Research Stay at University of British Columbia 2015

The following projects have been successfully initiated during the research stay


With the following partners at local has been agreed on project related third party funding applications for joint research:

I) Combining COMPON & CC-VISAGES by integrating CC-VISAGES findings in Canada, Brazil, and Germany (with David, see below)

II) Applying Q Oracle to the cases of high rainfall of selected vulnerable communities in Canada based on the CC-VISAGES' HSI. (with Navin)

III) Creation of a mutually funded sub-project as part of the CIRDI conflict prevention project in seven (7) of the nine (9) Perú's mining affected communities. This will involve the supervision of MA students that will conduct a comparative fiel research at local using Q Oracle. (with André, see below)

IV) Joint teaching initiative for participation in the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs (MPPGA) from February 15 to April 15, 2016 (Erasmus+). (with Moura, see below)

V) Plan to publish the Canadian findings of the CC-VISAGES project in the contemporary setting of a governmental issue (with Ryan, see below).

VI) Plan to do a workshop on Q Oracle with participation of policy makers (with Ryan, see below) and students during the January 2016 research stay.

VII) Collaboration with Okanagan campus led to the idea (with Kevin, see below) to present Q Oracle as a possible option for continuing / deepening the since 2012 running project to project committee as well as using it in selected communities in BC.

VIII) Student exchange of our two classes at FU Berlin and at UBC Okanagan campus: The idea is to take students to field trips in Berlin and Okanagan alike. Next SS (2016) could work if the FFU will allow for the proposed teaching. If not, we discussed a collaboration as part of my class at FUBis about EU integration in times of crisis. (with John, see below)

IX) Idea of a joint workshop funding (or at least a joint peer review publication) combining Q Methodology with his particular participant rules based focus group setting. (with Mike, see below)


Research stay at UBC - Vancouver campus

Entrance to the Liu Institute for Global Issues
After arrival a working space was provided by the partnering Liu Institute for Global Issues.

The Internet connection works on campus with the existing FU account and eduroam. The network functions as in Berlin.

As for the accommodation, the West Coast Suite is very well located and close to both the campus center and the Liu Institute.




Partners at local (non chronological)

Through meetings with the following researchers, the possibility of collaborations and the exchange of research interests / findings have taken place.

1) Prof. Dr. Moura Quayle
Moura Quayle & Götz Kaufmann

Moura is a Professor at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and at the same time the director of it. Additionally, she represents the UBC in the University Alliance for Sustainability in the exchange with the FU Berlin.

Notice: She will be in Berlin at FU Berlin for a meeting of the University Alliance for Sustainability from October 7-9, 2015.





Joint initiatives / activities:

- Joining the UBC Design Challenge (October 2-4, 2015) at Vancouver Campus as a mentor for one-hundred (100) participating students. The results of the event have been published here.
Begin of the UBC Design Challenge on Oct 2, 2015



- Application for Staff Teaching Mobility from Erasmus+ to guest lecturing in the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs at UBC. Times scheduled for for February 15 to April 15, 2016. The idea is to bringing in the expertise from the Master Environmental Policy and Planning at FFU to Liu's MPPGA.

- Organizing the presentation of Mari at the end of her research stay and at the time of my returning visit in January 2016

- Localizing the CC-VISAGES & COMPON collaboration (see below, David Tindall) at Liu Institute for the purpose of teaching and research environment (geographically anyway in walking distance to the Department of Sociology)

- invitation to the guest talk on global inequality of Nobel Prize winner in economics (2001, 2007) Prof. Joseph Stiglitz at Liu Institute on September 24, 2015 including the possibility to ask questions. It was a vivid debate including questions from around the globe!


2) Prof. Dr. Candace K Galla

Participating in the "Dialogue series with the Mapuche Territorial Alliance"

Candace is a member of the department of education focussing on researching the First Nation's culture and teaching indigenous languages. Revitalizing both the culture and languages of the indigenous nations is also one of her aims.

Further information about her activities can be found here.

She also established contact to:

- Tracy Friedel

- UBC Farm - Indigenous Initiatives and the Community Bowl Feast

- People of the Land: Dialogue series with the Mapuche Territorial Alliance

- Linking Language, Culture, and the Environment: Twenty years of Bicultural Diversity Research and Action

Notice: Connection to Karola Braun-Wanke from FFU was established.


