STEPS Working Paper 105 April 2019 Uncertainty defines our times. Whether it is in relation to climate change, disease outbreaks, financial volatility, natural disasters or political settlements, every media headline…
What is Uncertainty and Why Does it Matter?
Engineering and Sustainability: Control and Care in Unfoldings of Modernity
SPRU Working Paper series SWPS 2019-06 (February) Forthcoming as a chapter in Diane P. Michelfelder and Neelke Doorn (eds), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Engineering, London: Routledge, 2019 This chapter…
The new politics and geographies of scarcity
Scarcity is a dangerous idea and has long been a totalising discourse in resource politics and mainstream economics. A large body of work has critiqued the naturalisation of scarcity in…
How Deep Is Incumbency? Introducing a ‘Configuring Fields’ Approach to the Distribution and Orientation of Power in Socio-Material Change
This paper examines a variety of theories bearing on ‘socio-material incumbency’ and explores methodological implications. The aim is to develop a systematic general approach, which builds on strengths and mitigates…
Low-carbon China: Emerging phenomena and implications for innovation governance
This paper is an introduction to the special section of the journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (EIST). The special issue investigates emerging phenomena associated with low carbon transitions in…
Narratives and Pathways towards an Ecological Civilization in Contemporary China
This journal article by Sam Geall (chinadialogue.net, University of Sussex, Chatham House) and Adrian Ely (SPRU/STEPS) draws on theoretical insights from the pathways approach to explore the ways in which dominant policy narratives in…
The Joys of Truth: Science Policy in the Public Interest
Since 1974, Professor Erik Millstone has been conducting research into the causes and consequences of scientific and technological change in food and agriculture. In 1987 he joined SPRU where his…
Agri-food transitions and the “green public sphere” in China
Studies of China’s agri-food transitions have so far largely overlooked the role of the public in policymaking and practice. We argue that a deeper understanding of public perceptions of –…
Transdisciplinary research as transformative space making for sustainability: enhancing propoor transformative agency in periurban contexts
In this paper, we discuss how transdisciplinary development research (TDR), if approached in particular ways, can produce new knowledge and also foster deeper systemic changes in the knowledge system itself….
Waste to Energy in Delhi: Alternatives towards Sustainable Urban Waste Management
With the increasing waste production in urban areas, multiple technological solutions, models of waste governance and alternative practices of solid waste management have started acquiring momentum in Indian cities. Of…