SFU Political Science welcomes visiting scholar Antje Jantsch

Dr. Antje Jantsch will be joining the Department of Political Science as a visiting scholar from March 8^th to April 5^th of this year. The purpose of Dr. Jantsch’s stay is to work with Professor Steven Weldon, her project partner. They are examining how youth in rural areas view politics, as well as whether rural youth intend to stay in rural areas.

Dr. Jantsch is an agricultural economist and a postdoctoral researcher who works with the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) in Germany. Since 2022, she has been leading the Leibniz Junior Research Group “RuWell,” which aims at decoding the link between quality of life and (im)mobility decisions of rural residents with a particular focus on the concept of place attachment. She is also an associate researcher at the World Database of Happiness based in the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization in the Netherlands, a member of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and the Southeast Europe Research Group (SEE) based at IAMO.

Her research focuses on empirical microeconomics, quality of life and place attachment in rural areas, and social comparison processes in relation to subjective well-being. Her geographical focus is mainly on Southeast Europe and East Germany, but also on Thailand and Latin America.