner at the archipelago of Norrbyskär. Next ICPG will be held in Groningen in 2013!
- manuscripts; Mostly during June, I've been writing and editing a number of manuscripts for my Dissertation. The first article, on international counterurbanisation, was in need of minor revisions which were to be done in due time. The second and third articles, on rural place marketing and the decision to migrate from the Netherlands to rural Sweden respectively, are in the course of creation. Last but not least, a chapter on mobility, place and ambivalence is in the making. This manuscript is supposed to be a contribution to an anthology on place and identity, to be published by CUReS. We will have a meeting in Bredsjö in August in order to discuss progression considering the Anthology.
- fieldwork; at the basis for the manuscripts lies fieldwork covering some months and a number of observations and interviews at emigration fairs and with Dutch households in Bergslagen. This fieldwork will be continued after my paternity leave ends in September.
By the way, needless to say that this blog is simply an online diary of a PhD Student in Sweden. For more contents and debates, one may take a look at Bo Malmberg's or Lena Sommestad's weblogs.
- lecturing; the course on Population, Urbanisation and Mobility in a slightly altered format, as well as a complete new format for the course on writing a minor academic thesis (B-uppsats). This second course was joined with the former course on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to result in an integrated map-and-report assignment.
- conferences; the final week of the GIS-report course coincided with the 4th biannual Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM) in Roskilde, Denmark. Thus, this week at the end of May was quite a challenge, where Anders and me found ourselves replying to students' e-mails before breakfast at 7 am in our B&B at the Danish countryside. The other conference was the 6th International Conference on Population Geographies (ICPG) in Umeå with many interesting contributions and a conference diner at the archipelago of Norrbyskär. Next ICPG will be held in Groningen in 2013!
- manuscripts; Mostly during June, I've been writing and editing a number of manuscripts for my Dissertation. The first article, on international counterurbanisation, was in need of minor revisions which were to be done in due time. The second and third articles, on rural place marketing and the decision to migrate from the Netherlands to rural Sweden respectively, are in the course of creation. Last but not least, a chapter on mobility, place and ambivalence is in the making. This manuscript is supposed to be a contribution to an anthology on place and identity, to be published by CUReS. We will have a meeting in Bredsjö in August in order to discuss progression considering the Anthology.
- fieldwork; at the basis for the manuscripts lies fieldwork covering some months and a number of observations and interviews at emigration fairs and with Dutch households in Bergslagen. This fieldwork will be continued after my paternity leave ends in September.
By the way, needless to say that this blog is simply an online diary of a PhD Student in Sweden. For more contents and debates, one may take a look at Bo Malmberg's or Lena Sommestad's weblogs.
Monday, 3 January 2011
New year, new plans
So, and 2011 it is :)
Christmas Holidays went by too fast, as always.
The days before the holidays were hectic, as always.
On 16 December, Mats, Dieter and me had a meeting about our plans and basically we discussed the two articles to come. It was about time to start writing, so this is what I'll do the coming weeks. I'll write about place marketing and public private partnerships (PPP's) in order to have an introduction for the second article. For the third article, the introduction will have to concentrate on the life course perspective and decision making processes. For the planning of the months ahead, this means the following:
First and foremost, I need to finalise the paper for the course on Geographical perspectives on Heritage industries (Swedish abreviation: GPKU) in Central Sweden. This is in fact a warm-up for the two articles to come.
Soon, on 19 January I'll head for the Netherlands in order to visit Placement's Scandinavia Day in Hoevelaken. Here, I'll will mostly observe and study in practice what I've learned about palce marketing techniques so far. In February, the big Emigration Fair is organised in Houten, Utrecht. I'll also visit this fair and observer the stands hold by the Swedish actors and see how they attract hundreds of Dutch families to come and live with them.
Meanwhile, plans are made for fieldwork in March, where I'll finally make my data "talk". I'll conduct semi-structured interviews with a number of Dutch actors in Central Sweden. They should be entrepreneurs, lifestyle migrnats and families. This way, an investigation can be amde of what expectations and aspirations the Swedish municipalities had when starting their Holland-projects. It can also be examined in what way and to what degree these aims are fulfilled. The same goes for the Dutch familes: what goals, and wishes did they have and what are their (post-)migration experiences? This could be supported theoretically by the work of Baumann, Giddens, Urry, Harvey, Lefebvre and the like.
So many other plans exist simultaneously; lecturing in the course on population, urbanisation and mobility, as well as in a course on a project resulting in a socalled B-paper, one level before the Bachelor thesis. In May, there will be a Nordic Geographers meeting in Roskilde, in June tehre will be a meeting for Population Geographers in Umeå. I hope to be able to present some results in connection to the above named articles at both of these confrerences. But first, in February, us geographers in Örebro will host a small workshop for a Swedish network of population geographers.
