Empowering Meru Farmers: Design and development of a context-adapted manual groundnut thresher for smallholder farmers in the Meru Region, Kenya

In a collaborative effort spanning between the Netherlands and Kenya, this project aimed to enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the Meru region by designing a manual groundnut thresher. Recognising the importance of cultural context, I embarked on a journey guided by a cultural anthropological research approach, placing a strong...

Extending the Material Biography of Byblos through Understanding Ancient Common Commodity Spaces and Human Artifacts

In the Minds of People: Port-City Perspectives, The Case of Rotterdam

Following the geographical ‘Any-Port Model’, urban design has stipulated and enforced the disunion of port and city over the recent decades. In conjunction with other disciplines, the emphasis has laid at dislocation of production activities in favor of logistic-productive dynamics. At the same time, professional focus was on the urban areas...

Moral Philosophy and the ‘Ethical Turn’ in Anthropology

Moral philosophy continues to be enriched by an ongoing empirical turn, mainly through contributions from neuroscience, biology, and psychology. Thus far, cultural anthropology has largely been missing. A recent and rapidly growing ‘ethical turn’ within cultural anthropology now explicitly and systematically studies morality. This research...

Innovativeness of Innovation: A study on the effects of social institutions on innovation practices in the Westland horticulture sector

The Master's programme Industrial Ecology is jointly organised by Leiden University and Delft University of Technology. The horticulture sector in the Netherlands is facing economic difficulties, which have become more severe since the crisis of 2008. The innovation strategies the growers select to stimulate their organizations, are identified...