THE TRANSFORMATIONS TO SUSTAINABILITY NEWSLETTER
Guest editorial by Rania Masri, ACKnowl-EJ network, which recently held its annual meeting in Beirut, Lebanon.
It was a privilege to welcome the Acknowl-EJ team and our partners to my homeland, Lebanon. While the days were dedicated to productive discussions about our case studies, methodologies, alternative transformation networks, global worldviews, transgressive research, and the rights of nature, evenings were dedicated to stepping out of the university and into the community.
We did not want to merely meet in Lebanon; we wanted to visit sites of environmental contention and resistance.
We had a walking tour of Beirut to explore the ongoing threats to the community from gentrification, and a tour of Bourj Hammoud, an area that not only houses one of the most infamous landfills in the country, but also has a fishing port that has been gradually denied to its own community. We watched the premiere of a powerful documentary entitled ‘Couscous: Seeds of Dignity’, about the struggle and resistance of small-farmers in Tunisia, and had a discussion with the film’s director, Habib Ayeb.
Furthermore, we held the first Vikalp Sangram (alternatives confluence) outside of India. We welcomed invited community activists from across Lebanon, and from Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan, to a full-day discussion on struggles, strategies, and discourse of environmental justice. The conversations were rich and intriguing, uncovering similarities in struggle across the region and Turkey, and uncovering the nuances of language. While the term ‘environmental justice’ has resonance in Europe and the United States, in the Arab region – from Lebanon to Tunisia – the term ‘justice’ is understood to refer to the legal courts and ‘environment’ as a vague space separate from one’s direct relationship to the land, water, and community. As a result, we’re now discussing what would be a more appropriate translation to Arabic.
We also ventured out of the city. Over two days, we visited the Litani lake to see devastating pollution, sat amidst ancient olive trees in a southern village, and met a former prisoner at the Khiam Detention Center to personally feel the first struggle for environmental justice: the resistance to liberate one’s land. We drove to the southern border to discuss the impact of decades of war and occupation on the environment — from tree-planting to hide ruins of dispossessed Palestinian villages, to uprooting olive trees to deny Palestinians their livelihoods.
We greeted the next morning in one of the last remaining turtle nesting beaches, and ended our day hiking amidst cedar trees in Jabal el Barouk, the largest nature reserve in the country.
These kinds of encounters energize us to continue our work, and particularly to continue the outreach with our communities.
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Dylan McGarry, a member of the South African T-LEARNING network, attended the ACKNOWL-EJ annual meeting at the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon. Dylan McGarry writes 'The stakes are incredibly high for environmental justice activist-researchers working in the Arab region'. Read more here.
In a blog post entitled Research, convening and bridging: sharing insights from the ISSC's Transformative Knowledge Networks, Adrian Ely of PATHWAYS reflects on the interactions between the three TKNs. In this blog, Ely describes his observations after attending ACKnowl-EJ's annual meeting in Beirut and explains how the similarities and differences in each of the TKN's approaches enrich the T2S programme.
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The STEPS centre and members of the PATHWAYS TKN have launched a new online course on the 'Pathways Approach to Sustainability' and how it can be applied in research and practice. The course builds on the STEPS Summer School run annually by the STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex. It opens up critical approaches to sustainability through a series of video lectures, readings and links to real-life examples. It's free, and you can complete it at your own pace.
A recent T-lab event by the PATHWAYS network partners at CENIT in Argentina has been documented in a blog post entitled "Could new alliances for seeds in Argentina be a way to nurture agricultural diversity?" by Patrick van Zwanenberg.
Adrian Ely and Patrick Van Zwanenberg contributed to a new report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) "New innovation approaches to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals".
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Million Belay, from the T-LEARNING network, reflects here on his recent trip to Ethiopia where he engaged with small-scale farmers. The spread of Eucalyptus trees, the use of agrochemicals, increased demand for land and seed dependency are among some of the challenges these farmers are working with.
The T-LEARNING partners will soon be meeting for T-LEARNING Research Meeting and Summer School hosted by SWEDESD in Visby, Sweden. Experiences with case studies will be shared. They will engage around questions emerging from the T-learning research including on concepts, theory, methodology and ethical considerations.