Also before the holidays, we were a small delegation from Örebro to witness a colleague in Borlänge at the defence of his Dissertation on 17 December. This was very interesting, thinking about my own work ahead. But for now, a slow start is what I want - not many have returned to office after these two weeks. This may facilitate the work on the paper for GPKU.
Christmas Holidays went by too fast, as always.
The days before the holidays were hectic, as always.
On 16 December, Mats, Dieter and me had a meeting about our plans and basically we discussed the two articles to come. It was about time to start writing, so this is what I'll do the coming weeks. I'll write about place marketing and public private partnerships (PPP's) in order to have an introduction for the second article. For the third article, the introduction will have to concentrate on the life course perspective and decision making processes. For the planning of the months ahead, this means the following:
First and foremost, I need to finalise the paper for the course on Geographical perspectives on Heritage industries (Swedish abreviation: GPKU) in Central Sweden. This is in fact a warm-up for the two articles to come.
Soon, on 19 January I'll head for the Netherlands in order to visit Placement's Scandinavia Day in Hoevelaken. Here, I'll will mostly observe and study in practice what I've learned about palce marketing techniques so far. In February, the big Emigration Fair is organised in Houten, Utrecht. I'll also visit this fair and observer the stands hold by the Swedish actors and see how they attract hundreds of Dutch families to come and live with them.
Meanwhile, plans are made for fieldwork in March, where I'll finally make my data "talk". I'll conduct semi-structured interviews with a number of Dutch actors in Central Sweden. They should be entrepreneurs, lifestyle migrnats and families. This way, an investigation can be amde of what expectations and aspirations the Swedish municipalities had when starting their Holland-projects. It can also be examined in what way and to what degree these aims are fulfilled. The same goes for the Dutch familes: what goals, and wishes did they have and what are their (post-)migration experiences? This could be supported theoretically by the work of Baumann, Giddens, Urry, Harvey, Lefebvre and the like.
So many other plans exist simultaneously; lecturing in the course on population, urbanisation and mobility, as well as in a course on a project resulting in a socalled B-paper, one level before the Bachelor thesis. In May, there will be a Nordic Geographers meeting in Roskilde, in June tehre will be a meeting for Population Geographers in Umeå. I hope to be able to present some results in connection to the above named articles at both of these confrerences. But first, in February, us geographers in Örebro will host a small workshop for a Swedish network of population geographers.
Also before the holidays, we were a small delegation from Örebro to witness a colleague in Borlänge at the defence of his Dissertation on 17 December. This was very interesting, thinking about my own work ahead. But for now, a slow start is what I want - not many have returned to office after these two weeks. This may facilitate the work on the paper for GPKU.
Monday, 22 November 2010
November 2010
Usually in Sweden (or at least here at CUReS in Örebro), academic terms start up slowly and evolve into dynamic periods. Suddenly, you find yourself in mid-term stress when you discover that a lot has to be done before the end of the term. It's at times like these that it can be good to examine the numerous different assignments and the way they relate to each other.
November 2010 is no exception to this rule. Last Thursday and Friday, we've been to Bredsjö for so-called internal seminars. Gathered together with a group of about 20 regional and urban researchers, we discussed our work in three thematic groups: "place and identity", "regional and urban development" and "sustainability and climate change". This resulted in discussions of our to organsie our work here and how to repesent the centre in external communication.
Closely related to this is the general research plan for CUReS, which we discussed at the end of the series of seminars. In between we discussed each other's papers. I commented on Andreas paper and Håkan commented on my paper. Valuable contributions were made in the field of place, space, identity and place marketing. Of course, these sessions were accompanied by an abundance of good food and drinks.
For me personally, this means that I now can continue my work on a course paper for the long-gone course of Geographical perspectives on cultural heritage. This paper was due in the autumn of 2009, when I was on paternity leave. So now I have confronted myslef with a new deadline; I want it toi be finished before the start of the Christmas holidays.
My to-do list in short:
- get rid of the text based on Anholt and Moilanen & Rainisto - these are too much of a consultancy character, rather than an academic character.
- add a more thorough study of Ashworth & Voogd (1990) as well as the other classical texts of place marketing.
- add a discussion on texts about cultural heritage provided in the course literature.
This course paper should then function as a point of departure for my second and third article, about palce marketing and decision making in the context of dutch migration to Sweden in the early 21st century (aka Orange Waves). It is still undecided where and how to draw the line between these to interrelated topics. One thing that should be done however, is to use a more problematising approach to the subjects. For instance, it could be made more political by asking why the swedish municipalities attracting ducth migrnats don't want to make more use of the existing group of asylum seekers and refugees from de Middle East and African countries already residing there. Moreover, I can also ask the Dutch migrants what they are moving away from; do they perhaps see the Dutch society as too multicultural? Do they prefer being (European, white, Christian) immigrants in Sweden over living with (non-European, non-white, non-Christian) immigrants in the Netherlands?
