By Professor Linda Waldman, Institute of Development Studies, Professor Joanne Sharp, University of Glasgow, and Professor James Wood, University of Cambridge. The following blog was first published on the PLoS…
Disciplinary identities and other barriers to advancing interdisciplinary working
Whose risk? Whose responsibility? The politics and financialisation of uncertainty
At the STEPS Centre Symposium on the Politics of Uncertainty, Susan Erikson (Simon Fraser) and Rebecca Elliott (LSE) presented fascinating cases for the insurance theme, which was part of the…
Going deeper with value chain analysis: understanding power relations for animal disease control in Myanmar
Value chain analysis is already praised as a powerful tool for animal disease control. International organisations such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) routinely conduct value chain analyses…
What can the land-water-environment ‘nexus’ do for young farmers in Kenya?
The agrifood system is one of the best examples of the ‘nexus’ of land, water, and the environment. In Kenya, as in some other African countries, there is a push…
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…
United Nations Second Development Decade
In the 1960s, ‘development’ strategies emphasised economic growth targets and technical ‘fixes’. Though some countries had achieved target growth rates over that decade, by 1970 there was an acknowledgement that problems of poverty, unemployment, hunger and health had not eased as a result, and so the emphasis shifted toward interest in distribution and equity.
Theme 2: Regulating agricultural biotechnology
This theme is part of the Biotechnology Research Archive. Effective and well-designed regulation is essential to any innovation process. This is particularly the case for novel genetic techniques, where uncertainty…
Diseases
The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa programme saw natural and social scientists working on four zoonotic diseases, each affected in different ways by ecosystem changes and having different impacts on…
The limits of ‘evidence’: Evidence-Based Policy-making for African agriculture
By James Sumberg, Martha Awo, John Thompson, George T-M Kwadzo and Dela-Dem Doe Fiankor, Researchers, STEPS Centre Livestock project Agricultural policy makers in Africa are now being dragged into the…
Exploring ‘dynamic sustainabilities’ in the Anthropocene
In this post, STEPS Summer School alumnus Mathew Bukhi Mabele explains plans for a session on ‘Exploring ‘dynamic sustainabilities’ in the Anthropocene’, which will feature at the 6th Annual Dimensions of Political…