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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190410T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190410T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190424T122620Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201008T094221Z
UID:13816-1554913800-1554919200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:The Future of the World is Mobile: What can we learn from pastoralists?
DESCRIPTION:European University Institute\nFlorence\, Italy \nListen to this event\n \nAbout this event\nCan the experience of pastoralists\, who have long relied on mobility\, help us address the challenges of global migration\, cross-border trade and managing flows of information and commodities? \nMobility is increasingly central to our societies. Nomadic practices and networks that enhance mobility are synonymous with a fluid\, flexible\, mobile modernity\, which is governed through a continuous and growing flow of people\, resources\, information and capital. Yet our policy narratives and institutional settings are poorly equipped to tackle accelerating patterns of mobility\, which in turn respond to and generate shifting patterns of uncertainties. A perspective on mobility from pastoralists’ perspectives challenges many ideas derived from a settled state perspective\, dominated as they are by fixity\, settlement\, controlled migration\, regulated movement\, fences and borders. A mobility perspective therefore suggests new ways of thinking about policy and practice in a range of areas. \nPASTRES\, an ERC-funded project looking at pastoralism and uncertainty\, believes that looking at the world through the eyes of pastoralists gives mobility the centrality it deserves. Pastoralism is a livelihood strategy based on the movements of animals and people\, in search of greener pastures\, expanding social networks and taking advantage of market opportunities. Pastoralists’ responses to environmental\, market and governance uncertainties hinge on specific patterns of mobility. For many pastoralists\, mobility across borders is vital\, complex networks linking kin and others are at the core of market functioning\, flexible movement in response to changing resource availability is essential for escaping drought\, avoiding fixed places for settlement or markets is central to facilitating flexibility\, and adaptive forms of governance are vital in pastoral societies. \nCan we learn from pastoralists how mobility could help in responding to uncertainty for wider challenges? Perspectives from ‘marginal\, peripheral’ contexts could provide important indications and inform debates around wider societal concerns. The seminar will provide the opportunity to link debates focused on pastoralism to wider discussions around movement and mobility in migration\, trade and development\, as part of a wider conversation about rethinking perspectives on uncertainty for contemporary global challenges. \nPresentations: \n\nPASTRES and the lens of pastoralists\, Ian Scoones\, IDS\, University of Sussex & Visiting Fellow\, Schuman Centre (view slides)\nInterfacing pastoral movements and modern mobilities\, Michele Nori (view slides)\n\nRabari on the road: Exploring the politics of pastoral mobility\, Natasha Maru\, IDS\, University of Sussex (view slides)\n\nQ&A and discussion \n\nModerator: Bernard Hoekman\nDiscussant: Giorgia Giovannetti (view slides)
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/the-future-of-the-world-is-mobile-what-can-we-learn-from-pastoralists/
CATEGORIES:Pastoralism
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190507T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190507T143000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190122T105806Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190614T083528Z
UID:13609-1557234000-1557239400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:STEPS Uncertainty series: Ilene Grabel - When Things Don't Fall Apart
DESCRIPTION:Ilene Grabel\nProfessor of International Finance\nUniversity of Denver\n \nFree entry\, all welcome \nWatch video\n \nAbout the lecture\nIn When Things Don’t Fall Apart\, Ilene Grabel makes a simple but controversial claim\, based on the work of the eminent social scientist Albert O. Hirschman. Grabel argues that as concerns global financial governance and development finance we are now in a period that she calls productive incoherence. \nUnlike the Keynesian period of the middle 20th century and the neoliberal period that followed\, the current conjuncture lacks an overarching theoretical framework to guide financial governance.  In its absence\, Grabel maps the proliferation of institutional innovation at the national\, regional\, and transregional levels. These experiments are grounded in a spirit of Hirschmanian pragmatism rather than Keynesian or neoclassical dogmatism. They are ad hoc\, often limited in scope\, and even inconsistent with each other. They are in that sense incoherent. \nThe book’s novel normative claim is that this incoherence is productive. It is allowing for new institutional and policy innovations that are contributing to a pluripolar financial governance architecture that is more robust and offers greater opportunities for problem solving and experimentation than the coherent architecture it is displacing. \nGrabel substantiates these claims with empirically-rich case studies that explore the effects of recent crises on established and new networks of financial governance (such as the G-20); transformations within the IMF; institutional innovations in liquidity support and project finance from the national to the transregional levels; and the “rebranding” of capital controls. Grabel acknowledges\, however\, that the incoherent transformations underway also pose grave risks. She considers these risks in the concluding chapter of the book. \n\nAbout the speaker\nIlene Grabel is Professor of International Finance and co-director of the graduate program in Global Finance\, Trade\, and Economic Integration at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver (USA). \nShe has published widely on financial policy and crises\, developmental financial architectures\, regional and transregional financial arrangements\, international financial institutions and global financial governance\, international capital flows and capital controls\, international financial policies\, currency boards and central banks in emerging market and developing countries\, and remittances. \nHer recent book\, When Things Don’t Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence (The MIT Press\, 2017) was awarded the 2018 British International Studies Association International Political Economy Group Book Prize\, and the 2019 International Studies Association International Political Economy Best Book Award. \nMore information can be found at Ilene Grabel’s website. \n\nUncertainty event series\nThis is part of a series of events on the STEPS Centre’s Uncertainty theme in 2019. \nUncertainties can make it hard to plan ahead. But recognising them can help to reveal new questions and choices. What kinds of uncertainty are there\, why do they matter for sustainability\, and what ideas\, approaches and methods can help us to respond to them? \nFind out more about our theme for 2019 on our Uncertainty theme page.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/steps-seminar-ilene-grabel-uncertainty-event-series/
LOCATION:Convening Space\, Institute of Development Studies\, Library Road\, Falmer\, Brighton\, BN1 9RE\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Seminars
ORGANIZER;CN="ESRC STEPS Centre":MAILTO:b.ayre@ids.ac.uk
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190509T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190509T143000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190315T113447Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190529T161238Z
UID:13725-1557406800-1557412200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Matteo Caravani: Disciplinary Diversification in Karamoja: The Case of Charcoal
DESCRIPTION:PASTRES/STEPS Seminar with Matteo Caravani\, Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) \nRoom 221\, Institute of Development Studies\nAll welcome\n \n \nFollowing the Karamojong’s historical transition away from transhumant pastoralism – in what has been termed as the de-pastoralisation process – the regional economic reliance on off-farm activities has steadily increased. Colonial and post-colonial interventions have slowly deconstructed an old mode of production to “civilize” and “modernize” the Karamojong. The forceful change of modes of production\, resulted in the current dominant diversification of livelihoods that is shaped by growing inequality and general proletarianisation. The internal responses to the crisis of social reproduction of labour – among which charcoal production features as essential – are again disciplined by the Ugandan government and development partners. These institutions support sedentary agriculture while criminalizing the local charcoal production for its alleged effects on environmental and land degradation\, leading to deforestation and thus the weakening of communities’ resilience to future shocks and stresses. \nHowever\, while the Karamojong are officially blamed for deforestation due to charcoal burning\, initial findings suggest that large-scale commercial producers in central Uganda are expanding their charcoal frontier to Northern Uganda and that these are indeed the key drivers of deforestation. \nMy paper argues that there is need to move away from a normative understanding of off-farm activities in Karamoja and to recognize the importance of charcoal production beyond the discourse of negative coping mechanisms. Simply criminalizing the Karamojong for burning and selling charcoal or impeding this livelihood through the rule of law will make the inhabitants of this region more destitute. Rather than banning charcoal\, government and development partners should support its sustainable production. \nAbout the speaker\nDr Matteo Caravani is a political economist lecturing on the agrarian question in modern history and the history of economic theory at the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) in Uganda. He graduated from the faculty of Economics\, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ and he was awarded a PhD in Development Studies at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) University of Sussex\, in Brighton. \nDr Caravani worked as an international consultant for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) both in Palestine and Rome\, for the World Food Programme (WFP) in East Africa\, for the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and for the Institute of Development Studies. \nHe is now an affiliate researcher on the PASTRES (Pastoralism\, Uncertainty and Resilience) project. Within PASTRES he focuses his work in deconstructing resilience. Particularly\, he is interested in the relationship between existing social structures and power relations and the ways in which these structures and relations keep large portions of the population unable to be resilient to future shocks and stresses. \n\nContact: l.forgeaux@ids.ac.uk
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/matteo-caravani-disciplinary-diversification-in-karamoja-the-case-of-charcoal/
LOCATION:Room 221\, IDS\, Library Road\, Falmer\, Brighton\, BN1 9RE\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190514T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190514T190000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190123T134443Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190624T083833Z
UID:13615-1557855000-1557860400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:STEPS Annual Lecture: Derek Wall - What would Elinor do (about climate change)?
