Joost Dessein
Professor
Department of agricultural economics
INSPIRA
Ghent University
Coupure links 653
Office A1.091
9000 Ghent, Belgium
joost.dessein@ugent.be
Bio
Prof. Joost Dessein (°1971) is associate professor at the department of Agricultural Economics (Ghent University), and an affiliated member of the Centre for Sustainable Development (UGent). He holds an MSc in Agricultural Engineering and a MSc and PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, all of which obtained at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). His teaching and research expertise lies in the fields of Sociology of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. Teaching courses such as ‘Sociological perspectives on rural development’, ‘Food policy’, ‘Sustainable Food Systems’ or a course on scientific communication, Joost inspires his students to become critical and reflective researchers and professionals.
In July 2019, he was elected as President of the European Society for Rural Sociology (ongoing), the leading European organisation for rural sociology, and became an ex officio member of the council of IRSA (International Rural Sociology Association).
Building synergies within the research group, as well as with other partners, is part of the strategic orientation of the rural development research group, as we believe that co-creation, synergy and interdisciplinarity are necessary key elements of a state-of-the-art research group.
Research
Joost’s research adds sociological and political lenses to the study of food systems and rural development, with a non-exclusive focus on the Global South. It pays particular attention to dynamics at the local scale in urban as well as in rural contexts.
Ongoing research includes the governance of urban food systems (Ecuador, Tanzania, Belgium, the Netherlands); the mobilising power of agroecology as a (counter-hegemonic) movement and practice (Bolivia, Argentina, Europe); the recognition and valorisation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in processes of food system innovation (Ghana); and dynamics in the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System AKIS (Ethiopia, Belgium).