Ports, pipelines, roads, wind farms and plantations in Africa's drylands are part of a modernist vision led by states & industry. But the reality doesn't always match the vision, as a new book explores.

steps-centre.org/blog/how-have-…
(Img: Geo Thermal/Flickr/cc-by-nc-2.0) "A type of ‘growth talk’ emphasises the presumed benefits of outside investment for expanding markets & economic activities in marginal rural areas. Actors in national governments become gatekeepers to foreign investment and are well-positioned to benefit personally from deals."

“we have a global political economy of deep structural inequality that permits
the angst of publics &policy-makers to set the agenda for how mobilities are understood. This perspective undergirds restrictive regimes of mobility & hardened border controls.” taylorfrancis.com/books/e/978100… “Although labour markets globally thrive on the circulation of workers, the dominant rhetoric intimates an uncontrolled over-supply of labour, often of the wrong type, which in turn nourishes discursive distinctions between wanted and unwanted migrants...”

Is #climate action too attached to the modern idea of 'control'?

In this series of 4 blog posts, Andy Stirling (@SPRU) makes the case for a more 'caring' approach to climate disruption & the democratic struggle towards human flourishing.

steps-centre.org/tag/climate-po…

Thread 👇 1: Is the naming of 'climate change' a dangerous self-defeat? Could the term 'climate disruption' help to point towards the root causes - in industrial modernity - of multiple devastating assaults on Nature?

steps-centre.org/blog/is-the-na…

🎉NEW BOOK🎉
The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation

edited by @IanScoones and Andy Stirling @SPRU

Open Access e-version: taylorfrancis.com/books/e/978100…

Buy a copy: routledge.com/The-Politics-o… "While risk and uncertainty are often described in technocratic ways that create fear or the feeling of being overwhelmed by complexity, the book offers us a new way to reimagine how society can engage with uncertainty... It could not come at a better time." @MazzucatoM

"There is always the prospect of a new pandemic... In our desperation to be beyond lockdowns, we crave ‘normality’, but the world of zoonotic disease does not allow for stability."

steps-centre.org/blog/pandemics…

@IanScoones reviews the new issue of @DoftWT's book 'On Pandemics' Science, uncertainty and the Covid-19 response

steps-centre.org/blog/science-u…

by @IanScoones

It's 10 years since the UN recognised the right to access safe drinking water & sanitation. But 2.5bn people lack safe water, and 4.5bn have no adequate sanitation. #Covid19 brings these problems into sharp relief.

steps-centre.org/blog/covid-19-…
Blogpost by @Lylamehta & Claudia Ringler Lyla Mehta and Claudia Ringler are among the authors of the book 'Water for Food Security, Nutrition and Social Justice':

routledge.com/Water-for-Food…

Happy #WorldEnvironmentDay!

"Pastoralists [in Kutch] are attuned to living with the uncertain rhythms of nature. But recent years have brought further threats, as climate-related uncertainties have combined with wider economic and social changes."

steps-centre.org/blog/how-do-pa… Why does the environment matter in Kutch?

Historically, it was seen as a 'marginal', unproductive environment (including by British colonisers). But there is a long history of pastoralism in the area...

“The QMM operation is not simply a mine.”

A new paper by @Anthropogo and Yvonne Orengo on the connections and logics between mining, conservation, displacement, ‘offsetting’ and ‘green’ development

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

https://twitter.com/Anthropogo/status/1252168311204388865

“...Violence is not natural, senseless or inevitable. It is, rather, political, relational and contextual. Its instruments can be conventional weapons or the invisible weapons of coercion, representation and exclusion that operate through vast disparities in power...”

In addressing big sustainability problems, everybody talks about 'transformations'. But how can these be empowering, diverse and socially just?

NEW ARTICLE: Transformations to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… For background material, check out the Pathways Network, whose work informed this paper: steps-centre.org/project/pathwa…

BLOG: Modernity without its clothes: the pandemic crisis shines a light on futilities of control | Andy Stirling

steps-centre.org/blog/modernity…

#COVID19 #uncertainty
(Image: Rob Oo / cc-by 2.0) "What is now becoming devastatingly undermined is the general credibility of any confident performance of predictive control...

