dr. TM (Tsegaye Moreda) Shegro

Biography

Tsegaye Moreda is an Assistant Professor of Development Studies/Agrarian, Food and Resource Politics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS, The Hague) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Starting from November 2024, he is Associate Editor of World Development. He is also a founding member of the Young African Researchers in Agriculture (YARA) network, based at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

At ISS, he is a member of the Political Ecology Research Group and part of the teaching team for the MA in Development Studies, with a major in Agrarian, Food, and Environmental Studies (AFES). He leads the course Agrarian and Food Politics (ISS-4240) and contributes to the Political Economy of Agriculture and Environment (ISS-4150).

Previously, he has taught a graduate course on the politics of agrarian transformation and development at the College of Humanities and Development Studies (COHD), China Agricultural University in Beijing. He has also taught various undergraduate courses in Ethiopia, including political geography, economic geography, development theory and practice, and research methods.

He is currently co-guest editing two Special Issues: "Migrants, Farmers and Farmworkers: The Politics of Land and Labour, Production and Social Reproduction" for Agriculture and Human Values, and "The Spectacular Global Land Rush and Its Consequences" for Globalizations.

His research interests are in the political economy and sustainability of agriculture and natural resources governance (land, water, forests, sub-soil minerals)  – examined in the era of the global resource rush (various forms of land grabbing, the rise of extractivism, agro-extractivism, large-scale development interventions, neoliberal developmentalism) and environmental and climate change (focusing on narratives and responses, particularly the politics surrounding mitigation and adaptation strategies).

A key focus of his work is understanding how contemporary natural resource politics intersect with broader questions of social justice, socio-economic transformation, and ecological sustainability. He pays particular attention to the role of land politics in shaping global, regional and national development trajectories. His work also engages with the various forms of political reactions by poor people towards dynamic changes in the political economy of natural resources—examining issues of land/property, labour, income, and social reproduction. This includes research on and collaboration with social movements. Transversal themes in his interest in and treatment of all these issues are conflict, power and political contestations across social classes and identity politics, mediated by and through the state. It is in this context that he also looks into converging social movements partly in reaction to the parallel and overlapping processes of global resource rush and climate change mitigation narratives: agrarian movements, environmental movements, fishers' movements, food sovereignty movements. He works and continues to hone his intellectual skills along the tradition of scholar-activism, continually refining his intellectual engagement through collaboration and critical inquiry. His regional focus is Sub-Saharan Africa.

He is currently a team member of a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant project, "Commodity & Land Rushes and Regimes: Reshaping Five Spheres of Global Social Life (RRUSHES-5)" led by Professor Jun Borras. This research project studies recent transactions in land and land-use change and how these impact the general situation around the issues of food, climate change politics, geopolitics, labour and migration, and state-society relations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The project mainly focuses on Colombia, Ethiopia and Myanmar. 

(የምርምር ፕሮጀክት ርዕስ:- የግብርና እና ተዛማጅ ዘርፎች ምርቶች/ሸቀጦች፣ የመሬት ወረራ/ቅምያ እና የመሬትአስተዳደር ስርዓት፡ በአምስት አለም አቀፉዊ ተያያዥ የማህበራዊ ጉዳዮች ላይ ያላቸው ተጽህኖ/እንድምታ (RRUSHES-5) (የምግብ ዋስትና ፣ የአየር ንብረት ለውጥ፣ የሰራተኛ/ፍልሰት ጉዳዮች፣ የመንግስት–ዜጎች ግንኙነት/የዜግነት ጉዳዮችእና የጂኦፖለቲካዊ ጉዳዮች ናቸው፡፡)

He is also a member of an ongoing action research project on governance instruments and the intersection between climate change politics, resource grabbing, conflict and political contestations in Mali (with Via Campesina's CNOP) and Nigeria (with Friends of the Earth's ERA), funded by IDRC and anchored by FIAN International.   

Previously, he was a lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Gondar in Ethiopia. He also held a position of community service coordination in the Research and Community Service Office of the same university.

He holds a B.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies and M.A. in Development Studies from Addis Ababa University and completed a Ph.D. in Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He attended a summer school at the STEPS Centre, part of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, UK.