DESCRIPTION:Fulton A Lecture Theatre\nUniversity of Sussex\nFalmer\, Brighton\, UK \nWatch video\n \n  \n* * * \n\nAbout the lecture\n \nWhat would Elinor do (about climate change)?\nElinor Ostrom was the first and so far only woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics. Her innovative work on ecological economics challenged the notion of ‘the tragedy of the commons’. \nHer political economy analysis\, focusing on trust\, cooperation\, diversity\, deep democracy and innovative methodology\, provides a basis for considering climate change. In this lecture\, Derek Wall will outline\, develop and critique her approach\, and discuss how it might inform diverse efforts to deal with the challenge of a warming world. \n\nAbout The speaker\n\nDerek Wall\nDerek Wall teaches political economy at Goldsmiths College\, London. \nA former International Coordinator of the Green Party of England and Wales\, his latest book is Hugo Blanco: A Revolutionary for Life (Merlin Press). Previous books have included Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals (Pluto Press) and Green History (Routledge). \nHe is currently writing a new title\, Another Green World: The practical politics of climate change resistance. \n* * * \n\nAbout the STEPS Annual Lectures\nThe STEPS Annual Lecture is the only public event of the STEPS Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability. It is attended by participants in the Summer School\, and open to the general public\, with free entry. \nPast speakers include Achim Steiner\, Mariana Mazzucato\, Tim Jackson\, Kate Raworth\, Mike Hulme\, Harriet Bulkeley and Michael Jacobs. \nBrowse recordings and slides from past Annual Lectures.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/steps-annual-lecture-derek-wall/
LOCATION:Fulton Lecture Theatre A\, University of Sussex\, Falmer\, Brighton\, BN1 9QT\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Governance & policy,Resource politics
ORGANIZER;CN="ESRC STEPS Centre":MAILTO:b.ayre@ids.ac.uk
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190611T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190611T143000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190513T151721Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190614T204934Z
UID:13853-1560258000-1560263400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:PASTRES seminar: Pastoralism in the Arabian Peninsula - Reflections on contemporary challenges and adaptations to land use rights
DESCRIPTION:Room 100\, Institute of Development Studies\nSeminar with Dawn Chatty\, co-hosted by the PASTRES project and the STEPS Centre\nAll welcome \nWatch video\n[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK53HSwe5PM&width=700&height=525[/embedyt]\nAbout the seminar\nNomadic pastoralism in the Arabian Peninsula has undergone significant change over the past 150 years as a response to alterations in its relationship with central authority.  Efforts to settle and transform pastoralists into settled farmers – a key policy of Post WWI neo-colonial and later newly emerging nation states – has largely disappeared. Instead we see concentrated drives to label such communities as backward\, economically irrational\, and obsolete.  More recently\, a policy of ‘benign’ neglect has permitted pastoral communities in Arabia to adapt\, resist and face new challenges from multinational extractive industry\, global conservation organizations\, and climate change. \nAbout the speaker\nDawn Chatty is Emeritus Professor in Anthropology and Forced Migration and former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre\, University of Oxford\, United Kingdom. She is also Fellow of the British Academy. Her research interests include: coping strategies and resilience of refugee youth; tribes and tribalism; nomadic pastoralism and conservation; gender and development; health\, illness and culture. \nShe has edited numerous books\, including Deterritorialized Youth:  Sahrawi and Afghan Refugees at the Margins of the Middle East (Berghahn Books\, 2010); Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Facing the 21st Century (Leiden\, Brill\, 2006); Children of Palestine: Experiencing Forced Migration in the Middle East (Berghahn Books\, 2005); and Conservation and Mobile Peoples: Displacement\, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development (Berghahn Press\, 2002). \nProf Chatty is the author of Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press\, 2010)\, From Camel to Truck (White Horse Press\, 2013)\, and Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State (Hurst Publishers\, 2018). \nFor queries about this event\, email l.forgeaux@ids.ac.uk
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/pastres-seminar-pastoralism-in-the-arabian-peninsula-reflections-on-contemporary-challenges-and-adaptations-to-land-use-rights/
LOCATION:Room 100\, Institute of Development Studies\, Library Road\, Falmer\, BN1 9RE\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190614T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190614T160000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190603T142906Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190617T203155Z
UID:13891-1560520800-1560528000@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Why embracing uncertainty means rethinking development
DESCRIPTION:Ester Boserup Prize Lecture\nby Ian Scoones\, ESRC STEPS Centre / PASTRES project \nWatch video\n \n\nLecture details\nA1-01.01 Festauditoriet\nBülowsvej 17\, 1870 Frederiksberg C\nCopenhagen \nThis lecture will draw on the European Research Council funded project\, PASTRES (Pastoralism\, Uncertainty\, Resilience: Global Lessons from the margins) and will link to the ESRC STEPS Centre’s uncertainty theme for 2019. \nDetails of the lecture and background on the Ester Boserup Prize are on the University of Copenhagen’s website.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/why-embracing-uncertainty-means-rethinking-development/
CATEGORIES:Pastoralism
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190618T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190621T170000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190603T091042Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210616T082752Z
UID:13889-1560844800-1561136400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Researching Pastoral Mobilities: Exploring Methods and Frameworks
DESCRIPTION:18 – 21 June 2019\nFriedensau University (Germany/Möckern) \nThe “Pastoral Mobilities: Exploring Frameworks and Methods” writing workshop responds to the need to revisit our methodological infrastructure\, as researchers of mobile pastoralism\, to align with broader advancements in the understating of pastoral livelihoods and their environments\, as well as with the contemporary empirics of research with mobile pastoralists. \n24 researchers and mentors will come together from the 18th to the 21st of June in Friedensau University (Germany/Möckern) to explore these shortcomings and possible solutions to this methodological quandary. We will be exchanging knowledge\, discussing our case papers\, building up a shared understanding of the problematics of the current methodological infrastructure and reflect on possible solutions. Alongside round table discussions and more standard presentations\, we will be using interactive and alternative ways to discuss these issues in the hope of creating an open and dynamic space for reflection. \nBringing new views to the study of pastoral systems and their representations in policymaking and beyond\, we will reflect on our language\, units of analysis\, geographical and spatial references\, ethics\, politics and power\, tools and methods adopted\, within broader research designs to better fit the contemporary empirics of researching with mobile people. \nThis initiative is connected with the PASTRES project.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/researching-pastoral-mobilities-exploring-methods-and-frameworks/
CATEGORIES:Pastoralism
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190703T153000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190705T160000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20181120T141745Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200720T123952Z
UID:13418-1562167800-1562342400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:The Politics of Uncertainty: Practical Challenges for Transformative Action
DESCRIPTION:This international academic symposium\, held at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK\, explored the theme of uncertainty – the STEPS Centre’s theme for 2019. \nBook | Blog series | Podcast | Video | Background info \n\nBook\nThe Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation (Routledge\, July 2020) is an Open Access book which further explores the ideas discussed at the symposium. \nThe book features chapters by participants\, and an introduction by the editors (and symposium convenors)\, Ian Scoones and Andy Stirling. \nRead the book \n\nBlog series\nParticipants in the symposium reflect on the event in a series of blog posts. \n\nUncertain futures and the politics of uncertainty Richard Bronk\nUncertain superlatives Emery Roe\nWhen ignorance does more than you think Emery Roe\nSolidarity\, insurance\, emotions and uncertainty Mark Fenton-O’Creevy\nWhose risk? Whose responsibility? The politics and financialisation of uncertainty Nick Taylor\nEmbracing uncertainty: lessons from journeys and struggles Michele Nori\, Rose Cairns and Nathan Oxley\nInfrastructures of the imagination: uncertainty and the politics of prefiguration Martin Mahony and Silke Beck\nEnvisioning the future in the present: making sense of uncertainty Detlef Müller-Mahn\nHow can NGOs feel at home with uncertainty? Irene Guijt\n\nView the series \n\nPodcast\nThe STEPS Uncertainty Podcast is a series of four conversations recorded with participants after the symposium\, available as a podcast to stream or download. \nView/subscribe on iTunes \nEpisode #1: Finance & banking / insurance / governance\n \nWith Leon Wansleben (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies)\, Leigh Johnson (University of Oregon)\, Bernardo Rangoni (European University Institute)\, Ian Scoones (STEPS Centre) \n \nEpisode #2: Uncertainty in critical infrastructures / reliability / technology & innovation\n \nWith Patrick van Zwanenberg (CENIT\, Argentina)\, Emery Roe (University of California\, Berkeley)\, Andy Stirling (STEPS Centre) \n \nEpisode #3: Disease outbreaks / climate change / disasters\n \nWith Melissa Leach (Institute of Development Studies)\, Lyla Mehta (Institute of Development Studies)\, Mark Pelling (King’s College London)\, Marina Apgar (STEPS Centre) \n \nEpisode #4: Security & terrorism / migration\nWith Gabe Mythen (University of Liverpool)\, Dorte Thorsen (University of Sussex)\, Rose Cairns (STEPS Centre) \n \n\nVideo\nWatch a playlist of all videos from the symposium. \n[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLI8qkz1i11OQNKD34R5WJzu8bhYUuoa24[/embedyt]\n\nVideo clips\nWatch selected clips from the symposium at the links below. \nPanel contributions: ‘What is uncertainty\, and why does it matter?’ \n Silvio Funtowicz: What is uncertainty\, and why does it matter? \n Sheila Jasanoff: What is uncertainty\, and why does it matter? \n Dipak Gyawali: What is uncertainty\, and why does it matter? \nPanel contributions: ‘What happened to the Risk Society?’ \n Gabe Mythen: What happened to the Risk Society? \n Joy Zhang: What happened to the Risk Society? \n Dean Curran: What happened to the Risk Society? \nVideo of full sessions \n What is uncertainty\, and why does it matter? (panel + Q&A – 93 min) \n What happened to the Risk Society? (panel + Q&A – 96 min) \n Final discussion: fishbowl (reflections on the conference – 76 min) \n\nAbout the symposium\nThinking across diverse domains – from finance\, to climate\, to migration\, to disease\, to innovation\, to infrastructure\, to security – this symposium will explore the diverse ways incertitude is understood and responded to (or not). \nBy catalysing and developing richer and more nuanced understandings of incertitude\, the symposium aims to help enable more robust actions\, strategies and governance for these uncertain times. \nFor updates\, please subscribe to the STEPS Centre newsletter. \n\n \nFor more images from the event\, see the photo gallery on Flickr. \nSpeakers\nPlenary speakers include \n\nDean Curran\, University of Calgary\nSheila Jasanoff\, Harvard Kennedy School\nSilvio Funtowicz\, University of Bergen\nGabe Mythen\, University of Liverpool\nDipak Gyawali\, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology\nBrian Wynne\, Emeritus Professor\, University of Lancaster\nJoy Zhang\, University of Kent\nSilke Beck\, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research\nMelissa Leach\, Institute of Development Studies\nLyla Mehta\, Institute of Development Studies\n\n\nProgramme\n3 July \n15:00 Registration opens\n16:00 PLENARY 1: What is uncertainty\, and why does it matter? Sheila Jasanoff\, Silvio Funtowicz\, Dipak Gyawali\n18:00 Refreshments + publication ‘speed launches’\n19:00 Dinner \n4 July \n9:00 CLUSTER SESSION (parallel session\, each cluster meets in different rooms) – presentations from first two themes\n11:00 Tea & coffee\n11:30 CLUSTER SESSION – presentations from third theme\n12:30 Lunch\n14:00 CLUSTER SESSION – cross-theme discussion: How is uncertainty understood? New directions and challenges\n15:30 Tea & coffee\n16:00 PLENARY 2: What happened to the risk society: multiple modernities and a new politics of uncertainty? Joy Zhang\, Brian Wynne\, Dean Curran\, Gabe Mythen\n18:00 Dinner & drinks \n5 July \n9:00 CLUSTER SESSION – Synthesis: What have we learned? Big questions and challenges\n11:00 Tea & coffee\n11:30 Feedback from clusters\, summaries\, reflections\n13:30 Lunch\n14:30 PLENARY 3: Uncertainty and transformations\, challenges for science\, policy and politics Lyla Mehta\, Silke Beck\, Melissa Leach (+ reflections in ‘fishbowl’ format)\n16:00 Tea & coffee\, departures \n\nthemes and clusters\nThe symposium is organised into four Clusters. Each Cluster includes three themes\, convened by a researcher (the Theme Convenor) with expertise on that theme. \nIn each theme\, participants have been invited by the Theme Convenor to give presentations.  The document below gives abstracts for all 12 of the themes. \nDownload the  theme abstracts (PDF) \n– – \nCluster 1 \n\nFinance and banking (Leon Wansleben\, Max Plank Institute for the Study of Societies\, Cologne\, and Timo Walter\, University of Erfurt)\nInsurance and liability (Leigh Johnson\, University of Oregon)\nExperimental\, nodal\, adaptive governance (Bernardo Rangoni\, European University Institute\, Florence)\n\nDownload abstracts from Cluster 1 (PDF) \n– – \nCluster 2 \n\nTechnology policy\, regulation and precaution (Patrick van Zwanenberg\, CENIT\, Argentina)\nCritical infrastructures and reliability (Emery Roe\, UC Berkeley)\nExpanding cities (James Evans\, University of Manchester)\n\nDownload Abstracts from Cluster 2 (PDF) \n– – \nCluster 3 \n\nClimate change models and response (Lyla Mehta and Shilpi Srivastava\, Institute of Development Studies\, Sussex)\nDisease outbreaks and preparedness (Melissa Leach and Hayley MacGregor\, Institute of Development Studies\, Sussex)\nDisasters\, humanitarianism and emergencies (Mark Pelling\, King’s College London)\n\nDownload abstracts from Cluster 3 (PDF) \n– – \nCluster 4 \n\nMigration and mobility (Dorte Thorsen\, University of Sussex)\nConflict\, security\, terrorism and crime (Gabe Mythen\, University of Liverpool)\nCulture\, religion and perception (Rose Cairns\, SPRU\, University of Sussex)\n\nDownload abstracts from cluster 4 (PDF) \n\nBackground\nThis event is part of the STEPS Centre’s 2019 theme on Uncertainty. \nThinking across diverse domains – from finance\, to climate\, to migration\, to disease\, to innovation\, to infrastructure\, to security – this symposium will explore the diverse ways incertitude is understood and responded to (or not). \nBy catalysing and developing richer and more nuanced understandings of incertitude\, the symposium aims to help enable more robust actions\, strategies and governance for these uncertain times. In the ‘real world’ of policy and business\, the full depth and breadth of challenges presented by the unknown are rarely fully acknowledged – and virtually never embraced. But this does not stop them being a familiar aspect of the worlds of Nature\, politics and everyday life. \nDiverse framings\, degrees and contexts of ‘incertitude’ can be far more intractable and politically entangled than suggested by a technical language of ‘uncertainty’ or the reassuring methods around ‘risk’. \nWhen unfathomed dimensions and possibilities of ignorance are treated as neatly parameterised ‘uncertainty’\, then the resulting decisions can be seriously jeopardised by what has been excluded. When expectations are further closed down by the seductive aggregations of ’risk’ then the vulnerabilities are even more severe. There is no technical specialism so narrow that diverse equally expert views will not disagree\, generating pervasive ‘ambiguity’. \nBut highlighting these wilder and more unruly forms of incertitude is not just a counsel of fear. These conventional blinkers on the imagination can also obscure many positive hopes and possibilities. Surprises\, after all\, can be good as well as bad. Pervading economies\, societies\, environments and technologies\, the implications can be appreciated across a wide range of political cultures. \nThinking across diverse domains – from finance\, to climate\, to migration\, to disease\, to innovation\, to infrastructure\, to security – this symposium will explore the diverse ways incertitude is understood and responded to (or not). The aim is to catalyse and develop richer and more nuanced understandings of incertitude and so help enable more robust actions\, strategies and governance. \nIn particular\, the implications will be examined of complementing existing narrow ‘control-driven’\, managerialist frameworks\, with complementary ‘care-oriented’ approaches\, that are more open\, adaptive and responsive. Drawing on concepts and experiences from diverse disciplines and fields of practice\, attention will span implications equally for individual behaviours and organisational strategies\, as well as societal responses – with the politics of knowledge central throughout. \n\nThis symposium is the main event in the STEPS Centre’s Uncertainty theme in 2019. \nUncertainties can make it hard to plan ahead. But recognising them can help to reveal new questions and choices. What kinds of uncertainty are there\, why do they matter for sustainability\, and what ideas\, approaches and methods can help us to respond to them? \nFind out more about our theme for 2019 on our Uncertainty theme page.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/the-politics-of-uncertainty-practical-challenges-for-transformative-action/
LOCATION:Institute of Development Studies\, Library Road\, Falmer\, Brighton\, BN1 9RE\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Governance & policy,Understanding sustainability
ORGANIZER;CN="ESRC STEPS Centre":MAILTO:b.ayre@ids.ac.uk
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20191015T083000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20191015T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191002T132019Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210401T191150Z
UID:14121-1571128200-1571162400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Transformation Laboratories as spaces for co-designing social-ecological transformation: learning from different contexts and approaches
DESCRIPTION:This event is part of the TransAction Pre-Conference Workshops at Transformations 2019 in Santiago\, Chile. \nExperimental spaces for supporting collective processes of deliberation and learning about sustainability challenges\, and testing possible solutions\, are of increasing interest. An example of these are T-Labs (‘transformation laboratories’)\, which are highly facilitated\, multi-stakeholder spaces of interaction and dialogue aimed at co-creating new visions and\npractices for social-ecological sustainability in specific settings. \nThree projects from the Transformations to Sustainability programme\, T-Learning\, Pathways and ACKnowl-EJ\, have experimented with and reframed T-Labs\, enriching our understanding of transformation itself\, and of specific\, complex social-ecological systems and their challenges in a wide range of contexts. This TransAction Workshop will bring together a wide range of participants to engage in dialogue\, exchange of experience and exploration of the T-Lab framework\, and to critically assess its potential to support processes of socialecological transformation. The framework and its methods will be applied to two cases related to extractive sectors in Latin America. The first case is mining\, drawing on the knowledge of the new T2S project Gold Matters. The second case is agriculture\, building upon Pathways experience. The use of T-Lab processes has great potential for exploring the role of extractive sectors in enabling and advancing transformations to sustainability in Latin America. \nThe workshop will propose tools not only to academics but also to policy makers\, practitioners\, activists and everyone who is interested in designing multi-stakeholder spaces of transformation in the context of sustainability challenges in general and in extractive sectors such as mining and agriculture in particular. The workshop will be carried out in Spanish. In the case that some participants do not speak Spanish\, it is expected that translation will be collaborative\, with the aid of participants both from the T2S projects and external attendants. \n\nCost: 50 USD\nRegistration is mandatory. To find our how to register\, click here.\nFor more information on the workshop\, click here.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/transformation-laboratories-as-spaces-for-co-designing-social-ecological-transformation-learning-from-different-contexts-and-approaches/
CATEGORIES:Research methods,Resource politics