What the pandemic shows is that in the wider, long-run ‘real world’ of human affairs, *control does not exist*."

Looking for evidence & expertise on pandemics and society?

Browse our collection of resources on #COVIDー19 🦠and the lessons we can learn from past outbreaks

steps-centre.org/coronavirus Including....

https://twitter.com/ids_uk/status/1245280071142825984?s=21

"Recognition of the importance of framing does not imply that scientific rigor carries no value... ...The issue is not that “anything goes,” but rather that in complex areas of analysis for policy in fields such as infectious-disease management, reductive–aggregative techniques like risk assessment rarely deliver a single uniquely robust set of findings. ....

Blog: Science, uncertainty and the #COVID19 response

"As all scientists involved know, things are very uncertain indeed. Defining a policy is a judgement call, one based on assessing many competing positions."

steps-centre.org/blog/science-u…

by @IanScoones "A few years ago a group of us (including mathematical modellers, anthropologists and participatory field practitioners) made the case that a plural approach to modelling is required that combines 3 'P's..."

Newsletter to launch our NATURES theme
mailchi.mp/steps-centre/s…

Some highlights (a thread): BLOG: How to respond to Nature in crisis: look beyond the big stories
steps-centre.org/blog/how-respo…

The Philippines has rated ‘Golden Rice’ safe, but farmers may not end up planting it. A new article by @glenndavisstone and @domglov explores why theconversation.com/the-philippine… We should also mention @sun9kyu who is a co-author of the academic paper, on which this comment piece is based.

How do you respond to epidemics like #coronavirus? Browse 12 years of research & commentary from the STEPS Centre steps-centre.org/tag/epidemics-… @IDS_UK @SPRU @ISC @ESRC Our library of publications on health & disease collects 12 years' worth of work on the social science and politics of One Health, zoonotic diseases, outbreaks, environmental health and more

steps-centre.org/publication/?c…

BLOG: How can transformations to sustainability be socially & ecologically just? Where & how do researchers figure in these processes? @beckyayre has six reflections on transdisciplinarity & transformations, following @Transform2019 in Santiago: (Thread👇)
steps-centre.org/blog/transdisc… 1. Researchers may be required to take on a wide variety of roles and responsibilities according to the needs and skills of the broader research team. These roles are likely to evolve over time and there is a chance that a researcher will need to ‘wear multiple hats’ at once.

🌟APPLY🌟 Ninth (and final) STEPS Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability in Brighton, May 2020
steps-centre.org/summer-school/ @IDS_UK @SPRU @ESRC @SussexGlobal @SeNSSDTP @ISC @Belmont_Forum @PolEcoNet @UndiEnvi The Summer School is a two-week immersive course on theories and practical approaches to the politics of sustainability, through creative and interactive learning

* Apply online by 26 January 2020
* Open to doctoral & post-doctoral students
* Some financial support is available

Thinking about power, agency, change & collective action around social/environmental problems?

New paper from Andy Stirling @SPRU:
'How deep is incumbency? A ‘configuring fields’ approach to redistributing and reorienting power in socio-material change'

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @SPRU In contrast to an 'eagle eye view' of incumbency, "A 'worm-eye view' [highlights] necessities for counter-incumbency actions to take forms that cannot be achieved mainly by performance of vertical policy interventions choreographed from a notional governance 'cock-pit'...

NEW BLOG POST: Uncertain superlatives

Guest post by Emery Roe in our #PoliticsOfUncertainty series, exploring *certainty* and how it can create the belief that a choice made is 'superlative' (i.e. the 'best, superior or optimal course of action')

steps-centre.org/blog/uncertain… "A key part of the challenge of a politics of uncertainty is to insist superior and superlative are still achievable, and not in a diminished sense of the economist’s 'second best.'"

BLOG: Uncertain futures and the politics of uncertainty steps-centre.org/blog/uncertain…

Guest post by Richard Bronk of @LSEEI #PoliticsOfUncertainty @LSEEI "Imagination is both the ultimate cause of much of the uncertainty we face and our best tool for coping with it."