Papers by Thomas Grindsted
Springer eBooks, Oct 7, 2014
Geographical imaginations are absolutely vital to make sense of sustainability challenges. Yet, a... more Geographical imaginations are absolutely vital to make sense of sustainability challenges. Yet, a number of studies reveal that geography education has been slow in integrating issues of sustainability into curricula. Geography is particularly interesting in the context of ESD, due to its tradition of investigating human-environment interactions. In this paper we aim to contribute to this particular field of knowledge by providing an empirical analysis of ESD in Danish University Geography. In this paper it is examined how programs in Geography in higher education have taken different approaches to addressing issues of sustainability. Then, it is examined how geographers articulate their role and function as to addressing issues of sustainability. It is concluded that, though geographers generally are reluctant with using the concept of sustainability, and find it better serves as an implicit notion, geographers’ find their discipline contributes considerably to ESD in three ways. First, geography’s strong tradition in the human-environment theme provides a methodological basis for dealing with issues of sustainability. Second, the spatio-temporal dimensions of sustainability call for geographical approaches to be able to understand the dynamics, complexity and interactions in various scales. Third, geographers find their discipline provides an integrative knowledge platform between the natural and social sciences.
Roskilde Universitet, Nov 7, 2021
Naturpark Åmosen er oplevelser fra stille skovsti langs søbred over heftige moraenebakker med enk... more Naturpark Åmosen er oplevelser fra stille skovsti langs søbred over heftige moraenebakker med enkelte skulpturelle egetraeer frit stående i marker til fugleflokkes vilde leg ved stranden. Når vi beskriver Sjaellands natur, er det ofte ord som 'mild' og 'venlig', der kommer i brug. Men hvis man følger vandet via mose, åløb og søer gennem det landskab, der udgør Naturpark Åmosen, vil man imidlertid få brug for langt mere dramatiske ord. Ord som kan beskrive glaeden ved at se en isfugls vilde farver for første gang eller at køre på bakker, der føles som rutsjebanen i Tivoli. De idéer, tendenser og muligheder, som gennemgås her, er en del af forsknings-og udviklingsprojektet Nye Veje i Naturpark Åmosen. Et af projektets formål er at videreudvikle infrastrukturen i området og formidle dets historiske, kulturelle og landskabelige vaerdier, bl.a. for at inspirere flere til at besøge naturparken. serviceindustrien er begyndt på, for Naturpark Åmosen har potentiale til at tiltraekke flere besøgende. På de sidste sider i kataloget her finder du en liste med referencer, og dér kan du også finde et link til mere information om projektet. Nordeafonden har støttet projektet, så det kan blive let og attraktivt at komme ud i naturen og opleve Vestsjaellands unikke landskab. Nye Veje ledes af adjunkt Thomas Skou Grindsted fra Roskilde Universitet og er et forsknings-samarbejde med saerlig fokus på at inddrage borgere for at gøre området mere attraktivt uden at gå på kompromis med herlighedsvaerdierne. Vi ønsker at understøtte den udvikling, som både frivillige og professionelle lokale aktører i oplevelses-og 7 GAESTER PÅ NYE VEJE-ET IDÉKATALOG TIL FREMTIDENS NATURPARK 4. Ud i det blå Naturturister har vaeret et betydeligt segment i årtier, men det at tage ud i naturen er blevet mere søgt af mindre erfarne, mindre selvberoende og meget mere varierede typer af turister. De 'nye i naturen' giver grobund for mange flere kommercielle aktiviteter. Interessen for det lokale, klimagunstige rejseformer-og senest pandemien-har forstaerket trangen til at søge ud i naturen. Vi vil se, smage, føle, lytte til og endda overnatte i det fri. 1 1 De fire trends er bl.a udvalgt på baggrund af Den nationale strategi for dansk turisme (2016), Udviklingsplan for Sjaelland og øerne (2020) og Sådan overlever turismen Corona (2020)-som alle kan findes via referencelisten på dette katalogs sidste sider.
