Arne Rieber

Hey #geosky kindly share this CfP for this years RGS-IBG conference 🙂

@theobromin.bsky.social and myself are hosting a session on infrastructure, the politics of deception and breaking the future!

Deadline for submission is February 20!

Available Positions for Third Funding Phase - Collaborative Research Center TRR 228 We are pleased that our research project has received funding for a third project phase (2026-2029).

‼️Two open ECR positions in Economic Geohraphy based at @giubresearch.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social as part of the Collaborative Research Center ‚Future Rural Africa‘.

Project C02 investigates industrial development visions in the context of renewables in 🇰🇪

crc-trr228.de/available-po...

“Slow resistance” in the Salween River Basin - New Mandala Grassroots activism gums up the wheels of hydro-development

My essay on “slow resistance” to long-proposed hydropower dams & diversions in the Salween River Basin is out with @newmandala.bsky.social ! It’s based on my PhD research & an article co-authored with @drvanessalamb.bsky.social in Antipode. www.newmandala.org/slow-resista...

One of the articles I enjoyed reading the most over the last years. Really cool to see it being accessible to a wider audience. Congrats!

Available Positions for Third Funding Phase - Collaborative Research Center TRR 228 We are pleased that our research project has received funding for a third project phase (2026-2029).

‼️Two open ECR positions in Economic Geohraphy based at @giubresearch.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social as part of the Collaborative Research Center ‚Future Rural Africa‘.

Project C02 investigates industrial development visions in the context of renewables in 🇰🇪

crc-trr228.de/available-po...

Congratulations to Dr. @arnerieber.bsky.social!

Arne received the Dr. Hohmann Award 2025 by the Cologne Geographical Society @unicologne.bsky.social for his research project on "German Industrial Transformation: Geoeconomy and the Role of the State in the Chemical Industry".

tinyurl.com/mr3upmvd

Our Intervention on the limitation of free speech at German Universities, based on experiences with organising pro-Palestinian events.

gh.copernicus.org/articles/80/...

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

#mittwochsimGIUB
Tomorrow, Prof. Dr. Andrew Cumbers (@uofglasgow.bsky.social | Visiting Professor @unibonn.bsky.social) will give a talk on "The Future of the Public and the Struggle for the Democratic Economy"

When? Nov. 18, 5:15pm
Where? Lecture Hall, Dept. of Geography

#geosky #geography

As seen in the release notes of ChatGPT Atlas. Cool cool cool

Job advertisement from the University of Bonn, Department of Geography, for a research assistant position

‼️There's a PhD or Postdoc position open in my working group ‼️Let's be colleagues 🥹

Economic Geography in Bonn

Application deadline 22 November 2025

Due to teaching obligations, fluency in German is required

It also showed that students are using LLMs for tasks that GenAI cannot and should never handle for them (e.g. coding). We therefore have to be much more active in guiding which tools are potentially helpful and which are not. Which means we as lecturers have to monitor the developments

Menti with the question What questions would you like to have answered today

Menti with the question what have you used AI for in your studies

Today's session on the responsible use of AI in geography for incoming Master's students showed that:
a) students are using AI, and
b) they would like much clearer guidelines (and guidance). Simply telling them not to use it because it's evil will not be sufficient.

Call for Abstracts - AAG 2026 | SF
Deadline: October 23rd

Join my Panel at next year's AAG conference on "Infrastructure Monsters and the Specter of Sabotage". We talkin' horror stories, queer geography, ghosts, Marx' specters, ruination, sabotage, and much more!

@geographers.bsky.social #GeoSky

First day in my new position 🎉 Excited to join the economic geography group at @giubresearch.bsky.social as a postdoctoral researcher. Moving from political ecology to political economy, in the next years I will focus on the role of the state in the geoeconomy and industry policy.

Congrats to @arnerieber.bsky.social who completed his dissertation this summer! 🎉 Arne worked in @crctrr228.bsky.social on on future-making in large-scale hydraulic infrastructure projects in East Africa.
Read more: bonndoc.ulb.uni-bonn.de/xmlui/handle...
#geosky #PoliticalEcology #geography

Unfortunately, this view of the GGW is rather outdated. It was never implemented on a large scale, nor did it ever fulfil its promise of being participatory or adapted to the needs of local ecosystems. The green jobs narrative in particular has been debunked

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

A man on the streets of the UK is asked about the “problem of immigration” and dismantles talking points with ease.

In late 2022, the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported that the new High Grand Falls Dam would soon irrigate around 400,000 hectares of land and generate 1 GW of electricity for the Kenyan… | Dr. Ar... In late 2022, the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported that the new High Grand Falls Dam would soon irrigate around 400,000 hectares of land and generate 1 GW of electricity for the Kenyan grid. How...

Long version on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

The case highlights the immense power and violence of infrastructural promises made on large poltical stages. This practice must be challenged and called out, as the harm caused by these political stunts has severe material and immaterial consequences through altering future visions, fears and hope

In 2022 the High Grand Falls Dam was announced by UK and Kenyan governements, to irrigate 400,000ha and produce 1 GW. By 2025 it was cancelled again. What remained in the region was no material change, but the violence of broken promises impacting future-making and everyday actions of those affected

Israel blocking aid from Gaza is creating ‘chaos and death’, say 111 humanitarian groups Letter signed by agencies including Doctors Without Borders condemn Israeli military attacks on Palestinians

"The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death."

