‘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 is a recording of the session ‘Critical social science perspectives on transformations to sustainability – emerging framings and approaches’, which took place at the Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress (SRI2021) on 14th June 2021.
The recent emphasis in scientific assessments and policy frameworks on the urgent need for transformations to sustainability signals two things: recognition of the social dimensions of environmental problems; and, acknowledgement that we need innovative and visionary approaches to tackle societal challenges. The transformations discourse implies that profound changes are required in the social and economic systems, structures, values and practices that perpetuate contemporary socio-ecological problems. This suggests the need for innovation in sustainability science, challenging power structures and opening spaces to value a diversity of knowledges. This shifts emphasis to co-design and co-production with stakeholders, grounding sustainability transformations within specific contexts and enhancing potential to make transformative change relevant to local actors. There is broad agreement that social science can make a vital contribution to understanding and driving the transformations in science and society that we need. However, so far there has been only limited success in bringing social scientific knowledge to bear on efforts to address the socio-political barriers to sustainability, or, likewise, to use social science’s capacity to inform practical action, to build practices conducive to transformative change.
This session was an occasion to present and critically discuss emerging conceptual and methodological approaches in social science research for sustainability. Contributors from the Belmont Forum–NORFACE Transformations to Sustainability programme discuss conceptual and methodological challenges and reflect on what might constitute transformation in specific places, including how this might inform wider action. Questions include: What contribution(s) can social science make to our vision(s) of transformative change and sustainability? How could the social and natural sciences complement each other more effectively? How can we draw diverse knowledges and perspectives into conversations on transformation?
This webinar (in Brazilian Portuguese) focuses on Land-use practices towards sustainability in the Amazon region. Find out more.
Discussion + Q&A at the online ‘Methods bazaar’ on 8 November 2021.
This was the closing event in a series organized by the STEPS Centre, Umbela Transformaciones Sostenibles and the Africa Research & Impact Network (ARIN).
Find out more.
Keynote for the online conference “Ruptures, Transformations, Continuities. Rethinking Infrastructures and Ecology” at the University of Hamburg, 24 November 2021
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.
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.
