You are warmly invited to attend the research seminar Planetary Development, taking place on 12 December 2025 from 09:00 to 13.00 in Orion B4032 at Wageningen Campus, with online streaming available for remote participants.
This seminar is organized in conjunction with the inaugural lecture of Prof. dr. Robert Fletcher, which will be held later that day from 16:00 to 18:00 in Omnia.
The seminar builds on a growing body of literature that adopts and advances a planetary perspective to understand contemporary development dynamics. Whereas globalization has long served as the dominant lens for interpreting the international order, emerging conditions now call for a conceptual frame that accounts for our deep embeddedness in the Earth system. The planetary—understood as a condition and way of thinking that acknowledges this embeddedness and its implications—offers such a frame.
While initial contributions have emerged, its relevance for development studies has not yet been explored in a systematic way. This seminar aims to do so by examining how a planetary perspective can illuminate key aspects of today’s development landscape.
Programme
09:00–09:15
Opening remarks
Robert Fletcher, Wageningen University
09:15–09:45
Planetary Conviviality
Edward Huijbens, Wageningen University
09:45–10:15
Volume and the Planetary
Ariadne Collins, St. Andrews University
10:15–10:45
Planetary Ethnography
Bram Büscher, Wageningen University
10:45–11:00
Coffee break
11:00–11:30
Planetary Datafication
Stephanie Ketterer, Wageningen University
11:30–12:00
Planetary PostDevelopment Now!
Xander Dunlap, Boston University
12:00–12:30
Planetary Urbanization
Erik Swyngedouw, Manchester University
12:30–13:00
Q&A and plenary discussion
Centre for Space, Place and Society 