Besides this, we have gatherd in a two-day Nordic Urban Workshop here in Örebro in October 2010. We were about fifteen PhD students from a number of different countries and univeristies in Sweden discussing urban research in general. This resulted in teh start of a network that will hopefully be able to grow and maintain itself at the fore-front of Nordic Urban research.
Meanwhile, I have also been teaching again, at the same course as last spring, when my father so sadly passed away. I feels strangely awkward to take up the same topics and study the same subjects as I was doing then. I am currently reflecting on what to discuss during the two remaining lectures, to be given in early December. These are the lectures that I was simply not able to give last Spring. It looks like I will summarise a PhD course that I took earlier on this year, called "Mobility in time and space". This summary should be about 45 minutes and it will give an overview of the interdisciplinary theme of mobility studies. Another part of the lecture should discuss migration in general and its different types (partly based on the course literure by Khalid Koser). It should also focus on different types of migration in different periods of time.
That would be a good bridge to the final lecture, about international migration to the Swedish countryside. For this lecture, I could rely on my own studies. General overviews of Migration to Sweden during the recent decades should be followed by a specific presentation of Dutch migrants in Sweden. Possibly, I will add a short intercultural seminar on population geography, in order to contribute to "internationalisation at the home ground".
Last but not least, I'm co-organising a meeting with a Swedish Population Geograper's network, to be held here in Örebro on 2 February 2011. This is quite an informal meeting that takes place every year in the early spring (or in Sweden this would be mid-winter). It looks like we have been able to arrange an interesting programme!
More news next-time!
November 2010 is no exception to this rule. Last Thursday and Friday, we've been to Bredsjö for so-called internal seminars. Gathered together with a group of about 20 regional and urban researchers, we discussed our work in three thematic groups: "place and identity", "regional and urban development" and "sustainability and climate change". This resulted in discussions of our to organsie our work here and how to repesent the centre in external communication.
Closely related to this is the general research plan for CUReS, which we discussed at the end of the series of seminars. In between we discussed each other's papers. I commented on Andreas paper and Håkan commented on my paper. Valuable contributions were made in the field of place, space, identity and place marketing. Of course, these sessions were accompanied by an abundance of good food and drinks.
For me personally, this means that I now can continue my work on a course paper for the long-gone course of Geographical perspectives on cultural heritage. This paper was due in the autumn of 2009, when I was on paternity leave. So now I have confronted myslef with a new deadline; I want it toi be finished before the start of the Christmas holidays.
My to-do list in short:
- get rid of the text based on Anholt and Moilanen & Rainisto - these are too much of a consultancy character, rather than an academic character.
- add a more thorough study of Ashworth & Voogd (1990) as well as the other classical texts of place marketing.
- add a discussion on texts about cultural heritage provided in the course literature.
This course paper should then function as a point of departure for my second and third article, about palce marketing and decision making in the context of dutch migration to Sweden in the early 21st century (aka Orange Waves). It is still undecided where and how to draw the line between these to interrelated topics. One thing that should be done however, is to use a more problematising approach to the subjects. For instance, it could be made more political by asking why the swedish municipalities attracting ducth migrnats don't want to make more use of the existing group of asylum seekers and refugees from de Middle East and African countries already residing there. Moreover, I can also ask the Dutch migrants what they are moving away from; do they perhaps see the Dutch society as too multicultural? Do they prefer being (European, white, Christian) immigrants in Sweden over living with (non-European, non-white, non-Christian) immigrants in the Netherlands?
Besides this, we have gatherd in a two-day Nordic Urban Workshop here in Örebro in October 2010. We were about fifteen PhD students from a number of different countries and univeristies in Sweden discussing urban research in general. This resulted in teh start of a network that will hopefully be able to grow and maintain itself at the fore-front of Nordic Urban research.
Meanwhile, I have also been teaching again, at the same course as last spring, when my father so sadly passed away. I feels strangely awkward to take up the same topics and study the same subjects as I was doing then. I am currently reflecting on what to discuss during the two remaining lectures, to be given in early December. These are the lectures that I was simply not able to give last Spring. It looks like I will summarise a PhD course that I took earlier on this year, called "Mobility in time and space". This summary should be about 45 minutes and it will give an overview of the interdisciplinary theme of mobility studies. Another part of the lecture should discuss migration in general and its different types (partly based on the course literure by Khalid Koser). It should also focus on different types of migration in different periods of time.
That would be a good bridge to the final lecture, about international migration to the Swedish countryside. For this lecture, I could rely on my own studies. General overviews of Migration to Sweden during the recent decades should be followed by a specific presentation of Dutch migrants in Sweden. Possibly, I will add a short intercultural seminar on population geography, in order to contribute to "internationalisation at the home ground".
Last but not least, I'm co-organising a meeting with a Swedish Population Geograper's network, to be held here in Örebro on 2 February 2011. This is quite an informal meeting that takes place every year in the early spring (or in Sweden this would be mid-winter). It looks like we have been able to arrange an interesting programme!
More news next-time!
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