In the NCCR North-South post-doc project «Knowledge, Power, Politics» (2006-2010) I could link up with the research I conducted in Vietnam (until 2003) together with my research partners.

The study in collaboration with Dr. Tô Xuân Phúc, Forest Trends Vietnam and Australian National University, focused on discourses of biodiversity conservation in Vietnam and the activities and institutional arrangements of protection and use of natural resources.

The study in collaboration with Dr. Andrés Uzeda Vásquez, Universidad Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia, focused on technological innovation processes in Bolivia’s agricultural sector and the knowledge and power relations in the then newly elected indigenous government and the largely transformed institutional organisation of agricultural extension under the president Evo Morales.

My scientific curiosity drove me to conduct my own dissertation project (1999-2003) at the University of East Anglia, UK, for which I spent twelve months fieldwork in Vietnam. In the buffer and core zone of Bà Bê National Park in Northern Vietnam I studied the impacts of national and international environmental and biodiversity conservation policies on resource use and local livelihoods of local people (ethnic groups of Tay, Dao and Hmong). Besides the human-nature relationships I was interested in the local political decision-making processes which resulted in reflections and publications on the implementation of a socialist democracy in Vietnamese communes. The systemic approach of political ecology allowed to describe and analyse the complex context with actors, policies and regulation and rapid transformation processes at various scales.

I had scholarships from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Janggen-Pöhn Foundation. In Vietnam, I collaborated closely with my assistant and translator Tran Thu Huong and with HELVETAS Vietnam. All results were shared with HELVETAS Vietnam. My PhD supervisors at the University of East Anglia, UK, were Prof. Dr. Piers Blaikie and Dr. Catherine Locke.

I did my first field research on the Philippine island Palawan. From February to April 1998 I conducted interviews with the local population in two villages and did participatory observation while accompanying them during their agricultural and fishery work.

The fieldwork was enabled by contacts of HELVETAS Philippines and the collaboration with the non-governmental organisation Tambuyog Palawan. I had grants from the Nikolas and Berta Burckhardt-Bürgin Foundation and the Joseph and Olga Tomcsik Foundation. My scientific supervisors were Prof. Dr. Thomas Krings, Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Prof. Dr. Hartmut Leser, University of Basel.

Meine ersten Feldforschungserfahrungen machte ich auf der philippinischen Insel Palawan. Von Februar bis April 1998 führte ich in zwei Dörfern mit der lokalen Bevölkerung zahlreiche Interviews und beobachtete und begleitete sie bei der Nutzung der natürlichen Ressourcengrundlage, insbesondere der Fischgründe.

Meine Feldforschung wurde ermöglicht durch die Kontakte von HELVETAS Philippinen und der Nicht-Regierungsorganisation Tambuyog Palawan. Finanziell wurde ich unterstützt durch die Nikolas und Berta Burckhardt-Bürgin-Stiftung und die Joseph und Olga Tomcsik-Stiftung. Wissenschaftliche Betreuung durch Prof. Dr. Thomas Krings, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau, und Prof. Dr. Hartmut Leser, Universität Basel.