Advancing transformations to more sustainable and equitable futures. Read more.
One of the key challenges facing climate researchers today is to better understand how biophysical and social systems are related. When there’s an extreme event, such as a flood, hurricane or drought, the effects on the local population are all too obvious. But beyond the headlines, what about the gradual, day-to-day effects of living with […]
What does your approach to research look like? Is there an object that you regularly use in your research? There are surely thousands of journal articles, monographs and weighty manuscripts that deal with how researchers view their work, but what if you had to capture your answer to those questions in a single object? That’s […]
This post originally appeared on the T-LEARNING website. Read the first part – ‘Co-defining matters of concern’ – here. The Malawi case study takes place in the Lake Chilwa Basin, a wetland of international significance prone to drying. Within the basin, Domasi and Nsanama Extension Planning Areas (EPAs) are our focus. The study subjects are women […]
This post originally appeared on the T-LEARNING website. Read the second part here. Brief Description of the study site Lake Chilwa is the second largest lake in Malawi with a surface area of 1,300 km2. The lake has a history of droughts resulting from below normal precipitation levels. Since the 1700s, the lake has either […]
If I were to ask you to close your eyes and recall your favourite place, where would you travel behind closed eyes? What are the associated images, memories, emotions and sentiments that your mind’s journey evokes? If you live in the totality of the experience that this exercise has created, you begin to understand the […]
by Yang Lichao, Kennedy Liti Mbeva and Jiang Chulin This blog post summarizes discussions between the PATHWAYS Africa and China hubs at the project-wide meeting of the PATHWAYS network in Dundee in August 2017. This post originally appeared on the STEPS Centre website. The Africa and China hubs in the project are both working on […]
Averting a global ecological collapse Contemporary societies and their economies must undergo a transformation to sustainability without further delay if we are to avoid an unprecedented ecological and socio-political disaster. To achieve such a transformation, principles consistent with sustainable ecosystems and social systems need to be identified and applied systematically across all sectors. What are […]
There is little contention that the world is undergoing significant change at the planetary scale, primarily induced by human activity: think of climate change, ocean acidification and coral bleaching, plastic pollution, increasing biodiversity loss, to name but a few. Scientists have termed this era the Anthropocene, where human actions are the main drivers of global […]
Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the Transformations Conference in Dundee, Scotland. The focus was on diverse transformations contributing to more sustainable socio-ecological systems. Diversity, multiplicity, heterogeneity. A diversity of actors, territories, pathways and so on. These key elements for transformation were continually addressed and given value during the conference. But […]
This post originally appeared on the T-learning website. Stay alive or survive? “One-point-five-to-stay-alive” or more like “one-point-five-we–might-survive.” This lyrical chant comes from Kumi Naidoo, the former Director of Greenpeace. It is a soundbite from his keynote address at the Transformations 2017 conference in Dundee, Scotland this past month (September), which I was fortunate to attend […]