Biography
Oane Visser is Associate Professor in Agrarian Studies. His research interests revolve around: 1) new (digital) technologies in agriculture and development more broadly, 2) Land, large-scale farming and financialization of agriculture, 3) smallholders, alternative food networks and rural movements. Beyond agriculture, he has published on financialization more generally (e.g. Visser & Kalb 210; Kalb & Visser 2012) and ethnopolitics (Visser & Bakker 2016; Melchior & Visser 2011). Some of his research looks at global processes, while most research is grounded in fieldwork in post-socialist Eurasia (e.g. Russia, Ukraine, Romania) and more recently in the EU (Netherlands), and new projects starting in Ghana, and the US.
Visser earned his PhD in Anthropology from Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Before coming to the ISS, he was assistant professor at subsequently the Department of Research Methods, and the Dept. of Anthropology and Development Studies at Radboud University. He has been visiting fellow at Cornell University (2010, 2014), City University New York (2014), Oxford University (2015) and the University of Toronto (2016). In the past years he won numerous research grants (e.g. from European Research Council (ERC), Land Academy, Toyota Foundation, ISRF).
‘Digital agriculture’, technology and development
Visser’s latest research line is on new digital technologies and development (see recent blogposts by Visser & Medendorp, and Nikam & Visser). He recently co-organized amongst others a hackathon challenge on land grabbing, and a workshop on automation in agriculture, and was a roundtable speaker at the Dutch Agrifoodtech conference 2019. Most of Visser’s current projects focus on the digitalization of agriculture. GPS steered combines, drones making field scans, agronomic advice via smart phones and big data of farming; these are some examples of the recent digitalization of food production. These novel changes constitute Visser’s most recent research line. Various projects investigate the overall topic of benefits and limitations of these new technologies, and the socio-economic consequences and responses. Fieldwork is conducted in some of the major countries involved digital farming; the EU, Australia (by collaborator Sarah Sippel) and an emerging economy (Russia). A Toyota Foundation funded project (2018-2021), with Sippel, investigates the new values, forms of cooperation, and interaction that are emerging in the context of this digital ‘agrarian revolution’. It builds on earlier work on cooperation within agriculture (e.g. Kurakin & Visser 2017, Visser 2005). Meline Khachatryan and Louis Thiemann are involved in these projects. A project with ISS-colleague Karin Siegmann studies effects of the rise of digital farming for labour, in particular migrant workers. A newly commenced project (with Fabio Gatti) studies digital agriculture in Africa (Ghana). A recent project (2020-2021) funded by the UK-based ISRF explores newly arising forms data activism and data movements by farmers in the EU and North-America.
Land, large-scale farming and financialization
This constitutes an ongoing line of inquiry, globally and particularly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet countries. Visser organized various international conferences on financialization of agriculture, and edited two special issues on the theme (Visser, Clapp & Isakson 2015, Clapp, Visser & Isakson 2017). Based on various grants he was awarded as Principal Investigator (e.g. a Land Academy grant, ERC grant 2013-18) he publishes widely on farmland investments (or land grabbing), see e.g. Kuns, Wastfelt & Visser 2016, Visser, Mamonova & Spoor 2012, 2014, 2015, Visser 2017, Visser, Kurakin & Nikulin 2019).
