Dian Ekowati

My initial research plan was on everyday life’s care of oil palm smallholders/family farms in Kalimantan, Indonesia when I started my PhD in 2019. When COVID made the ethnographic work impossible, I shifted to “Gendered Analysis of Family farm’s Care in Indonesian Oil Palm Sustainable Policy Discourse”. 

My research is informed by Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) and critical development studies. I recently started exploring the travelling theory from post-colonial thinker to make sense of my understanding of care as I travel from different spaces (Global North-South) and across my life stage.

Before joining the School of Environment and Technology at the University of Brighton as WEGO ITN early-stage researcher at the end of March 2019, I supported research and community programs with international, regional and national research institutes and NGOs. I contributed to research on a wide range of issues on land rights, rural development and gender equality. The last research I supported was governing oil palm for sustainable and gender-inclusive landscapes with the Center of International Forestry Research (CIFOR). 

WEGO-ITN: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 764908.