Applied mobilities, Nov 8, 2022
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011
Declarations on Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) can be viewed as a piece of internationa... more Declarations on Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) can be viewed as a piece of international regulation. Over the past 30 years research at universities has produced convincing data to warn about deterioration of the environment, resource scarcity and the need for sustainability. This in turn, has put a counter pressure on the university, forcing it to review its role as a driver for sustainable development. Today, universities and intergovernmental institutions have developed more than 31 SHE declarations, and more than 1400 universities have signed a SHE declaration globally. However, it is well known that signing a declaration does not necessarily lead to implementation. This is due to the lack of incentive structures. The article examines the discursive interaction between university and intergovernmental declarations that form the basis for the design of sustainable universities. Declarations tend to have impact on three trends. Firstly, there is emerging international consensus on the university's role and function in relation to sustainable development; secondly, the emergence of national legislation, and thirdly, an emerging international competition to be leader in sustainable campus performance.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012
Declarations on Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) have grown in number and significance ov... more Declarations on Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) have grown in number and significance over the last decade. SHE declarations can be viewed as a piece of non binding international regulation that shapes universities' pioneering role in ensuring sustainable development. Examination of the international SHE literature reveals no study that deals specifically with the interaction between declarations developed by the university sector and declarations developed by governmental and intergovernmental institutions. An analysis of this type can give us important insights in what themes these parties think should be given top priority in order to develop a sustainable society. Hence, the article addresses the following issues: (1) a thematic analysis of the relation between declarations developed by the university sector and those developed by governmental and intergovernmental institutions; (2) an analysis of themes the two types of declarations might have in common; and if so (3) an analysis of how they have developed during the past decade. The article finds four new themes that previous research has not identified, and shows how the valuation of nature is under reconfiguration in higher education policy.
Social Structure The Individual Physical Infrastructure Near Materiality When applied to practice... more Social Structure The Individual Physical Infrastructure Near Materiality When applied to practices related to mobility, the societal structure element of COWOP refers to broadly accepted social norms and expected standards of mobility (comparable with Shove and Pantzar’s element of meanings). Infrastructure refers to the physical environment, such as roads, buildings, means of mobility, etc., that are not under individual control. The element of near materiality refers to the (material) environment and technologies that are close to the individual user and that are under individual control, such as using the Rejseplanen app on one’s smartphone or a privately owned car or bike. Finally, the fourth element, the individual, encompasses personal values, such as desires to live more sustainably (e.g. by avoiding driving) and the knowledge and skills required for pursuing these values. The COWOP framework highlights the context of
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 2021
Purpose While the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and visions for sustainability education a... more Purpose While the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and visions for sustainability education apply to many methods, they can be hard to put into practice. This study aims to concern an undergraduate geography course designed not only to teach geographical methods but also to engage with the multi-scalar nature of the SDGs and apply them to various local urban sustainability issues in a real-world context. Design/methodology/approach By means of a mixed-method approach, the authors examine a fieldwork course that invites students into learning situations in which they combine critical thinking with entrepreneurial solutions to local sustainability challenges. The authors examine the learning material from the students’ cases and explore the geographical knowledge the students’ practise. Findings Fieldwork helps students contextualise the multi-scalar nature of the SDGs and thereby apply them to analyses in a local context. Students learn first-hand how their planning proposals can...
Geoforum, 2020
Abstract This paper addresses how high-frequency trading adapts to natural disasters. Stock marke... more Abstract This paper addresses how high-frequency trading adapts to natural disasters. Stock market trades have accelerated to a rate at which shares change hands in microseconds. I examine ways in which high-frequency trading both reconfigures the dynamics of finance and changes the global financial system in different spatio-temporal ways and produces political ecologies of engagement, divergence and convergence between financial and Earth systems. Accordingly, I examine technological change and algorithmic strategies at stock exchanges. By analyzing algorithmic strategies, I investigate the connections between non-human trading and natural disasters. The analysis explains the nature of high-frequency trading strategies and market responses to three earthquakes in Japan. In the final section, I discuss how financial investment algorithms constitute a temporal informational epicenter when tectonic events are made subject to trading.
