READ seminar: The production of absent, joyful and violent landscapes: a walking study of youth and politics

Dr Michiel Piersma will introduce walking interviews as a methodological intervention in studying the politics of landscape in international relations, politics and adjacent disciplines.

Walking methodologies as an approach considers the walk as an act of politics; I explain how walking interviews can offer a critical perspective to the role of theory, improvisation, and space in research on the politics of landscape. I furthermore bring to the table my experiences of executing this methodological intervention in the field, by discussing research on the socio-natural relations between youth and their everyday environments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alongside its challenges and imperfections, the walking interview has been able to illuminate the multisensorial, more-than-human interconnections between young people and landscape shaped by processes of river death, genocide denial, and joyful summer memories.

Bio:

Michiel Piersma is a political scientist who teaches at the School of Politics and International Relations at ANU. Holding at PhD in Politics at the University of Liverpool, he is a qualitative researcher interested in the political and socio-natural interrelations of environmental degradation, mass violence, and nationalism. In recent research, Michiel developed innovative walking methodologies to explore the politics of landscapes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also publishes on the political dimensions of academic knowledge production.