KNOTS Summer School and Field Trip

Mekong Land Research Forum is the primary resource for informed research, education, and advocacy for policy dialogue around land relations in the Mekong region. Together with Chiang Mai University and partners, it nurtures the next generation of researchers in the land sector. Land governance is a critical concern for the Mekong region, and there is a lack of qualified academics and professionals operating in the field. To address this matter, the Mekong Land Research Forum online site was developed at the University of Sydney, as part of an exercise carried out with the Mekong Region Land Governance program (MRLG). Since 2015, it has been housed at RCSD (the Regional Centre for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development) at Chiang Mai University. Primary funding is from MRLG, itself financed by Swiss, German and Luxembourg development agencies. As a leading regional research and training institution on sustainable development, RCSD together with the Mekong Land Research Forum have developed training on land governance, and become an active hub of land research for Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Through the forum a regional academic network interacts with civil society organizations, and where possible policy-makers, bolstering connections between professionals and students.

The KNOTS Summer School 2018 has brought together graduate students and teachers from universities in Thailand, Vietnam, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic as KNOTS partner universities to engage in transdisciplinary research in the areas of Environment, Migration, and Inequality.

Through the summer school, participants learned about transdisciplinary research methods with lectures and engaged in fruitful discussion led by faculty members from European as well as Southeast Asia universities. Field trips to eight different sites in Northern Thailand were offered in which students were able to participate according to their research interest, related e.g. to land, such as boom crop production in Mae Chaem, Chiang Mai Province, banana plantations in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces, or resource management in an ethnic Karen village, Chiang Rai Province.

The KNOTS Summer School 2018 has brought together graduate students and teachers from universities in Thailand, Vietnam, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic as KNOTS partner universities to engage in transdisciplinary research in the areas of Environment, Migration, and Inequality.

Through the summer school, participants learned about transdisciplinary research methods with lectures and engaged in fruitful discussion led by faculty members from European as well as Southeast Asia universities. Field trips to eight different sites in Northern Thailand were offered in which students were able to participate according to their research interest, related e.g. to land, such as boom crop production in Mae Chaem, Chiang Mai Province, banana plantations in Chiang Rai and Phayao Provinces, or resource management in an ethnic Karen village, Chiang Rai Province.