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://steps-centre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/4-crop.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20191016T103000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20191017T120000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191002T133050Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191008T133153Z
UID:14122-1571221800-1571313600@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Negotiating Epistemological Frameworks and Normative Commitments Across a Transformative Knowledge Network
DESCRIPTION:This is a session organised by the Pathways network for the Transformations 2019 conference in Sanitago\, Chile. The session has two parts. \nPart 1\, in the FAU Auditorium\, will be on Wednesday 16 October\, 11:10 – 12:45 (GMT-3)\n1. Introduction. (Adrian Ely)\n2. Reflections on Theory\, Methods and Action – The Role(s) of Researchers in Transformations to Sustainability. (Adrian Ely)\n3. Bioleft: A Story of Emerging Change First Led by Academics but Now Co-Owned by a Complex Network of Actors. (Anabel Marin\, Patrick Van Zwanenberg\, Almendra Cremaschi)\n4. Mobilized Publics\, Contradictory Interests and Divergent Imaginations: CoProducing Knowledge and Practices for Sustainable Urban Water Management in Gurgaon\, India. (Pravin Kumar Kushwaha\, Dinesh Abrol\, Bikramaditya Chaudhary\, Prachi Jha) \nPart 2\, in room 2002\, Torre 15\, will be on Thursday 17 October\, 10:30-12:00 (GMT-3) \n1. Introduction. (Laura Pereira)\n2. Co-Producing Research and Action for Transformations to Sustainability in Argentina: Can Empowering Logics Also Be Instrumental? (Patrick Van Zwanenberg\, Anabel Marin\, Almendra Cremaschi)\n3. Exploring Collective Agency for Sustainability Transformations: A\nTransdisciplinary Process in the Xochimilco Social-Ecological System T-Lab. (Lakshmi Charli-Joseph\, Hallie Eakin\, J. Mario Siqueiros-García\, Beatriz Ruizpalacios\, David Manuel-Navarrete\, Rebecca Shelton)\n4. Understanding the Sustainable Development Prospects of Mobile-Enabled Solar Home Systems in Kenya. (Victoria Chengo)\n5. Social Impact of Environmental Policies and Economic Green Transitions in China – A Case Study of Hebei. (Lichao Yang) \nFor more information\, see the conference programme.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/negotiating-epistemological-frameworks-and-normative-commitments-across-a-transformative-knowledge-network/
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://steps-centre.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/chile.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20191016T111000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20191016T124500
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191002T134350Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191002T134350Z
UID:14125-1571224200-1571229900@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Relational and Psychological Dimensions of Agency
DESCRIPTION:This is a session organised with members of the STEPS Global Consortium for the Transformations 2019 conference in Sanitago\, Chile. \n\nThe Relationship Between Social Capital and System Transformation. (Esther Carmen)\nProcedural Fairness as an Enabler of Transformative Collaboration. (Gail Francis)\nLoss and Change: Emotional Roots in Transformation and Collective Action. (Hallie Eakin\, Rebecca Shelton\, Lakshmi Charli-Joseph\, Jesus Mario Siqueiros Garcia\, David Manuel-Navarrete\, Beatriz Ruizpalacios)\nSailing into Transformational Change: Making Safe Spaces for Leadership Development on Homeward Bound. (Deborah Anne O’Connell\, Sophie Adams\, Kylie Lewis\, Fern Hames)\nSeeds of Transformation: Change Strategies Towards More Sustainable Seed Systems. (Almendra Cremasachi\, Anabel Marin\, Patrick van Zwanenberg)
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/relational-and-psychological-dimensions-of-agency/
CATEGORIES:Understanding sustainability
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://steps-centre.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/chile.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20191016T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20191020T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190920T134020Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191018T093332Z
UID:14067-1571227200-1571594400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Exhibition: 'Hidden Paths'
DESCRIPTION:ONCA Gallery\n14 St George’s Place\, Brighton\, BN1 4GB\, UK\n12.00 – 18.00 daily\n16-20 October 2019\nFree entry\, donations to gallery welcome \nGlobal climate strikes are calling for ‘system change\, not climate change’\, but what does this mean? Extreme weather\, automation\, political instability\, inequality: these crises are connected in deep and often invisible ways. \nHidden Paths welcomes us inside the troubled systems that we live in to see how they could be transformed. Through a series of artworks\, this exhibition invites us to rethink our relationships with technology\, nature and each other. \nVisitors to Hidden Paths will navigate through 3 layers: Now\, Change and Possible. From a sonic waterfall to sculptures\, recipes\, film and video\, and an immersive VR experience\, the artworks explore how we imagine the future\, transformations in time\, money and work\, glimpses of new urban spaces\, community ownership and the commons\, and changed relationships to nature. \nIn a time of crises\, the exhibition provides a reflective space to think differently about the present and the future – with cultures of care\, collaboration and collective agency at its heart. \nThe Hidden Paths exhibition has been created by artists in the Brighton-based System Change Hive – emerging and established artists working with researchers\, communications experts\, VR technologists and local community groups\, to reveal hidden paths to brighter\, fairer and more sustainable futures. \nSince February 2019\, the Hive has been meeting regularly\, including group discussions from researchers affiliated to the STEPS Centre\, and others. \nThis event is part of the 2019 Brighton Digital Festival.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/exhibition-hidden-paths/
LOCATION:ONCA Gallery\, 14 St George’s Place\, Brighton\, BN1 4GB\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://steps-centre.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/SCH-ONCA-feat.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20191017T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20191017T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191003T143926Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210401T190828Z
UID:14129-1571329800-1571335200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Applying Technologies of the Self in Transformation Labs to Mobilize Agency
DESCRIPTION:This is a presentation from members of the Pathways network  as part of the Parallel T-Practice Sessions at the Transformations 2019 conference in Sanitago\, Chile. \nPresenters: \nDavid Manuel-Navarrete\nLakshmi Charli-Joseph\nHallie Eakin\nMario Siqueiros García\nAdrian Ely
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/applying-technologies-of-the-self-in-transformation-labs-to-mobilize-agency/
CATEGORIES:Research methods
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://steps-centre.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/chile.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20191114T161500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20191114T174500
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191112T131646Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20191127T165725Z
UID:14201-1573748100-1573753500@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Why embracing uncertainty means rethinking development and reimagining the future
DESCRIPTION:CRC Future Rural Africa Lecture Series\nUniversität Bonn\, GIUB \nLecture by Ian Scoones\, Institute of Development Studies/ESRC STEPS Centre/ERC PASTRES project \nThis talk makes the argument for putting uncertainty at the centre of thinking and practice in development. This means rejecting a linear\, technocratic framing and embracing the implications of uncertainty for today’s complex\, dynamic world. Through a number of examples – from the fields of banking\, critical infrastructures and disease control – the elements of new thinking on uncertainty and development are explored. \nThe talk argues\, however\, that those who live with and from uncertainty day-to-day are best placed to innovate and help refashion development more broadly. Examples from pastoralism from around the world are offered to demonstrate the importance of learning from the margins. The talk concludes with a reflection on new directions for development that take uncertainty seriously and help refashion the way we imagine the future. \n\nTime: 16:15 – 17:45 / Venue: Geographisches Institut der Universität Bonn\, Meckenheimer Allee 166\, Alfred-Philippson-Hörsaal\, 53115 Bonn\, Germany \nFor full information\, visit the Future Rural Africa website.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/why-embracing-uncertainty-means-rethinking-development-and-reimagining-the-future/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200511T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200522T170000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191023T141342Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200416T152202Z
UID:14178-1589184000-1590166800@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:[Postponed] STEPS Summer School 2020
DESCRIPTION:The ninth and final STEPS Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability was due to take place on 11-22 May 2020\, but has been postponed until the following year due to the coronavirus pandemic. \nParticipants will explore the theme of pathways to sustainability through a mixture of workshops\, lectures\, outdoor events and focused interaction with STEPS Centre members. The Summer School takes place on the University of Sussex campus\, near Brighton\, UK\, where STEPS is co-hosted by the Institute of Development Studies and the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU). \nFor more information\, please visit the STEPS Summer School web page.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/steps-summer-school-2020/
LOCATION:Institute of Development Studies\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Research methods,Resource politics,Understanding sustainability
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://steps-centre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/summer14.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200512T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200512T190000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20191017T151644Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200318T091719Z
UID:14159-1589304600-1589310000@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:*Postponed* STEPS Annual Lecture: Andrea J Nightingale