3) Prof. Dr. David Tindall
David Tindall & Götz Kaufmann

David is an environmental sociologist working for the purpose of policy analysis on the topic of climate change perceptions in 22 countries including the three countries of the CC-VISAGES project.

His current research projects have been discussed for future collaboration (student exchange, joint funding approaches). These are listed as follows:

- COMPON project

- Climate Justice Project

- Environmental Movement project

Joint initiative:

- Research funding application for the Framework for Funding of Joint Initiatives between FU and UBC. The idea is to develope a frame, in which the CC-VISAGES project can be implemented into the COMPON project.


4) Prof. Dr. Navin Ramankutty

Navin is a Professor in Global Food Security and Sustainability at Liu Institute for Global Issues. His research focus is on agricultural questions and food security in Canada in particular. His website provides detailed information: click here.

Joint initiative:

- Analyzing the different perceptions of rain intensity in Vancouver and Montréal through Q Methodology. Case: Montréal and Vancouver have an equal precipitation amount, but differ in intensity. Vancouver is considered to be "a more rainy city".

5) Peter Jones, MA History

Peter is the Executive Coordinator at Liu Institute for the CIRDI project.

6) André Xavier, Ph.D

André is the Lifelong Learning Program Manager at the Norman B. Keevil Institute for Mining Engeneering (NBKI) at the UBC. André is also teaching at the NBKI. Additionally Andre is the Lifelong Learning Project Manager for the NBKI and is part of a team that is engaged in promoting NBKI's professional development programs to the mining industry as well as developing partnerships with international institutions worldwide. He is also part of the CIRDI mining project.

Joint initiative:

- As part of the CIDRI: Applying for funding to researching the policy frame of good mining governance in seven (7) of the nine (9) communities close to business related mining projects with help of Q Oracle. Analyzing communities' vulnerability and the perception of the problem as well as the possibility / obstacles of consensus in collaboration with Peruan universities, using MA students for conducting comparative researches at local. Joint funding of up to 50,000 CAD from CIDRI could be possible if if mutually a complementary funding is found from another side.

7) Prof. Kenneth Reeder, Ph.D.
Kenneth is Professor at the Department for Language & Literacy Education at UBC.

Notice: Connection to Karola Braun-Wanke from FFU was established.

8) Victoria Smith M.A.

Victoria is the director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative at UBC. After we met unintional, we arranged for an informal meeting where I informed her about what I have done at UBC so far.

Notice: More a connection for the administrative staff from FFU, but a multiplier for the purpose of the planned Q Oracle workshop and the CC-VISAGES lecture at Liu Institute in January 2016.

9) Jeffrey Whiting

Jeffrey is the president and founder of the Artists for Conservation foundation. They create art and environmental education for exhibitions but also for the deprived people in Vancouver. I was informed about the intitiative when visiting Grouse Mountain in Vancouver.
Notice: Probably a useful connection for the SUSTAIN IT! initiative to work with.

10) Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Whiting

Matthew is Associated Professor at department of geography at UBC. We met at the UBC Design Challenge (see above) where he held position of judge.

11) Sang Mah, M.Sc., B.Sc. (Hons)

Sang is the director of business development at MITACS. We met at the UBC Design Challenge (see above) where she provided business related funding opportunity for the students' projects aside the University Alliance for Sustainability. Mutual funding opportunities can be created from here.

Notice: Connection to Katrin Risch has been established.

12) Kevin K. Mihata, Ph.D.

Kevin did the accommodative research of the UBC Design Challenge (see above).

Joint initiative:

- We have discussed the possibility of the University of Washington to join the internship collaboration between the EJI and NYU.

13) Ryan Hum, Ph.D.

Ryan works for the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada. We met at the UBC Design Challenge (see above) where he served like me as a mentor.

Joint initiative:

- We developed the idea to publish the Canadian findings of the CC-VISAGES project in the contemporary setting of a governmental issue (tbd).

- We also created the idea to have a workshop teaching Q Oracle during my stay at UBC next January.