The Integrated Assessment Society (TIAS) is hosting a webinar, "How a Social Learning Approach can Support the Design and Implementation of Interventions", on Tuesday June 27 at 14:30-16:00 CEST (GMT +2). The webinar will feature Heila Lotz-Sisitka from T-LEARNING and Blane Harvey from the Risk and Resilience Programme where they will reflect on interventionist research and limits and challenges of social learning approaches with a focus on the global South and international development.
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A call for session proposals for the 2018 World Social Science Forum is now open.
The 2018 World Social Science Forum will take place from 25-28 September 2018 in Fukuoka, Japan, on the theme of ‘Security and Equality for Sustainable Futures’.
Life in the Anthropocene requires inclusive and coordinated actions to ensure equality and security for human beings. Going beyond ‘security’ in the military or political context, human security also requires environmental, resource and livelihood security. Security and equality are prerequisites for stability and sustainability. The social sciences and humanities have a vital role to play in clarifying and developing principles, norms, rules and institutions to undertake action towards such an understanding of security, and in participating in the dialogue among citizens and policy makers. This Forum seeks to create a platform for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to contribute to transformations to a sustainable world.
Visit www.wssf2018.org for more information.
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Political Economy of Energy Transitions (POLET) workshop observations
In March 2017, the POLET (Political Economy of Energy Transitions) network organized a workshop on worldwide renewable electricity at the Central European University in Budapest. In POLET's tradition, the workshop included international scholars and practitioners working with techno-economic, socio-technical and political aspects of electricity transitions. The workshop participants from Central European University, Chalmers University (Sweden), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Webster University (both Austria), and Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) distilled three interesting observations:
- There is little understanding of how countries set their renewable energy targets or how such targets can be compared between different countries. It is also unclear to what extent renewable energy policies influence renewable electricity growth or whether this growth is driven by non-policy factors.
- Manufacturing of renewable energy equipment, especially wind turbines, has remained concentrated in a very small number of countries over the last few decades.
- Despite significant expansion of renewable electricity in many countries, it rarely displaces fossil fuels in national energy mixes.
The workshop was organized at Central European University (CEU), Budapest, and supported by the CEU "Energy and Society" Intellectual Theme.
For more information visit www.polet.network.
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Sarah Schweizer of START International has created an online platform called Transdisciplinary Research and Application on Future Earth's Open Network. This is a public forum where individuals are encouraged to join and contribute to the discussion feed, library resources, and events calendar.
To join, you must first register on the Open Network and then join the Transdisciplinary Research and Application community. Once you've logged in, you will see a "Join Community" button.
For more information on Future Earth's Open Network, click here.
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Every year, the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) awards the Bernal Prize to an individual for their contributions and achievements in the field of social science. We are delighted that this year’s recipient of the Bernal Prize is Professor Hebe Vessuri, a member of the T2S Steering Committee.
In their announcement, 4s say 'A pioneer in the anthropology of science with fieldwork experience throughout Latin America, Vessuri has demonstrated how ethnographic studies of the sciences can inform both social theory and policy. Her conception of national styles of science, peripheral science, and of the cultural role of science in less-developed countries have been particularly influential in Latin America, helping define STS in the region. Her analyses of the role of science in diverse societies speaks powerfully to issues at the heart of contemporary politics around the world.'
Read the full announcement from the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
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EMERGING IDEAS
This month our emerging idea is offered by Gibson Mphepo of the T-LEARNING network. Like many of the T-learning case studies, the case led by Gibson Mphepo is grappling with the meaning of transformation in local context. In order to reflect on this, Gibson has discovered some literature to sketch out different conceptualisations of transformation in an adaptation context. Incremental adaptation focuses on maintaining the incumbent system or process (business as usual) while transformational adaptation involves the creation of a fundamentally new system or process (Jakku et al. 2016). Gibson reports that for practical applications, Kates et al. (2012) identified three forms of transformational adaptation namely:
- Enlarged scale or intensity in the same area (infers integration)
- New adaptations (radical change)
- New locations (upscaling)
Kates et al. (2012) further give an outline of reasons justifying transformational adaptation including 'very large climate change' and 'vulnerable regions and activities'. For the Lake Chilwa case study, there are justifiable reasons for transformational adaptation and Gibson reports that they will focus on the first form of transformational adaptation in their T-LEARNING case study.
