‘Transforming Periurban Futures in India’ took place on January 18-19, 2022, and recordings from all sessions are available to watch online. The conference aimed to provoke discussions on pathways for sustainable transformations of periurban areas through exchanges on the complex nature and vulnerabilities of these areas. The resulting analyses were the basis for discussing the need for specific policies for periurban spaces.

Opening Plenary

Session 1: Periurban Water Resources

This session on Water Resources in Periurban Transformations sought to explore how periurban waterscapes can be transformed in a sustainable manner.

Session 2: Gender in Periurban

This session intended to understand the changing processes of production and reproduction of gender relations in the periurban context, emerging gendered vulnerabilities and opportunities, and pathways for transformations in gender relations in periurban spaces.

Session 3: Governance and Infrastructure

The session on “Periurban Governance and Infrastructure“ brought out the comparison on how different periurban areas, for different domains and challenges, develop new and promising governance arrangements, with a particular focus on infrastructure provision and management.

Session 4: Disaster & Resilience

This session on ‘Disaster and Resilience to water’ focused on ecosystem services of periurban areas and their role in enhancing community resilience to water stress and urban flooding. The deliberations contributed to understanding the community resilience from the perspective of ‘static resources’ that act as a buffer to reduce vulnerabilities and the qualities of ‘local dwellers’ that adapt and thrive in response to growing environmental challenges in the periurban areas.

Find out more about the conference.

 

This webinar (in Brazilian Portuguese) focuses on Land-use practices towards sustainability in the Amazon region. Find out more.

This event was co-organized by the MISTY project together with IslamicRelief Worldwide (IRW) and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) at COP26 in Glasgow.

The event takes stock of recent scientific and policy progress made, the various perspectives of how these intersectional issues are playing out on the ground, and the required policy responses which are grounded in equity, justice and human rights. Speakers: Representatives from Hugo Observatory, ULG; Islamic Relief Worldwide; Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; Government of Maldives; UN Special Rapporteur (TBD) and Community Leaders from Tuvalu, The Bahamas, USA, Guatemala and Pakistan.

This webinar, which was hosted by the Nordic Africa Institute, marked the launch of the Gold Matters virtual exhibition.

The virtual exhibition is a result of collaboration between artists, miners, and researchers. In this webinar, members of the Gold Matters Team are joined by Professor Elizabeth Ferry to reflect on the exhibition and celebrate its launch.

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Header image by Nii Obodai.

 

A placemaking project working with local artists supported by Bombay61 Studio and Ministry of Mumbai’s Magic. Bombay61 Studio, in collaboration with the Ministry of Mumbai’s Magic, has undertaken two placemaking activities at Versova Koliwada, transforming key public spaces including the Bhandari community well and the Mandvi Gully. The work incorporates an urban design project alongside street art initiatives with local artists. In support of the project and community. By working with local Koli artists including Sairaj Shigwan (from Mulund Koliwada), Nilesh Dhakle (from Versova Koliwada), and Rujvi Sankpal (from Lalbaug, Parel), the project seeks to actively include communities in design interventions.

Key transformations at the Bhandari Chawl and Mandvi Gully bring to light the symbolic and historical significance of these areas and aims to re-establish a positive relationship of the Koli community with their locality.

Bombay61 have similarly worked towards documenting Koli history and culture in Through the Eyes of the Kolis: A reflection on Mumbai’s past, present and future, a digital photo exhibition in collaboration with the Ministry of Mumbai’s Magic, and hosted by The Heritage Lab.

This roundtable involving partners from the TAPESTRY project discussed the possibilities and results of transboundary research in the Indian and Bangladesh Sundarbans. Speakers shared views from their work on the nature and extent of boundaries; and how transboundary research can lead to transformative knowledge and action around gender, livelihoods, and natural resource management. Innovative research methods—including PhotoVoice and digital photo diaries — offered visual context.

Find out more about the speakers and presentations here.

A short film by Gideon Vink and painter Christophe Sawadogo in collaboration with the Gold Matters project and financed by the Nordic Africa Institute. Filmed at Karentenga, one of the oldest artisanal gold mines in Burkina Faso, it documents an art collaboration between Christophe and gold miners. The film is dedicated to the men, women and child victims of a terrorist attack at Solhan, another gold mining site in Burkina Faso.

The concluding webinar of the series hosted discussions on the topic of ‘Groundwater governance: Is there an alternative paradigm for the future’ where the speakers and panellists highlighted the key issues that are essential to be included while envisioning an alternative paradigm of groundwater governance (gwG) for the future. The discussion began with a discussion on Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI), a form of MAR which entails capturing the water upstream in a flood-prone region and use it to replenish aquifers that lay underneath, to avoid flooding in the downstream. It was further highlighted that this kind of an effort requires a strong scientific case along with the acceptance and readiness of the community along with a multi-stake holder engagement at the village, district, state, and national level. Further, it was argued that there is a need to pluralize voices and knowledges in groundwater governance. It was emphasized that global groundwater initiatives have been predominantly based on universal diagnoses, where gwG has been resource-oriented displaying a legacy of natural sciences/engineering approaches.

Doing and knowing groundwater differently – showing that the conventional knowledges of groundwater are colonial and not universal instead they are local and situated, replacing universe with pluriverse, engaging in scientific-political processes to imagine a new groundwater society remains crucial. Moreover, it was argued that gwG policies must be informed by the essential features of the groundwater. Without reformed policies on biophysical, users, support structures, research, teaching, law, data generation, and energy aspects that are surrounding groundwater, a paradigm shift in gwG remains impossible. It was reiterated that scientific research, policy and regulation, and communities need to come together to bring action on the ground. Amongst these discussions, it was pointed out that well and bore well diggers have not been a part of the problematisation and solutions of groundwater issues despite being closely associated with the resource. Similarly, farmers are seen as stakeholders and not as knowledge givers in the policies or discussions surrounding gwG. It was yet again highlighted that some issues find very little mention in the dialogue like urban groundwater despite the increasing sources in these areas.

The issue of universal frameworks in managing groundwater was emphasized again while linking them to the issue of land rights where land rights remain the handle for accessing groundwater regardless of the problems of inequality in access to land and landlessness. The sessions emphasized that groundwater has had historical, social, personal, ecological, climatic, cultural, scientific, technological aspects associated to it and yet it has been addressed by a linear, conventional approach. The webinars concluded with a shared understanding that reimagining groundwater governance is a multifaceted task, and it is imperative that the issues in the current approach to gwG must be acknowledged and addressed to envision an alternative paradigm for the future.