By Linet Mwirigi, Maureen Kabasa, Kennedy Mbeva and Joel Onyango In every sphere of life, different methods and power relations are at play. The dynamics and dimensionality of power and…
Challenging power through methods
The COVID-19 pandemic shows how power produces poverty
by Saurabh Arora and Divya Sharma Responses by governments to the COVID-19 pandemic around the world reveal how poverty is produced by social power. The pandemic points, in particular, to…
How can we reveal power and bias when synthesising evidence for policy?
In a letter published today in Nature, STEPS co-director Andy Stirling and Clive Mitchell (Scottish Natural Heritage) suggest that ‘open-mindedness’ is a key principle in making evidence synthesis more useful…
Opening up democratic politics for sustainable development: reflections from STEPS America Latina
The event that launched STEPS América Latina earlier this month, ‘Opening up the development agenda’, was a great workshop. It’s rare for a meeting of this kind to be so…
Seeing the Anthropocene as a responsibility: to act with care for each other and for our planet
by Laura Pereira, University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa This post is my contribution to the debate on the Anthropocene initiated by Andy Stirling in his blog. His comments…
Warning tape and turning points: how we talk about planetary boundaries
Last week, updated research on ‘planetary boundaries’ was published, with new analysis of what humanity is doing to various natural processes and the risks we face as a species. Reading…
Political Ecology: resources, power and justice
With conceptual roots in political economy and cultural ecology, as well as close relationships with development studies and science and technology studies, the multidisciplinary field of political ecology shares a…
LAND GRABS: CALL FOR NEW GRANT APPLICATIONS
By Julia Day, STEPS Centre Communications Manager Across the world, especially in the global South, there has been a dramatic rise in ‘land grabs’ – cross-border, transnational corporation-driven and, in…
ANDY STIRLING ON SCIENCE & SCEPTICISM
After the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, John Beddington, called for scientists to be “grossly intolerant” of pseudo-science The point is that the basic aspirational principles of science offer the…
SCIENCE, KNOWLEDGE, POWER & POLITICS: A NEW VIEW
“It’s no longer enough to think about power in a top-down manner – the people on whom, and in relation to whom, power gets exercised are an indispensable part of…