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WHAT WE'RE READING
Effective Science Communication: A practical guide to surviving as a scientist, Sam Illingworth and Grant Allen
This free book is devoted to the variety of ways that scientists are expected to communicate in their day-to-day professional lives. It includes practical advice on how to publish your work in scientific journals, apply for grants, and effectively communicate your research to both scientific and non-scientific audiences.
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Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway
"Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants, in troubling times. At the heart of this book is this concept of ‘staying with the trouble’: not shying away from the hot, sticky and oftentimes smelly messes surrounding climate change and the nexus issues intertwined within the ‘trouble’ of a warming planet" . Read the full review by Dylan McGarry.
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Conceptualizing the transfer of knowledge across cases in transdisciplinary research, Carolina Adler, Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn, Thomas Breu, Urs Wiesmann, Christian Pohl (2017)
In this paper, arguments and a rationale are presented for conceptualizing the transfer of knowledge across cases.
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WHAT WE'RE WRITING
Tenure Responsive Land Use Planning- A Guide for Country Level Implementation. UN-Habitat: Nairobi
U.E. Chigbu, S. Mabikke, , D. Antonio, O. Haub, and Espinoza. (2016)
This book is a Practitioners’ Guide released in March 2017. It is specifically designed for use in the implementation of tenure responsive land-use planning in countries of the Global South.
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New research urges a rethink on global energy subsidies
B. K. Sovacool (2017)
This article focuses on the impact of energy subsidies on social welfare, economic growth and technological innovation and the role of research in exposing them.
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Accelerating low-carbon innovation: the role for phase-out policies
F. Kern, P. Kivimaa, K. Rogge (2017)
This short brief on phase-out policies and energy transitions was published in March 2017. It covers how policy measures that phase out high carbon practices facilitate innovations by creating strong market signals about the direction of travel.
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The great transition - Alternative paths for a better and climate just future
A. Kothari (2017)
The final episode of the Podcast Series “Tipping Point“ on Climate Justice in the Anthropocene. In this episode, Barbara Muraca and Ashish Kothari explain why we need to question our growth driven mental infrastructures and how a good life for all is possible on a finite planet.
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Envisioning Futures for Environmental and Sustainability Education
H. Lotz-Sisitka, T. Macintyre, M. Chaves, and the Colombian organisation 'Colectivo Talanquera', P. Vallabh, I. Kulundu. (2017)
The book invited authors to engage “modes of critical speculation” to rethink and reimagine the role of environment and sustainability education towards alternative futures. Four chapters were authored by T-learning researchers.
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BOOK AWARD
The 2016 book ‘Critical Realism, Environmental Learning and Social-Ecological Change’ (Eds: Leigh Price & Heila Lotz-Sisitka) was awarded the Cheryl Frank Memorial prize by the International Association of Critical Realism. This book includes authors from the T-Learning network in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.
See more about the book
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STAY CONNECTED
7th International Conference on Sustainability Science (ICSS2017): Global Goals - New Approaches to Knowledge Generation – Challenges and Solutions from Local to Global scales
24 – 26 August 2017
Stockholm, Sweden
Open for registration
Transformations 2017 - Transformations in Practice
30 August – 1 September 2017
University of Dundee, UK
Open for registration
Artem International Conference on Organizational Creativity and Sustainability
14 – 16 September 2017
Nancy, France
Open for registration
II Conference of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS-II)
7 – 10 November 2017
Oaxaca City, Mexico
Open for registration
World Social Science Forum 2018: Security and Equality for Sustainable Futures
25 – 28 September 2018
Fukuoka, Japan
Call for sessions now open
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Contributions to this newsletter are welcome at transformations@worldsocialscience.org.
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The Transformations to Sustainability Programme is coordinated by the ISSC and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
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