Research stay at UBC - Okanagan campus


Informal meeting for UBC-FU research collaboration, Sep 30, 2015, 10 am to noon
Keven organized an informal meeting in order to discuss collaboration points between the research interests of Lael, Mike, Kevin, and my research foci.
I presented the core points of CC-VISAGES as well as of the Q Oracle method.

Faculty presentation, Oct 1, 2015, 2 pm to 3.30 pm
Presentation of the CC-VISAGES findings at BRAES (October 1, 2015)

About the presentation: Basically, it's a research seminar addressed to an audience of graduate students and faculty members who will be coming from a range of disciplines (mostly geography, environmental sciences and biology). If you talk about the project and results you have obtained, that is fine. A focus on Canada would be interesting, but results from other regions would also be welcomed.

The speech will be for about 40-50 minutes to leave time for questions and discussion after.
Presentation











Presentation in undergraduate class, Oct 1, 2015, 11 am to 01.30 pm
Guest lecture at class on "Culture and Environment" (October 1, 2015)

Contitution of the class: This is a second year undergraduate course so most students will have limited understanding of climate change. During this first month of the course (Sept) we are focusing on the local environment and they are taken to a number of sites on the UBC Okanagan campus to learn about local ecological characteristics and Okanagan cultural history. As the environmental justice aspect will be of great interest to them and will fit very well with this course, we (Mari and Götz) will tell a bit about the specific vulnerabilities of Nanaimo as identified so far. This will reference to the Brazilian setting in Algodoal, municipality of Maracana. Finally, the kinds of adaptation plans that might be informed by your study will be explored. Adaptation to climate change will itself be a new concept to many of them who take my course as an elective.

Only about 1/4 of the students are anthropology majors. The rest are enrolled in other B.A programs, B.Sc programs, Management, Education, etc. A very diverse group.

Map for presentation for the undergraduate class (October 1, 2015)

Partners at local (non chronological)

1) Prof. Dr. Kevin Hanna
Kevin Hanna & Götz Kaufmann

David is a geographer and director of the UBC Centre for Environmental Assessment Research at I.K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences. He works on questions such as integrated approaches to environment and natural resources management, environmental impact assessment or cumulative effects assessment.

Joint initiative:

- joint interest in mixed methods to which Kevin refers in terms of Delphi Technique led to the idea of applying the Q Oracle idea to the national survey project on climate change. The idea is to present Q Oracle as a possible option for continuing / deepening the since 2012 running project to project committee as well as using it in selected communities in BC.


2) Prof. Dr. John Richard Wagner
John R. Wagner & Götz Kaufmann

John is Associate Professor for Anthropology in Community, Culture, and Global Studies at Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences at The University of British Columbia Okanagan. His research interests are on environmental anthropology, political ecology, water governance, water rights, agriculture and food security, vernacular education and language revitalization, local ecological knowledge, conservation and development, and property rights.

Joint initiative:

- After the guest talk at John's 'Culture and Environment' BA class (see above) we will try to establish a student exchange of our two classes at FU Berlin and at UBC Okanagan campus. The idea is to take students to field trips in Berlin and Okanagan alike. Next SS (2016) could work if the FFU will allow for the proposed teaching. If not, we discussed a collaboration as part of my class at FUBis about EU integration in times of crisis.

3) Prof. Dr. Lael Parrott
Internal Meeting: Götz Kaufmann, Michael Evans, Kevin Hanna, Lael Parrot

Lael leads the Complex Environmental Systems Laboratory at UBC. She is an Associate Professor, cross-appointed in the Departments of Earth & Environmental Sciences and Biology on UBC's Okanagan Campus. She is also Director of the Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience, and Ecosystem Services (BRAES).

4) Prof. Dr. Mike Evans

John is Associate Professor for Anthropology in Community, Culture, and Global Studies at Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences at The University of British Columbia Okanagan. His research interests are on environmental anthropology, political ecology, water governance, water rights, agriculture and food security, vernacular education and language revitalization, local ecological knowledge, conservation and development, and property rights.

Joint initiative:

After the internal meeting, we discussed to go together for a joint workshop funding (or at least a joint peer review publication) combining Q Methodology with his particular participant rules based focus group setting.