On land transformations more generally, Visser organized various international workshops, and published widely on land reforms and farm restructuring (e.g. Visser & Spoor 2004, 2019, Visser 2006). Visser is also increasingly interested
International Institute of Social Studies
- visser@iss.nl
More information
Work
- Oane Visser, Ilaha Abasli & Nina Swen (2024) - How artisanal fishers across the world are trying to turn the tide by adapting to climate and anthropogenic change - [link]
- Karin Astrid Siegmann, Petar Ivošević & Oane Visser (2024) - Working like Machines: Technological Upgrading and Labour in the Dutch Agri-food Chain - Work, Employment and Society - doi: 10.1177/09500170241244718 - [link]
- Karin Astrid Siegmann, P. (Petar) Ivosevic & Oane Visser (2021) - Working like machines: Exploring effects of technological change on migrant labour in Dutch horticulture - [link]
- Irna Hofman & Oane Visser (2021) - Towards a geography of window dressing and benign neglect: The state, donors and elites in Tajikistan's trajectories of post-Soviet agrarian change - Land Use Policy, 111 - doi: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105461 - [link]
- Oane Visser, Sarah Ruth Sippel & Louis Thiemann (2021) - Imprecision farming?: Examining the (in)accuracy and risks of digital agriculture - Journal of Rural Studies, 86, 623-632 - doi: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2021.07.024 - [link]
- Anna Hajdu, Marcos F. Daziano & Oane Visser (2021) - Institutions and individual values motivating corporate social responsibility activities in large farms and agroholdings - International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 24 (4), 669-696 - doi: 10.22434/IFAMR2020.0103 - [link]
- Miroslava Bavorová, Zuzana Bednarikova, Elena V. Ponkina & Oane Visser (2021) - Agribusiness social responsibility in emerging economies: Effects of legal structure, economic performance and managers’ motivations - Journal of Cleaner Production, 289 - doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125157 - [link]
- S. (Sarah) Sippel & Oane Visser (2021) - Introduction to symposium ‘Reimagining land: materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation’: (Agriculture and Human Values, (2021), 38, 1, (271-282), 10.1007/s10460-020-10152-3) - Agriculture and Human Values, 38 (1), 271-282 - doi: 10.1007/s10460-021-10200-6 - [link]
- A (Oane) Visser, Brian Kuns & Petr Jehlička (2021) - Beyond confrontation: silent growers, symbiosis and subtle peasantness in post-socialist Eurasia - doi: 10.4337/9781788972468.00045 - [link]
- Oane Visser (2021) - Western agricultural investors in Russia and Ukraine: From fascination with soil to disappointment with climate - Russian Peasant Studies, 6 (4), 21-49 - doi: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-4-21-49 - [link]
- Oane Visser (29 januari 2024) - Conflict Compounded: Implications of the war in Ukraine on global development challenges
- Oane Visser (19 september 2023) - How is the war on Ukraine affecting international development? BLISS blog
- Oane Visser (14 juli 2023) - De Hollandske bonder gik i krig med den gronne omstilling og vandt
- Oane Visser (9 juni 2023) - The farm is not an algorithm
- Oane Visser (15 december 2014) - From food security to food sovereignty (in Russia)
- Oane Visser (31 juli 2014) - Consultation/Interview for Al Jazeera TV International, on Ukraine crisis & sanctions against Russia, July 31 2014.
- Oane Visser (1 januari 2014) - in: J. Jeroense & T. Overduin (ed.) Het nieuwe Heilig. Op zoek naar hedendaagse inspiratie. Skandalon Publishers.
- Oane Visser (2023) - Knowing Food: Insights from around the table (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2023) - AI, Agroholdings & Autarchy (invited talk at University of Helsinki) (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2020) - Technological change and migrant farm workers in Dutch horticulture (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - A Ferent & Oane Visser (2020) - Impacts of technological change on CEE agricultural labor migrants in Dutch horticulture (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2020) - Who benefits from digital transformation? A cross-country comparison along the value chain (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser & Meline Khachatryan (2020) - Emergence of digital technologies in Russian farms (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2019) - New digital farm technologies. Exploring bottom-up innovations in data & technology for smaller farms (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2019) - Land grabbing and new digital technologies (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2019) - Robots, migrant workers and LED-lightened tomatoes: Impacts of Technological change in Dutch agriculture for CEE Migrant workers (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Academic - Oane Visser (2019) - Smallholders and food provisioning in Central & Eastern Europe: Quietness, Resilience & Politics (Speaker)
Activiteit: Oral presentation › Professional
- Oane Visser (2022) - Visiting Fellowship University of Helsinki's Aleksanteri Institute
- Oane Visser (2022) - ISRF Political Economy Fellowship, London
4390 AFES: Working towards the RP
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-4390-24-25
Board of Examiners
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-BOE-24-25
Major AFES
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-AFES-24-25
General Information
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISSGENERAL-24-25
3105 Research Paper Preparation
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-3105-24-25
4150 Political Economy
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-4150-24-25
4240 Agrarian and Food Politics
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-4240-24-25
5401 Research Paper
- Year
- 2024
- Course Code
- ISS-5401-24-25