About Ian Scoones

Director

Ian is an agricultural ecologist whose research links natural and social sciences, focusing on relationships between science and technology, local knowledge and livelihoods and the politics of agricultural, environment and development policy processes.

All posts by Ian

Change mural

Care or control? Four challenges for transformations to sustainability

This post introduces a series of blog posts on ‘Transformations’, our theme for 2018. Transformation is one of those buzz words that’s everywhere these days, especially in relation to the…

Large old telephone switchboard with connecting wires

Want to transform access to technology? Follow the invisible threads

by Adrian Smith, Rob Byrne, David Ockwell and Ian Scoones This is one in a series of four blog posts exploring ideas and case studies on ‘transformations’, drawing on research…

Herder with a flock of sheep in a dryland landscape, with sun setting behind mountains in the background

Pastoralism, uncertainty, resilience: introducing the PASTRES project

by Ian Scoones and Michele Nori, PASTRES project This month we are launching a new European Research Council funded project, Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Global Lessons from the Margins (PASTRES)…

Sign in rural landscape which reads 'Farmers for Trump'

Why agrarian studies should confront the rise of authoritarian, populist movements

Last week I was in Russia at the fascinating fifth BRICS Initiative in Critical Agrarian Studies conference. Throughout the event we heard about the emergence of particular styles of authoritarian populist regimes,…

Mana pools, Zimbabwe

NEW PAPER: People, patches and parasites

Just out in Human Ecology is a new paper – People, patches and parasites: the case of trypanosomiasis in Zimbabwe. It’s open access, so do have a look! It presents…

ERPI banner

Confronting authoritarian populism: a new initiative and a new paper

A few weeks back, I highlighted the launch of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), and the availability of small grants for doing research on both the contours of the…

Tsetse fly

To combat neglected tropical diseases, we need more than just drugs and vaccines

Neglected tropical diseases have been in the news this week. A big meeting at the World Health Organisation in Geneva has resulted in big pledges from the UK aid progamme…

Trump and Brexit: what’s the alternative?

Sometimes when you suffer trauma, you have to look elsewhere to seek out radically new ways of framing things in order to recover. This year we’ve suffered two major traumas…

Dryland landscape with trees, people and animals

Why we should stop talking about ‘desertification’

A great new book has just been published called ‘The End of Desertification? Disputing Environmental Change in the Drylands’, available at a shocking price from Springer. It is edited by…