DESCRIPTION:* UPDATE\, 18 MARCH 2020 *\nWe are sorry that this event has been indefinitely postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. \n\nBounding unruly landscapes: future imaginaries and socioenvironmental change \n2020 STEPS Annual Lecture \nAndrea J Nightingale\nProfessor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography\, University of Oslo \nFulton A Lecture Theatre\nUniversity of Sussex\nFalmer\, Brighton \nThis event will be open to the public and includes a drinks reception after the lecture. It is the only public event of the STEPS Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability. \n\nAbout the lecture\nAmidst anxieties about rapid rate environmental change and the best pathways to transformation\, the unruliness of life reasserts itself. Not only can environments collapse unexpectedly\, others persist despite intense pressures. Meanwhile\, new governance mechanisms exceed expectations\, while others become avenues for older relationships and practices of exploitation to re-emerge. Such dynamics point to the need for better conceptualisations of change if we are to confront the 21st century challenges of climate and environmental change. \nThrough examples from the Himalayas\, I focus on boundary un/making as a creative approach to the continuous (re)configurations of humans and non-humans that transpire in any attempts at governing. The complex\, often unpredictable political\, social\, cultural and ecological terrains that emerge in environmental governance offer insights into the dynamics of change. Drawing from scholars of science and political ecologists who have long pointed out that knowing is not somehow separate from the worlds we create\, and feminist work on power and recognition\, this lecture will look at how boundary-making reflects the operation of power across scales\, suggesting new approaches to tackling environmental issues. \nSpeaking through case studies from Nepal and elsewhere\, the lecture will work through the entanglements of forests\, user-groups\, geopolitics and efforts at responding to predictions of calamitous change to show how they are complicit in producing the dilemmas we face. It will show how environmental change programmes are caught up in the riotous\, inadvertent contradictions of environmental governance. Action\, imagination\, naming\, and everyday practices create lasting connections; they bring the world into being in a continuous and dynamic manner; in turn demanding that we take account of the more-than-human within our governing logics if global environmental challenges are to be confronted. \n\nAbout Andrea J Nightingale\nAndrea J. Nightingale is Professor of Human Geography\, University of Oslo and Senior Researcher at the University of Agricultural Sciences. Her interests cross between climate change adaptation and transformation debates; collective action and state formation; the nature-society nexus; political violence in natural resource governance; and feminist work on emotion and subjectivity in relation to development\, transformation\, collective action and cooperation. She has over 30 years of experience on natural resource governance in Nepal and a current research collaboration focused on state formation and climate change. She has also done research on in-shore fisheries management in Scotland. Her recent book is Environment and Sustainability in a Globalizing World\, Routledge\, 2019.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/steps-annual-lecture-andrea-j-nightingale/
LOCATION:Fulton A Lecture Theatre\, University of Sussex\, Falmer\, Brighton\, BN1 9RH\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Research methods,Resource politics,Understanding sustainability
ORGANIZER;CN="ESRC STEPS Centre":MAILTO:b.ayre@ids.ac.uk
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200701T110000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200701T123000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20200608T134257Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200706T093356Z
UID:14596-1593601200-1593606600@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:ONLINE SEMINAR: Sango Mahanty - 'Rupture: Conceptualising Nature-Society Transformation'
DESCRIPTION:This event is the first in a series of online talks on the STEPS Centre’s ‘Natures’ theme. \nVideo\n \n\nAbout this event\n \nRupture: Conceptualising Nature-Society Transformation* \nSango Mahanty\nResources\, Environment and Development Program\, Crawford School of Public Policy\, The Australian National University \n*Based on a forthcoming paper with Sarah Milne\, Keith Barney\, Phuc Xuan To\, Philip Hirsch and Wolfram Dressler \nThis webinar will present a forthcoming paper from our collaborative project on Rupture. Christian Lund (2016) used the concept of rupture to describe moments of sudden institutional change\, such as conflict and colonisation\, which he suggested were fertile spaces to observe processes of state making\, new material and political claims\, social actions and resistance. \nWe took this analytical lens to the Mekong region\, where mega infrastructure projects such as hydro-electric dams are dramatically transforming nature and society. The framing of rupture allows us to unravel certain complexities around these developments. Here\, rupture does not represent a discrete “moment\,” as Lund described\, but rather a process that unfolds over time. The social and material transformations associated with these dams interact with historical and ongoing changes. They have cascading and generative effects that connect across scales. \nIn bringing the rupture lens to these cases\, we develop and integrate four analytical themes that have broader relevance in understanding nature-society transformation: interactivity between transformative processes; cross-scale interactions; temporality\, and agency. The talk will elaborate on these themes with reference to our empirical research\, and discuss how they build upon existing perspectives on nature-society transformation. \n* Lund\, C. 2016. Rule and Rupture: state formation through the production of property and citizenship. Development and Change. 47 (6): 1199–1228.\n\nAbout the speaker\nSango Mahanty is a human geographer who studies the politics of social and environmental change. Her current research examines how communities and civil society cope with dramatic processes of nature-society disruption or ‘rupture’. This work explores how communities are able to gain agency in fragmented settings through their community and civil society networks\, and their engagements with government. \nSango has explored similar questions of local agency and network formation at sites of intense market development in the Cambodia-Vietnam borderland. She also has a long engagement with research on green economy interventions\, especially their labour arrangements and their implications for equity and social conflict. Sango’s early research centred on participatory resource management\, community development and processes of social learning in Australia\, the South Pacific and South Asia. She currently leads the Resources\, Environment & Development Program in ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy (see her profile page). \n\nNATURES: Our theme for 2020\nNature is all around us\, but there are many ways of seeing different kinds of ‘natures’\, and many efforts to involve it in forms of control or domination.  \nHow is talk of crisis shaping nature and people’s views of it? How can colonial forms of knowledge\, technology and power be challenged\, and what might it mean to ‘decolonize’ the study of environmental change? What do alternatives look like\, and how can we explore\, nurture\, imagine and live the relationships we might want for the future?  \nFind out more about our theme for 2020 on our Natures theme page.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/online-seminar-sango-mahanty-rupture-conceptualising-nature-society-transformation/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200716T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200716T133000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20200702T104008Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200730T154820Z
UID:14636-1594900800-1594906200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Webinar: Transformations in and beyond Covid-19 in India and Bangladesh
DESCRIPTION:11.00 UTC · 12.00 UK · 16.30 India · 17.00 Bangladesh \nVideo\n \n\nAbout this event\nFlyer (PDF)\nThis event is convened by the TAPESTRY project. \nThe coronavirus outbreak has disrupted almost all aspects of life in India and Bangladesh. Apart from the immediate impacts on victims of the virus\, the lockdowns imposed by governments have affected the mobility\, income\, food security\, and livelihoods of millions. \nFor people in so-called ‘marginal’ environments\, in coastal and dryland areas\, Covid-19 adds to a set of existing uncertainties and challenges. Recent weather events such as Cyclone Amphan have compounded the problems faced in some regions. But people in these areas are not passive recipients of unpredictable change. They are responding through alliances\, often driven from the grassroots but sometimes in collaboration with other people and agencies. \nThis webinar explores the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for bottom-up transformations to sustainability. \nFor a more detailed description\, see the registration page. \n\nSpeakers\n\nD.Parthasarathy\, IIT Bombay / TAPESTRY project\nSeema Kulkarni\, Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) / Transformations to Groundwater Sustainability project\nAmitava Roy\, Lokamata Rani Rashmoni Mission\, Sundarbans\nSaleemul Huq\, International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)\, Bangladesh\nSandeep Virmani\, Hunnarshala Foundation\nShilpi Srivastava\, IDS/TAPESTRY\nDiscussant: Mihir Bhatt\, All-India Disaster Mitigation Institute / TAPESTRY\nChair: Lyla Mehta\, Institute of Development Studies / Norwegian University of Life Sciences / TAPESTRY\n\n\nNATURES: Our theme for 2020\nNature is all around us\, but there are many ways of seeing different kinds of ‘natures’\, and many efforts to involve it in forms of control or domination.  \nHow is talk of crisis shaping nature and people’s views of it? How can colonial forms of knowledge\, technology and power be challenged\, and what might it mean to ‘decolonize’ the study of environmental change? What do alternatives look like\, and how can we explore\, nurture\, imagine and live the relationships we might want for the future?  \nFind out more about our theme for 2020 on our Natures theme page.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/webinar-transformations-in-and-beyond-covid-19-in-india-and-bangladesh/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20200922T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20200922T080000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20190809T152932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201026T170545Z
UID:13964-1600761600-1600761600@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Contested Natures: POLLEN 2020 conference