Declarations on Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) can be viewed as a piece of internationa... more Declarations on Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE) can be viewed as a piece of international regulation. Over the past 30 years research at universities has produced convincing data to warn about deterioration of the environment, resource scarcity and the need for sustainability. This in turn, has put a counter pressure on the university, forcing it to review its role as a driver for sustainable development. Today, universities and intergovernmental institutions have developed more than 31 SHE declarations, and more than 1400 universities have signed a SHE declaration globally. However, it is well known that signing a declaration does not necessarily lead to implementation. This is due to the lack of incentive structures. The article examines the discursive interaction between university and intergovernmental declarations that form the basis for the design of sustainable universities. Declarations tend to have impact on three trends. Firstly, there is emerging international consensus on the university’s role and function in relation to sustainable development; secondly, the emergence of national legislation, and thirdly, an emerging international competition to be leader in sustainable campus performance.
This dissertation engages with Danish University geographers at work and their explication of the... more This dissertation engages with Danish University geographers at work and their explication of the role of geography in shaping socio-environmental debates in an era of the anthropocene. Situating sustainability concepts in a historygeographical context the dissertation examines responses and responsibilities concerning academic fights over representing global environmental change. A major part concerns the theoretical basis and draws inspiration from a series of critical geographical work on the marketization of universities, and relates this tincture to the wider education for sustainability in higher education literature. The methodological framework is based on the social nature approach that tangles these quite distinct epistemological communities by consulting the socio-natures produced. It is concluded that though geographers find sustainability themes important to geography, sustainability is more often implicit than it is explicit. This produces a number of dilemmas and contradictions since geographers both seek to distance themselves from produced politics while at the same time elucidating them. Geographies of response and responsibilities address the battleground over the reading and writing of global environmental change.
Geographical imaginations are vital to make sense of challenges to sustainability which are produ... more Geographical imaginations are vital to make sense of challenges to sustainability which are produced and distributed across scale. Yet, a number of studies find that geography has been reluctant to integrate sustainability issues in its curricula. Geography is particularly interesting and can contribute to education for sustainability debates in various disciplines due to its strong tradition within the human-environment theme. This article presents an empirical analysis of contested ideas of sustainability approaches in Danish University geography degree programs, and the significance given to them by geographers. Hereby the paper critically examines political ecologies when introducing sustainability themes into the curricula. In so doing, it is discussed how different sustainability typologies in education bear relation to different ways of dealing with spatio-temporal tides and waves of the human-environment interface. It is concluded that though geographers find sustainability themes important to geography, sustainability is more often implicit than it is explicit. This produces a number of dilemmas and contradictions since geographers both seek to distance themselves from produced politics while at the same time elucidating them. This finding reveals contradictions within and between traditional ESD approaches, counterproductive to the aims of different typologies themselves. Since frictions between different ESD approaches are fundamentally interdisciplinary, the relevance of this finding is significant across disciplines. Thus, scholars and students should learn to go beyond the geopolitics of education in order to transcend the paradoxical-culture-natures identified.
Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography, 2013
Research on geography in relation to education for sustainable development (ESD), has only recent... more Research on geography in relation to education for sustainable development (ESD), has only recently climbed the research agenda. The geopolitics of intended learning outcomes in the ESD debate, carries policy that produce dilemmas and challenges confronted with disciplinary traditions. In this article it is examined dialectically how the changing climate and the paradigm of sustainability have been dealt with in Danish geographical university education. It is shown how curriculum programs in higher geographical education have taken different approaches to address issues of sustainability and climate change and how geographers articulate their role and function as knowledge on human-environment interactions changes. The analysis of the geographical education reveal that geographers’ find their discipline contribute considerably to ESD, and thus the human environment theme seems to be associated more closely with sustainability issues.
Geoforum, 2016
Geographies of High Frequency Trading-Algorithmic Capitalism and its Contradictory Elements The e... more Geographies of High Frequency Trading-Algorithmic Capitalism and its Contradictory Elements The entire commercial existence depended on being faster than the rest of the stock market" (Lewis 2014, p. 18) "In high-frequency trading (…) time shrinks, but space doesn't'" (MacKenzie et al, 2012, p. 286).
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Papers by Thomas Grindsted