We are pleased to inform you that Yasmine Willi will be joining us as a visiting fellow during March and April 2018. She will be working together with Joost Jongerden (RSO) and Martijn Duineveld (GEO). Yasmine introduces herself below:

My name is Yasmine Willi and I am a Human Geographer working as a PhD candidate in the Economics and Social Sciences Research Unit at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, in Zurich, Switzerland. Last October, I participated in the SUSPLACE Autumn School taking place at Aveiro University, Portugal, where I met assistant-coordinator Anke de Vrieze who told me about the Centre for Space, Place and Society at Wageningen University. I immediately became interested in the Centre and after reading more about it, it’s members and the ongoing research projects, I would like to get to know the Centre myself.

I am very interested in joining the Centre in order to get to your research in more detail, learn about your projects and research approaches first hand, and of course exchange results and ideas with you and your colleagues. My thesis research aligns with the research of the Centre – especially with the theme ‘the Politics of Space and Place’ – in several ways. In my thesis, I focus on the governance of regional development, particularly on the decision-making processes necessary to realize national development policies on the regional level. In particular, I am interested in the interplay between public administrations, politicians, entrepreneurs and societal actors and how this leads to the design and implementation of regional development strategies. I thus would be delighted to exchange views on the topics of citizenship and participation, inclusion/exclusion, democratic planning and strategic behavior in public decision-making processes.

As a Visiting Fellow, I would welcome the opportunity to not only share my results in an international setting, but also to connect with researchers abroad and broaden my scientific network. During my stay, I plan to work on the finalization of my PhD thesis (date of completion: 31 July 2018). I would also be most interested to contribute to your team by giving a presentation of my research, organizing a workshop, and/or other collaborations.