DESCRIPTION:Contested Natures: Power\, Possibility\, Prefiguration\nThird Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN)\n22-25 September 2020\nBrighton\, UK\n#POLLEN20 \n \nThe Third Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network\, Contested Natures: Power\, Politics\, Prefiguration\, was held online from 22 – 25 September 2020. \nVisit the conference platform \n\nVideo: Keynote sessions\nUse the playlist below to browse video of the keynote sessions at the conference. \n \n\nProgramme\nYou can now view the programme for POLLEN20 at a glance. Most sessions are only open to registered participants. \nView the programme \n\nKeynote sessions\nKEYNOTE 1: POLITICAL ECOLOGIES OF COVID-19\n22 September at 16.00-18.00 BST (UK time)\, Hummingbird Stage \nRoundtable with Melissa Leach\, Patricia Lopez and Abigail Neely\, Jonathan Thurston\, Claudia Puerta Silva\, Jeff Rose and Rahul Muralidharan\nModerators: Dr Libby Lunstrum and Dr Amber Huff \nKEYNOTE 2: ON BLACK ECOLOGIES\n23 September at 16.00-18.00 BST (UK time)\, Hummingbird Stage \nRoundtable with Danielle Purifoy\, Jillean McCommons\, Justin Hosbey\, Hilda Lloréns and Carlos G. García-Quijano\nChair: JT Roane \nKEYNOTE 3: CONSERVATION FUTURES\n24 September at 9.00-11.00 BST (UK time)\, Hummingbird Stage \nPanel with Carina Wyborn\, Mathew Bukhi Mabele\, Anh Vu and Hannah Dickinson\nChairs: Rosaleen Duffy and George Iordăchescu \nKEYNOTE 4: TROUBLING NATURE AND POLITICAL ECOLOGY: FEMINISTS IN THE CAPITALOCENE\n24 September at 16.30-18.30 BST (UK time)\, Hummingbird Stage \nRoundtable with Helene Ahlborg\, Seema Arora-Jonsson\, Wendy Harcourt\, Jessica Lehman and Sherilyn MacGregor.\nChairs: Rebecca Elmhirst and Andrea Nightingale \n\nBackground to POLLEN2020\nPOLLEN2020 was the centrepiece of the STEPS Centre’s annual theme on Natures. \nNature is all around us\, but there are many ways of seeing different kinds of ‘natures’\, and many efforts to involve it in forms of control or domination. How is talk of crisis shaping nature and people’s views of it? How can colonial forms of knowledge\, technology and power be challenged\, and what might it mean to decolonize the study of environmental change? What do alternatives look like\, and how can we explore\, nurture\, imagine and live the relationships we might want for the future? \nNatures: browse resources \n\nThe event was co-organized by the ESRC STEPS Centre (IDS/SPRU\, University of Sussex) and the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Secretariat (currently based at the University of Copenhagen 2019 – 2021). \nThe conference is co-hosted by Radical Futures at the University of Brighton and the Institute of Development Studies. \nEvent website – Background info
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/contested-natures-pollen-2020-conference/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201103T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201103T133000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201030T121431Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201030T132030Z
UID:14805-1604404800-1604410200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Politics of Nature reading group: Indigenous Climate Change Studies
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an online discussion on readings related to the politics of nature. \nThis month\, the readings are: \nIndigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures\, Decolonizing the Anthropocene\nby Kyle Whyte \nRead this article (PDF) \nDecolonization is not a metaphor\nby Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang \nRead this article (PDF) \nHow to join\nTo join the PoN email list and / or get access to the Zoom links and readings for this group\, please send an email to Andrea Brock(a.brock@sussex.ac.uk) or Amber Huff (a.huff@ids.ac.uk). \n\nThis event relates to our 2020 theme of Natures. \nExplore the Natures theme
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/politics-of-nature-reading-group-3-nov-2020/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201112T123000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201112T130000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201014T140844Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201124T142723Z
UID:14790-1605184200-1605186000@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Communities\, technologies and democratic innovation
DESCRIPTION:Fusebox director Phil Jones interviewed Prof Andy Stirling and Prof Adrian Smith in a roundtable discussion. They talked about the importance and challenges around democratising innovation\, and how people around the world are already practicing new forms of innovation and demanding better from existing innovation institutions. \nThey explored why technology and the kinds of digital futures explored at Fusebox and elsewhere\, are deeply social matters\, and how the politics of such innovation demands democratic approaches in technology. Andy and Adrian drew on their ESRC social science research and particularly the work done in the STEPS Centre. \n\nAbout\nThe event is a joint University of Sussex and Wired Sussex event\, as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2020. It was made possible thanks to funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/communities-technologies-and-democratic-innovation/
CATEGORIES:Technology & innovation
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201112T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201112T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201030T103858Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201113T144023Z
UID:14804-1605200400-1605204000@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Covid-19 and development: the politics of uncertainty
DESCRIPTION:This event was part of the Sussex Development Lectures. \nWhy is uncertainty so important to politics today? From finance and technology to climate change\, pandemics\, migration and security\, what the future holds feels increasingly uncertain and demands alternative approaches. If hopes of much-needed progressive transformations are to be realised\, then current blinkered understandings of uncertainty need to be met with renewed democratic struggle. \nExploring how uncertainties are experienced in the context of marginalisation and precarity\, Andy Stirling in conversation with Sobia Ahmad Kaker\, will look at how we can advance a more collective politics of responsibility and care. \nRecording\n \nBook: The Politics of Uncertainty\nThe conversation draws on the book The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges for Transformation\, of which both speakers are co-authors. \nThe book was published by Routledge in 2020 as part of the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability book series. \n\n\nThis event is part of the Sussex Development Lecture series on Covid-19 and development – building back better? \nSussex Development Lectures are jointly run by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS)\, the School of Global Studies \, the Science Policy and Research Unit (SPRU) and the Centre for International Education (CIE)\, based at the University of Sussex. \n\nUncertainties can make it hard to plan ahead. But recognising them can help to reveal new questions and choices. What kinds of uncertainty are there\, why do they matter for sustainability\, and what ideas\, approaches and methods can help us to respond to them? \nFind out more about this topic on our theme page.\n \nUncertainty
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/covid-19-and-development-the-politics-of-uncertainty/
CATEGORIES:Health & disease
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201125T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201125T133000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201030T131911Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201030T131911Z
UID:14809-1606305600-1606311000@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Politics of Nature reading group: Infrastructural Brutalism
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an online discussion on readings related to the politics of nature. \nThis month\, the reading is \nInfrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure\nby Michael Truscello \nMore about this book \n\nHow to join\nTo join the PoN email list and / or get access to the Zoom links and readings for this group\, please send an email to Andrea Brock(a.brock@sussex.ac.uk) or Amber Huff (a.huff@ids.ac.uk). \n\nThis event relates to our 2020 theme of Natures. \nExplore the Natures theme
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/politics-of-nature-reading-group-infrastructural-brutalism/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201130T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201130T150000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201111T105809Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201201T093135Z
UID:14827-1606741200-1606748400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Enchanting nature: tentacular storytelling in the Great African Kelp Forest
DESCRIPTION:Roundtable with My Octopus Teacher director Pippa Ehrlich and others from the Sea Change Project \n\nVideo recording\n \n\nAbout this event\nThere is a forest beneath the waves off the western coast of South Africa that is as biologically rich as a tropical rainforest. Few people have experienced the Great African Kelp Forest like the members of the Sea Change Project\, a small group of journalists\, scientists\, photographers and filmmakers who have developed a unique methodology for exploring and learning about\, from and with nature called ‘underwater tracking’. \nThe Sea Change Project has spent thousands of hours exploring these wild ‘algal gardens’ and the creatures that live in them\, skin- and breath-hold diving in the frigid waters of South Africa’s Cape Peninsula. The group has identified new species and learned to read subtle signs and that give insight into lives\, deaths and relationships of the kelp forest’s creatures\, a process one member describes as delving deep into ‘the biological mind of the forest’. \nThe acclaimed Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher is one example of the project’s approach to ‘multispecies storytelling’ (Haraway\, 2016). This is an affective\, aesthetic and sensorial approach that focuses on connections\, embodied experience and interspecies learning to help people see\, experience and value the Great African Kelp Forest in new ways. \nIn this Q&A Roundtable with the film’s director\, Pippa Ehrlich\, and Sea Change project members Swati Foster\, Carina Frankal and Faine Loubser\, we explored questions about Sea Change’s approach to exploring\, researching and communicating about the ‘forest beneath the waves’. The conversation was moderated by Amber Huff (STEPS Centre) and Adrian Nel (University of KwaZulu-Natal). \nHow does the project’s approach diverge from dominant approaches in ecology and marine conservation in terms of underlying assumptions\, practices\, values and objectives? Can embracing ecological alterity and developing meaningful intimacies with the hidden\, ‘alien’ and ‘weird’ aspects of nature nourish new ‘kinships’ and new ways of ‘commoning’ of our relations with others? What are the impacts of such an approach on public awareness and attitudes towards this marine ecology on one level\, and on discourses and practice of conservation? Can learning from these approaches help to inform and transform conservation more broadly? \n\nThis event is part of the ESRC STEPS Centre’s theme on Natures. It is organized in partnership with the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN)\, the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Sea Change Project.  \n\nAbout Our theme for 2020: Natures\nNature is all around us\, but there are many ways of seeing different kinds of ‘natures’\, and many efforts to involve it in forms of control or domination.  \nHow is talk of crisis shaping nature and people’s views of it? How can colonial forms of knowledge\, technology and power be challenged\, and what might it mean to ‘decolonize’ the study of environmental change? What do alternatives look like\, and how can we explore\, nurture\, imagine and live the relationships we might want for the future?  \nFind out more about our theme for 2020 on our Natures theme page.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/enchanting-nature-tentacular-storytelling-in-the-great-african-kelp-forest/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201211T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201211T170000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201030T132655Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201030T132655Z