Photo of myself holding my dissertation in front of a screen that shows the title page of my Defense presentation. Title: „The political ecology of hydraulic infrastructure in Kenya: claim-making and contestations in hydrosocial spaces“

Very happy and proud to share that today I’ve successfully defended my dissertation. So grateful to the @unibonn.bsky.social @giubresearch.bsky.social @crctrr228.bsky.social, my supervisors, reviewers and wonderful colleagues in Bonn who guided and supported me over the last three years!

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are seven tiles with the names of papers in a Special Section titled 'Rivers as Borders'. The papers are: 1) Rivers as borders? Navigating in-between the tensions of water-state-society geographies Rebekka Kanesu, Vanessa Lamb, Eva McGrath 2) Median line: A century of border violence and the alluvial geopolitics of the Evros/Meriç/Maritsa River border Ifor Duncan, Stefanos Levidis 3) Slow violence on the Yarmouk River: Encounters from the river-border environments Muna Dajani 4) Migrating sands: Refocusing transboundary flows from water to sediment C. R. Hackney 5) Crossing riverborderscapes and a view from in-between: Passenger ferries in South West England Eva McGrath, Richard Yarwood, Nichola Harmer 6) Liquid lines: Exploring the Moselle River between France, Luxembourg and Germany Rebekka Kanesu 7) Caring for the river-border: Struggles and opportunities along the Salween River-border Vanessa Lamb

A graphic showing the title page of Area on a black background with a large 'A' on the right hand page. On the left hand page are eight tiles with the names of papers in the issue. The papers are: 1) On undevelopment and de-development: A geographical critique on perpetual growth and resource-based accumulation Gertjan Wijburg 2) Place, institutional spatiality, and the localisation of financial calculative practices Leqian Yu 3) Claim-making in hydrosocial spaces: The temporality of displacement around Kenya's Masinga Dam reservoir Arne Rieber, Benson Nyaga 4) Deliberative approaches to the climate crisis: Adapting Climathons for rural communities Philippa Simmonds, Damian Maye, Julie Ingram, Abigail Gardner, Sofia Raseta 5) Ethnographic fingerprints: Examining co-participation, positionality, and interpersonal relationships in diary method Julius Baker 6) A whole island approach to scoping renewable energy sites and yields Ben Watt, Robert L. Wilby 7) Past, present, future: The RGS-IBG political geography research group within British political geography Daniel Hammett 8) Visualising an undergraduate geography field class using generative AI: Intent, expectations and surprises about the racial depiction of students Terence Day, James Esson

📢June Issue of Area📢

This latest issue pulls together the fully #OpenAccess 'Rivers as Borders' Special Section alongside papers on topics including de-development, AI, and diary methods.

Read all the papers here: rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14754762... #geosky

A 2x2 matrix titled "Sabotage Matrix", showing the material and immaterial effects of infrastructure sabotage, divided into destructive (left) and constructive (right) axes. Top-left (Q1): Labeled "Destructive material effects" with a photo of a partially dismantled dam. Top-right (Q2): Labeled "Constructive material effects" with a photo of a dislodged water pipe on dry earth. Bottom-left (Q3): Labeled "Destructive ideational effects", with the quote: "We are saying [sabotage] is good, because it has made the things that were in darkness to come into the light." Bottom-right (Q4): Labeled "Constructive ideational effects", with the quote: "The reason for us being included, it is because of the destructions they have seen." The vertical axis is labeled "Material" (top) and "Immaterial" (bottom), and the horizontal axis is labeled "Destructive" (left) and "Constructive" (right).

Can sabotage be an act of care? A way to build the future?

In our new @antipodeonline.bsky.social article, Eric Kioko & I introduce the Sabotage Matrix, a tool to rethink infrastructure sabotage as both destructive and constructive.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Conference in Barcelona, June 2026. Help us disseminate the event and submit your articles, please! @icta-uab.bsky.social @pollenetwork.bsky.social

pollenpoliticalecology.network/pollen-2026/

Vielen Dank super spannend! Ich fände es teilweise noch interessant besser zu beleuchten was die Motive der Teams sind. Also die etwas übergeordnete Taktik. Warum war (nur als Beispiel) ein Visma Fahrer ewig lange vorne im Wind (3-4km vor Ziel) obwohl Yates bestenfalls an 20. Position war?

Climate (In-)Justice: The Coloniality of the Climate Crisis. panel discussion with Rose Wanjiku, Lakshmi Thevasagayam & Sara Bahadori. 22 May 2025, 05.30 pm. Geographisches Institut Bonn, Alfred-Philippson Lecture Hall, Meckenheimer Alee 166, 53115 Bonn

Hey Bonn/Cologne people. The KritGeo group at our department is hosting an event next week that speaks for itself in terms of urgency or relevance.

Over the past weeks I've had 2 major grants terminated, from EPA and NSF. Over $1 million of funding for human-enviro geography research lost. These terminations have negative impacts for myself, my graduate students, my university, community partners, and society. #withoutNSF #geosky 1/9 🧪