Dr. Johannes Stahl

Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow University of California at Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management Division of Society & Environment 140 Mulford Hall #3114 Berkeley, CA 94720 johastahl at yahoo dot de

Research interests

Johannes Stahl conducts research on the political ecology of postsocialist land use change.

As a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow I work on a book on the political ecology of land use change in Albania. The book is based on material collected during 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork between 2003 and 2005. In the book I try to find answers to the questions how and why land use has changed in Albania since the collapse of socialism. I examine these questions from a political ecology perspective in which broader economic and political forces drive land use change at the local level. The book includes rich ethnographic accounts of postsocialist land relations and develops a ‘political ecology theory of postsocialist land use change’ which suggests that changes in the mechanisms through which resource rents are created and distributed among differently positioned social actors have shifted incentives for land use and caused land use change.

Prior to joining the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, I was a member of the Junior Research Group on Postsocialist Land Relations at Humboldt University, Berlin from 2003 to 2007. I hold a Ph.D. in agriculture from Humboldt University and an M.A. in social anthropology from the University of Freiburg, Germany.

Expertise by topic

Environmental Anthropology

Political Ecology

Land reform and land use in Southeastern Europe

Rural property

Forest governance

Workshop: ‘Towards a rights-based agenda in international forestry?’

I am currently co-organizing a workshop on rights-based approaches in international forestry. The workshop will bring together analytically-minded activists, policy-makers and scholars to discuss how an emerging rights-based agenda in international forestry might contribute to inclusive futures for forest people and sustainable forest management. It will be held at Berkeley on May 30-31, 2009.

For more information, please click here.

Recent publications

2009	Johannes Stahl, Thomas Sikor, and Stefan Dorondel. The Institutionalization of Property Rights in Albanian and Romanian Biodiversity Conservation. In: International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology. Vol. 8, No.1. Pp: 57-73.
2009	Johannes Stahl and Thomas Sikor. Rural Property in an Age of Transnational Migration: Ethnic Divisions in Southeastern Albania. In: Anthropologica, Journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society. Vol 51, No.1. Pp:95-107.
2009	Johannes Stahl, Thomas Sikor and Stefan Dorondel. Transparence de l'administration foncière en Albanie et en Roumanie. In: Cahiers Options Méditerranée. Vol. 82. Pp:55-64. CIHEAM, Paris.
2009	Thomas Sikor, Johannes Stahl and Stefan Dorondel. Negotiating Post-Socialist Property and State: Struggles over Forest in Albania and Romania. In: Development and Change. Vol. 40, No 1. Pp:171-193.
2009	Thomas Sikor, Daniel Müller, and Johannes Stahl. Land fragmentation, Migration and Cropland Abandonment in Albania: Implications for the Roles of State and Community in Postsocialist Land Reforms. In: World Development. Vol. 37, No. 8. Pp:1411-1423.