UID:14810-1607702400-1607706000@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Politics of Nature reading group: Hope Against Hope
DESCRIPTION:Join us for an online discussion on readings related to the politics of nature. \nThe reading for this session is the book by the Out of the Woods Collective\, Hope Against Hope: Writings on Ecological Crisis. \n\nHow to join\nTo join the PoN email list and / or get access to the Zoom links and readings for this group\, please send an email to Andrea Brock(a.brock@sussex.ac.uk) or Amber Huff (a.huff@ids.ac.uk). \n\nThis event relates to our 2020 theme of Natures. \nExplore the Natures theme
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/politics-of-nature-reading-group-hope-against-hope/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20201215T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20201215T150000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20201203T214705Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201215T170938Z
UID:14857-1608037200-1608044400@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:The Truth About Nature: Environmental politics in a post-truth\, digital world
DESCRIPTION:A presentation by Bram Büscher\, author of The Truth about Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism\, followed by roundtable discussion with Elizabeth Havice and Max Ritts. Moderator: Amber Huff \n\nWatch the video\nVideo (120 minutes) of the whole discussion is available. \n \n\nAbout this event\nHow should we share the truth about the environmental crisis? At a moment when even the most basic facts about ecology and the climate face contestation and contempt\, environmental advocates are at an impasse. Many have turned to social media and digital technologies to shift the tide—but what if their strategy is not only flawed\, but dangerous? \nBram Büscher’s new book The Truth about Nature follows environmental actors as they turn to the internet to save nature. It documents how conservation efforts are transformed through the political economy of platforms and the algorithmic feeds that have been instrumental to the rise of post-truth politics. \nThe book will be out on 15 December 2020 and can be ordered online from University of California Press. \n\nEvent info\nThis event is the last in a series on the theme of Natures organised by the ESRC STEPS Centre in 2020. \n \nNature is all around us\, but there are many ways of seeing different kinds of ‘natures’\, and many efforts to involve it in forms of control or domination. How is talk of crisis shaping nature and people’s views of it? How can colonial forms of knowledge\, technology and power be challenged\, and what might it mean to decolonize the study of environmental change? What do alternatives look like\, and how can we explore\, nurture\, imagine and live the relationships we might want for the future? \nNatures: browse resources \n\nAbout the speakers\nBram Büscher is Professor and Chair of the Sociology of Development and Change group at Wageningen University and holds visiting positions at the University of Johannesburg and Stellenbosch University. Bram has published widely on the relations between nature\, development and politics and is the author of ‘Transforming the Frontier. Peace Parks and the Politics of Neoliberal Conservation in Southern Africa’ (Duke University Press\, 2013) and co-author\, together with Robert Fletcher\, of ‘The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene’ (Verso\, 2020). Bram is one of the senior editors of Conservation & Society. \nElizabeth Havice is associate professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She uses the lens of governance to explore distributional outcomes in marine resources sectors and spaces\, food systems\, global value chains and is presently examining the intersection of big data and oceans governance. Current projects include co-editing (with Matt Himley and Gabriela Valdivia) the forthcoming Handbook of Critical Resource Geography and the co-founding (with Lisa Campbell) of the Digital Oceans Governance Lab. \nMax Ritts is an environmental geographer and postdoctoral fellow at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU). His work operates at the intersection of political ecology\, sound studies and critical indigenous studies — themes brought together in his book project\, A Resonant Ecology (Under Contract at Duke University Press). Current research projects include the relation of bioacoustics to corporate audio-surveillance practices\, the elaboration of “smart” marine governance schemes\, and Adorno’s relevance for studies of the irrational in the contemporary politics of nature.  \nModerator: Amber Huff. Amber is convenor of the STEPS Centre’s 2020 theme of Natures. She is a social anthropologist and political ecologist. Her primary areas of focus include politics of conservation\, resource struggles and conflict\, environmental policy\, rural livelihoods and human adaptability and the politics of indigeneity and autochthony within resource struggles in southern Africa. Amber is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies\, where she is co-convenor of the Resource Politics Cluster\, and a member of the ESRC STEPS Centre.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/the-truth-about-nature-environmental-politics-in-a-post-truth-digital-world/
CATEGORIES:Resource politics
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20210118T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20210118T120000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20210114T105854Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210127T113721Z
UID:14997-1610964000-1610971200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Transforming Environments from the Bottom Up - Examples from Marginal Environments in India
DESCRIPTION:This is the first of two virtual sessions convened by the TAPESTRY project at the Gobeshona Conference on Locally Led Adaptation Action. \n\n \n\nSpeakers:  \n\nKetaki Bhadgaonkar (Bombay 61)\nJai Bhadgaonkar (Bombay 61)\nHans Nicolai Adam (NIVA)\nRanit Chatterjee (Kyoto University)\nRohit Jha (Kyoto University)\nMihir Bhatt (AIDMI)\nLyla Mehta (IDS)\n\nChair: Terry Cannon (IDS) \n\nAbout the session\nThis is the first of two sessions on the TAPESTRY project (‘Transformation as Praxis: Exploring Socially Just and Transdisciplinary Pathways to Sustainability in Marginal Environments’). (See details of the second session.) \nClimate-related uncertainties have tended to be defined by experts and bureaucrats (the ‘above’)\, mostly ignoring local perspectives and knowledge. Living in landscapes characterised by climate-related uncertainties creates anxieties. \nCan uncertainty also open up exploring alternative pathways? How people from ‘below’ understand and deal with uncertainty is helped by knowing how it affects their sense of place\, identity and wellbeing. This can be a first step for fostering transformative change. \nTransformative action requires reframing nature-society relations\, knowledge\, and value systems\, and a reconfiguration of institutions and frameworks. It involves fostering alliances between communities\, NGOs\, scientists and state agencies to co-produce new knowledge and ideas for more robust livelihoods. This can give rise to ‘patches of transformation’ that can be scaled up and out. \nThese issues are assessed for three sites in south Asia: \n\nthe coastal megacity of Mumbai\, where a fishing community on the outskirts is struggling against existing problems magnified by climate change\nthe dryland areas of Kutch in Gujarat\, where pastoralists struggle for their livelihoods\nthe Sundarbans (in both West Bengal and Bangladesh)\n\nThis session will focus on the first two sites (Mumbai and Kutch)\, while a second session will focus on the Sundarbans. \n\nPresentations in this session\nTransformation from ‘below’ : Praxis\, patches and politics \nLyla Mehta\, Shilpi Srivastava \, Lars Otto Naess (IDS)\, Synne Movik (NMBU)\, D. Parthasarathy and Lalatendu Kesari Das (IITB) \, Hans Adam (NIVA)\, Nobu Ohte (Kyoto University) \nThis presentation discusses how the notion of transformation can be conceptualized from ‘below’ in marginal environments that are marked by climate change induced uncertainties. Climate-related uncertainties in so-called marginal coastals environments have tended to be defined by experts and bureaucrats (the ‘above’)\, mostly ignoring local perspectives and knowledge. Living in coastal landscapes characterised by climate-related uncertainties such as droughts\, floods and sea level rise can give rise to anxieties and fears. But can uncertainty also open up spaces for exploring alternative pathways? Insight into how people from ‘below’ understand and deal with uncertainty is helped by knowing how it affects their sense of place\, identity and wellbeing. This can be a first step for fostering transformative change. Starting with people’s lived experiences\, we conceive of transformation as emphasizing agency and practice (praxis). Transformative action requires the reframing of nature-society relations\, knowledge\, and value systems\, and a reconfiguration of institutions and frameworks. It involves fostering alliances between communities\, NGOs\, scientists and state agencies to co-produce new knowledge and ideas for more robust livelihoods. This can give rising to ‘patches of transformation’ that can be scaled up and out. This paper provides the conceptual and methodological framings for such a normative and political approach to transformation from below. It will be followed by empirical studies from two sites across India (Kutch and Mumbai in western India). \nArresting Environmental Collapse\, Restoring Resource-based Livelihoods: Transforming Koli Fisherfolk in and with Mumbai \nKetaki Bhadgaonkar\, Jai