Laszlo Cseke

Ph.D. in Urban And Regional Development , 32nd cycle (2016-2019)

Ph.D. obtained in 2020

Dissertation:

Securing and optimising more-than-human value production in the 'mozzarella landscape' in Italy (Abstract)

Tutors:

Ugo Rossi

Profile

Research topic

Improving and securing buffalo lives and bodies in the ‘mozzarella landscape’

Research interests

Human, economic and political geography

Biography

Research

My research investigates the relationships between humans, buffaloes and the landscape in Terra dei Mazzoni (Province of Caserta, Italy). More specifically, I am interested in the various ways in which laws/regulations, cultural-historical mechanisms, and the physical characteristics, as well as limitations of the landscape, contribute to the transformation of animal lives and bodies through capital and science.

In order to analyze the changing relationships between humans, animals and the landscape, and the various mechanisms that seek to transform and improve animal lives and bodies to conform the market demand for mozzarella cheese, I have used a variety of research methods. These methods have included detailed textual analyses of newspapers, magazines and government and industry reports, in-depth and expert interviews and photography. I have also conducted participant and direct observation in a multispecies ‘contact zone’ during my work experience in a buffalo farm.

One of the first outcomes of this research – recently presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Washington DC – is that securitization of nonhuman economies results not only in stronger control over the product and the whole production chain, including nonhuman value producers, but it also contributes to the transformation of nonhuman/animal life cycles in radical ways.

Biography

Before starting my PhD research at the Polytechnic University of Turin, I studied at the University of Manchester (MSc in Environmental Governance, 2013) and Eötvös Loránd University (MSc in Geography, 2010) in Budapest, Hungary.

Publications

Works published during the Ph.D. View all publications in Porto@Iris