Hennings, Anne, PhD

  • Research Areas

    • Sustainable Development
    • Peacebuilding and conflict transformation
    • Struggles over Land and (extractive) Resources
    • War affected land rights regimes
    • Forced Migration
    • Regional Focus: South (East) Asia and Subsaharan Africa

  • Doctoral Thesis

    Mistrust, War-Fatigue, Unusual Alliances – Post-War Contestation of Land Deals and Repercussions for Conflict Transformation

    Supervisor
    Professorin Doris Fuchs, Ph.D.
    Doctoral Subject
    Politikwissenschaft
    Doctoral Degree
    Dr. phil.
    Awarded by
    Department 06 – Education and Social Studies
    Though promising in terms of reconstruction, the recent global land rush has led in most cases to displacement, ecological damages, loss of livelihoods, and conflicts and hence entails unpredictable risks for societies in transition. Confronted with a wide range of negative externalities, affected communities increasingly resist the capitalization of their land in various ways. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Cambodia and Sierra Leone, I focus on the destabilizing effects of post-war market liberalization. More specifically, I explore the interplay between emerging resistance against large-scale land deals and conflict transformation dynamics. Relational approaches and assemblage thinking in particular enable a new way of seeing contestation, spaces for agency, and power shifts. I am particularly interested in understanding the choice of (non-) violent resistance and the role of war networks and identities in post-war contentious politics. First, I analyze how land deals shape and are shaped by post-war social configurations and reinforce gender, class, or intergenerational disparities. In this vein, I also probe whether the former Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Kamajor militia fighters in Sierra Leone are directly affected by or are in favor of contemporary land deals. Second, I pay attention to the agency of affected community members and ex-combatants in particular as well as the overall degree of solidarity, trust, and social cohesion among contesting post-conflict communities and their support networks. Third, I explore whether land struggles in post-war environments are more prone to turn violent.

  • CV

    Education

    Ph.D. Student at the Graduate School of Politics (GraSP) and member of the research group "International and European Governance"
    PhD Summer School "Re-Activating Gender-Sensitive Research on Land: Land Commodification, Land Tenure and Gender in Africa"; in Cape Coast, Ghana
    M.A. Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Marburg
    B.A. Sociology and Political Science, University of Rostock
    B.A. Demography and Political Economy, University of Rostock

    Positions

    Research fellow at the Chair of International Relations and Sustainable Development, University of Muenster
    Volunteer, Peace Agents Foundation Philippines
    Intern, Civil Peace Service (GIZ) Ethiopia
    Visiting Researcher, Legal and Human Rights Center of Tanzania

    External Functions

    Member of the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA)
    Member of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (AFK)
    Founder and speaker of the working group 'Nature-Resources-Conflicts' as part of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (with Louisa Prause)
    Member of the International Studies Association (ISA)
    Representative of the academic staff, directorate of the Institute of Political Science

  • Teaching

    • Standardkurs: Introduction to peace and conflict studies [062195]
    • Lektürekurs: Social Movements, Protest and Resistance in the Global South [060473]
    • Standardkurs: Introduction to peace and conflict studies [062793]
    • Lektürekurs: The political economy of the global land Claim [063083]
    • Standardkurs: Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies [066759]

  • Publications

    • Hennings, Anne. . ‘With Soymilk to the Khmer Rouge: Challenges of Researching Ex-combatants in Post-war Contexts.’ International Peacekeeping 25, No. 5: 630–652. doi: 10.1080/13533312.2017.1358621.
    • Hennings, Anne. . ‘Review "Violent Neoliberalism. Development, Discourse, and Dispossession in Cambodia" by Simon Springer (2015).’ SOJOURN - Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 33, No. 3: 723–726.
    • Hennings, Anne. . ‘Plantation assemblages and spaces of contested development in in Sierra Leone and Cambodia.’ Conflict, Security & Development 18, No. 6: 521–546. doi: 10.1080/14678802.2018.1532640.

  • Talks

    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Land governance and smallholders in Sierra Leone’. Round table discussion on land governance, Welthungerhilfe, Freetown, Sierra Leone, .
    • Hennings, Anne; Prause, Louisa (): „How do we research conflicts? Challenges of ethical field research in the field of resource conflicts“. 50. AFK Kolloquium, Berlin, Germany, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Ex-Combatants, Post-War Contestation and (Non-) Violence against Land Deals’. ISA Annual Convention, San Francisco, USA, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Contested Land Deals in Post-War Contexts’. Speaker Series Department of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Teaching the Holocaust in contemporary Germany: Challenges of dealing with the past 70 years on’. Sleuk Rith Institute Speaker Series, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Natural resources and agro-industries in post-conflict Cambodia’. Workshop “Land, natural resources and war-to-peace transition in Colombia” (Universidad del Rosario), Bogota, Colombia, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘From rebels to peasants and back again? The impact of (violent) resistance against land deals on post-conflict dynamics’. Land and Territory in the Americas: Land Grabbing, Forms of Resistance and Alternatives, Bogota, Colombia, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Contested Land Deals: What Implications for Conflict Transformation and Peace in Cambodia?’ Political Ecologies of Conflict, Capitalism and Contestation (PE-3C) - International Conference (Wageningen University and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London), Wageningen, Netherlands, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Assembling Resistance against Large-Scale Land Deals: Bougainville’s Peace Process under Threat? ’. ISA Annual Convention, Atlanta, USA, .
    • Gumbert, Tobias; Hennings, Anne (): ‘Re-evaluating the Food, Land and Resources Nexus in the Global Agri-food System from a Waste-perspective’. ISA Annual Convention, Atlanta, USA, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): „Resource conflicts. Actors, Dimensions, Implikations“. Vergessene Konflikte, organisiert von amnesty international, Leibzig, Germany, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Resistance against Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: Bougainville's Peace Process under Threat?’ LDPI Conference 'Land grabbing, conflict and agrarian-environmental transformations: perspectives from East and Southeast Asia', Chiang Mai, Thailand, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): „Large-Scale Land Acquisitions, Territoriality and Conflict Risks in Post-War Bougainville“. 47. Kolloquium der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Berlin, Germany, .
    • Gumbert, Tobias; Hennings, Anne (): ‘Rethinking Economies of Waste – Exploring Contemporary Rationalities and Practices of Waste in the Global Agri-food System’. ISA Annual Convention, New Orleans, USA, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Land Grabbing and the Future of Pastoralism’. Africa Conference on Land Grabs, Johannesburg, South Africa, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘The Impact of Power Structures on Green Investments – Challenging Sustainable Development Efforts in the Global South’. Green Economy in the South Conference ‘Negotiating Environmental Governance, Prosperity and Development’, Dodoma, Tanzania, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Consequences of Increasing Pressure on Pastures Marginalization and Displacement in North East Africa’. African Studies Association Conference ’Future Africa‘, Bayreuth, Germany, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): ‘Resource Rights, Injustice and Land Grabbing – The Question of Legitimacy in the Case of Ethiopia’. CPR Joint Sessions, Workshop ‚Governing Natural Resources in Times of Climate Change’, Salamanca, Spain, .
    • Hennings, Anne (): „The conflict potential of exclusive land grab practices - How lacking inclusion undermines regional peace“. 46th Colloquium of the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies, Schwerte, Germany, .

Organized Workshops:

  • Contested Nature - Conflicts on Large-Scale Land and Resource Deals, Workshop of the research group "Nature, Resources and Conflict" of the German Association of Peace and Conflict Studies. Berlin, 9 January 2015. (with Louisa Prause, FU Berlin)