Bhadgaonkar (Bombay 61); D. Parthasarathy and Lalatendu Kesari Das (IITB) \, Hans Nicolai Adam (NIVA)\, Synne Movik (NMBU) \nThe Mumbai Metropolitan Region is frequently cited as among the most vulnerable urban agglomerations to climate change impacts. Recent predictions by climate scientists have warned that by 2050\, parts of the city will be submerged due to sea level rise. Extreme precipitation events will cause frequent flooding ravaging its population\, economy\, livelihoods\, and fragile ecosystems. The Mumbai region\, like many other urban agglomerations are characterized by coastal wetlands\, mangroves\, salt pans\, forests\, and marine biodiversity\, all of which are under threat by climate change related impacts including sea level rise\, ocean acidification\, coastal erosion\, and monsoon extremes. In addition\, rapid degradation and encroachment on coastal ecosystems due to urban development\, pollution\, and coastal infrastructure projects\, threaten more damage as these ecosystems have historically acted as flood barriers\, and have provided ecosystem services. Through a collaborative project involving fisherfolk in one of the city’s koliwadas (fishing villages)\, a local NGO\, researchers\, and local leaders\, an attempt is made to co-produce hybrid knowledge combining indigenous understandings of ecosystem changes and climate impacts with science based risk scenarios. The team will then design and implement a transformative plan with potential to arrest further environmental collapse\, restore resource based livelihoods\, and provide greater autonomy in local level environmental governance to the Koliwada. This paper\, while documenting these efforts\, will critique ongoing urban planning processes and visions\, and showcase the ways in which the health of urban ecosystems and livelihoods is crucial for disaster risk reduction\, climate risk mitigation\, and sustainable urban design. \nCo-production to facilitate bottom-up adaptation: insights from co-learning with the Jat herders in Kutch \nRanit Chatterjee and Rohit Jha (Kyoto University); Shilpi Srivastava\, Lyla Mehta (IDS); Pankaj Joshi and Mahendra Bhanani (Sahjeevan) \nThe dryland of Kutch counts among the world’s most variable and unpredictable environments where local Jat and Rabari herder communities have learnt how to live with and harness this variability to support sustainable and productive economies and ecosystems by drawing on and developing their indigenous knowledge systems. Although pastoralism in Kutch can be regarded as a drought insurance cover\, state policies have systematically ignored the particular dynamics around variability\, uncertainty and water scarcity\, thus displaying ‘dryland blindness’ and relegating these landscapes as marginal and degraded. We show how the synergistic links between the Mangroves\, Mal (livestock)\, and Maldharis (pastoralists) are crucial to responding to climate induced uncertainties. In this presentation\, we focus on the importance of knowledge co-production for developing locally led\, bottom-up adaptation pathways. We discuss the case of the Jat herders who share a unique relationship with the ‘swimming’ kharai camels and mangrove habitats\, and demonstrate how various stakeholders have come together to work towards preservation of this unique ecosystem as we stay attendant to the manifold power relations within the pastoral community as well as across the stakeholders.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/transforming-environments-from-the-bottom-up-examples-from-marginal-environments-in-india/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20210118T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20210118T144500
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20210114T110628Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210127T113738Z
UID:14998-1610974800-1610981100@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Sundarbans without boundaries
DESCRIPTION:The second of two virtual sessions convened by the TAPESTRY project at the Gobeshona Conference on Locally Led Adaptation Action. \n\n \n\nSpeakers: \n\nShababa Haque (ICCCAD)\nUpasona Ghosh (Indian Institute of Public Health\, Bhubaneshwar)\nMahmuda Mity (ICCCAD)\nShibaji Bose (Researcher/communications professional)\nAnnu Jalais (National University of Singapore)\nAmites Mukhopadyay (Jadavpur University\, Kolkata)\nMd Nadiruzzaman (Hamburg University)\nLars Otto Naess (IDS)\nLyla Mehta (IDS)\n\nChair: Terry Cannon (IDS) \n\nSession description\nThis is the second session from the project ‘Transformation as Praxis: Exploring Socially Just and Transdisciplinary Pathways to Sustainability in Marginal Environments’ (TAPESTRY). (See details of the first session.) \nClimate-related uncertainties have tended to be defined by experts and bureaucrats (the ‘above’)\, mostly ignoring local perspectives and knowledge. Living in landscapes characterised by climate-related uncertainties creates anxieties and fears. \nInsight into how people from ‘below’ understand and deal with uncertainty is helped by knowing how it affects their sense of place\, identity and wellbeing. This can be a first step for fostering transformative change. Starting with people’s lived experiences\, we conceive of transformation as emphasizing agency and practice (praxis). \nTransformative action requires the reframing of nature-society relations\, knowledge\, and value systems\, and a reconfiguration of institutions and frameworks. It involves fostering alliances between communities\, NGOs\, scientists and state agencies to co-produce new knowledge and ideas for more robust livelihoods. This can give rising to ‘patches of transformation’ that can be scaled up and out. These issues are teased out through presentations on three sites in south Asia. The first two (Kutch and Mumbai) are dealt with in an earlier session. \nThis session is focused on the Sundarbans area in West Bengal and Bangladesh\, where islanders are battling sea level rise\, salinity intrusion and cyclones. \nThe session discusses the work being done by the TAPESTRY project in both West Bengal and Bangladesh among people and organizations on the edges of the Sundarbans forest\, where livelihoods are challenged by existing problems and magnified by climate change.
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/sundarbans-without-boundaries/
CATEGORIES:Resource politics
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20210127T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20210127T133000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20210111T140855Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210112T140920Z
UID:14991-1611748800-1611754200@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:Webinar: What can we learn from the world of pastoralism for wider agrarian struggles?
DESCRIPTION:27 January at 12-13.30 (UTC)\nSpeakers:\n-Ian Scoones\, PASTRES Programme\, Institute of Development Studies (IDS)\, Sussex\, U.K.\n-Maryam Rahmanian (IPES)\n-Rahma Hassan PhD Fellow\, University of Copenhagen and University of Nairobi \nRegister for this event \n\nPastoralists are some of the most marginalised people on the planet\, but they have much to teach us all. Pastoralists make a living from livestock on extensive dry and montane rangelands across the world\, continuously living with and from uncertainty. \nLike agrarian societies everywhere\, pastoralists are confronted by the incursions of neoliberal capitalism: once remote pastoral regions become sites for investment and pastoralists’ livelihoods are undermined. New relations of class\, gender and generation emerge\, with transformed practices of production\, labour and market engagement emerging across pastoral settings. \nHowever\, too often\, pastoralists and settled agriculturalists are viewed as separate and mobilisations and movements rarely cross over. Yet\, pastoralists’ responses to contemporary challenges highlight\, for example\, the importance of mobility\, common use of resources and collective\, networked social arrangements. \nGiven increasingly common agrarian struggles\, this first edition of Agrarian Conversations will explore the opportunities to learn from pastoralists\, and the importance of seeking greater engagement across agrarian movements. \nAgrarian Conversations is a collective initiative of CASAS\, TNI\, PLAAS\, ICAS\, YARA\, ERPI\, PASTRES\, RRUSHES-5 and the Journal of Peasant Studies. \nResources\nA Journal of Peasant Studies background paper for this webinar is available. \nRegister for this event \n  \n 
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/webinar-what-can-we-learn-from-the-world-of-pastoralism-for-wider-agrarian-struggles/
CATEGORIES:Pastoralism
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20210204T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20210204T180000
DTSTAMP:20260403T211312
CREATED:20210111T170855Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210129T101947Z
UID:14992-1612458000-1612461600@steps-centre.org
SUMMARY:The Politics of Uncertainty - webinar with Natalie Burns and Andy Stirling
DESCRIPTION:About this Event\nRegister online \n\n\nThis roundtable discussion is part of a project with the University of Sussex that looks beyond Silicon Valley to try and develop more effective and socially useful approaches to technology innovation. \nThe project links three digital entrepreneurs with three academics from the University of Sussex\, to discuss with tech innovators and purpose-driven communities how they might integrate approaches derived from university research into their practices. \n\n\nThe Politics of Uncertainty\nJoin Natalie Burns\, Strategy Director at United Us as she talks to STEPS co-director Professor Andy Stirling about his new book: The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation  \nClearly\, we live in uncertain times. But how do we respond? Current approaches see technology as an important way of controlling that uncertainty. But does that make assumptions about both the challenges we face and the way we think about tech innovation? \nLooking at examples from around the world\, Andy Stirling’s new book addresses these questions and comes to some very interesting conclusions\, and is particularly critical about the most popular models of innovation. \nAbout the speakers\n\nAndy Stirling is Professor of Science and Technology Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University and co-director of the STEPS Centre. His research includes work on democracy\, power and uncertainty in science and innovation. \nNatalie Burns is Strategy Director at UnitedUs a branding agency that unites people\, purpose and potential. \nJoin the event\nRegister online \n\nTheme: Uncertainty\n \nUncertainties can make it hard to plan ahead. But recognising them can help to reveal new questions and choices. What kinds of uncertainty are there\, why do they matter for sustainability\, and what ideas\, approaches and methods can help us to respond to them? \nExplore the theme
URL:https://steps-centre.org/event/the-politics-of-uncertainty-webinar-with-natalie-burns-and-andy-stirling/
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END:VCALENDAR