Envisioning the future in the present: making sense of uncertainty

The STEPS symposium on ‘the politics of uncertainty’ made me think about a couple of questions that I have been concerned with in my research work, but that I have…

Protected: Reading list: Summer School on Pathways to Sustainabilility 2018

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focus group discussion

Why will no one listen to the pig farmers of Yangon?

Sitting in a pig farmer’s house in the Yangon region of Myanmar, I heard a question I’d heard many times before from backyard farmers: “What will your project provide us…

How understanding politics and science can help create resilient cities

A new article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) explores how urban resilience can be strengthened by considering social and political norms, values and behaviours alongside engineering…

People sit around a table talking about sustainable food systems.

Why local land matters for sustainable food systems

Land presents both challenges and opportunities for establishing sustainable food systems. That is one of the learning points from a workshop in Brighton on 7 December 2016. Stakeholders joining the…

The social life of infectious diseases: a new impact story from STEPS

A new multimedia story, ‘The social life of infectious diseases’ is the first in a new series of impact stories from the STEPS Centre. It traces how our thinking on…

A Kharai camel stands with factory chimney stacks behind it on the horizon.

Livelihoods on the edge: contested mangroves in Kachchh

There is a real buzz about Mundra village on the Gulf of Kachchh coast, one of the fastest growing industrial hubs in India. A sprawling port, two of India’s biggest…

Herd of cows

Livelihoods and the political economy of dairy in India and South Africa

This is the second of two blog posts comparing the dairy sector in India and South Africa, as part of research from the Governing the Land-Water-Environment Nexus in Southern Africa…

Woman stand in front of a dairy parlour in South Africa.

Divergent Dairy: comparing pathways in India and South Africa

As a significant agricultural commodity in both India and South Africa, what role can dairy play in spurring development?