A roundup of events and publications from the ESRC STEPS Centre and the Pathways to Sustainability Global Consortium.

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How can the Sustainable Development Goals be transformative?

As the UNâ€™s High-Level Political Forum meets to discuss progress on the Global Goals, we examine how they can truly change the world. Beyond the 17 SDGs and their targets, STEPS work highlights the need to focus on varying contexts, different values and the way choices are made.

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Health, cities and the SDGs

Saurabh Arora and Leandro Giatti explore the links between public health and urban development. How could framing these as a â€˜nexusâ€™ help to guide action to create healthier, fairer cities?

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The politics of zoonotic disease response

In this blog post for World Zoonoses Day, STEPS director Ian Scoones highlights the political questions at the heart of efforts to tackle human-to-animal disease.

A new online resource collects videos and articles examining how authoritarian populism has taken hold in different countries around the world, and exploring the alternatives. The resource has been created by openDemocracy and the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), following an international event in March.

Browse the video & articles

Rojava revolution: what can we learn from delegations?

A panel discussion on 31 May explored recent news from Rojava, an area to the north of Syria under intense pressure from the Syrian conflict and the Turkish state. New systems of â€˜democratic confederalismâ€™ developed there have shown great promise, but more solidarity from international civil society is needed.

Blog and video

The Green Revolution and life histories in Tamil Nadu

Two blog posts by researchers on the Relational Agency Poverty Pathways project put the â€˜Green Revolutionâ€™ in India into perspective, exploring farmersâ€™ life histories and the relations between people, technology and other aspects of rural life.

Contextualising life histories in Tamil Nadu
Divya Sharma and V. Gajendra

Uncovering Transgressive Solidarities
Divya Sharma

New research project on uncertainty and transformations

A new project involving STEPS has been funded by the Belmont Forum/NORFACE joint programme Transformations to Sustainability.

The TAPESTRY project studies â€˜patches of transformationâ€™ in India and Bangladesh, where hybrid alliances and innovative practices are inspiring societal transformation.

Recent news

Africa Sustainability Hub trains climate policy makers
Africa Sustainability Hub

Open source seeds â€˜Transformation Labâ€™ in Argentina
Steps America Latina

Xochimilco and its wetlands: lessons from the earthquake of 2017
STEPS North America hub

Three PhD scholarships on pastoralism in Kenya, China and Italy
PASTRES project

Publications from the STEPS Centre

Waste to Energy in Delhi: Alternatives towards Sustainable Urban Waste Management
Pritpal Randhawa, Fiona Marshall, Pravin Kushwaha and Pravin Desai
TRCSS Working Paper 01/2018, STEPS South Asia hub

A Class-Analytic Approach to Agricultural Joint Ventures in the Communal Areas of South Africa
STEPS Working Paper 103
Brittany Bunce

Promoting agency for social-ecological transformation: a transformation-lab in the Xochimilco social-ecological system
Lakshmi Charli-Joseph, J. Mario Siqueiros, Hallie Eakin, David Manuel-Navarrete and Rebecca Shelton
Ecology and Society 23(2):46

Governing food and agriculture in a warming world
Peter Newell, Charles Tonui and Olivia Taylor
Global Environmental Politics 18(2)

Low carbon China: Emerging phenomena and implications for innovation governance: Introduction to the special section of environmental innovation and societal transitions
Adrian Ely, Sam Geall and Yixin Dai
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (in press)

Uncertainty in Environmental Studies
Andy Stirling
Chapter in â€˜Companion to Environmental Studiesâ€™ edited by Noel Castree, Mike Hulme and James D. Proctor (Routledge, 2018)

Land Grabbing in Environmental Studies
Ian Scoones
Chapter in â€˜Companion to Environmental Studiesâ€™

Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation in Urbanising Contexts
Fiona Marshall, Jonathan Dolley, Ramila Bisht, Ritu Priya Mehrotra, Linda Waldman, Pritpal Randhawa and Priyanie Amerasinghe
Chapter in â€˜Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviationâ€™ (OA) edited by Kate Schreckenberg, Georgina Mace and Mahesh Poudyal (Routledge, 2018)

Blog posts

Living Aulas: What connects â€˜undisciplinaryâ€™ research on sustainability?
Almendra Cremaschi and Rebecca Shelton

Dialogues along Plural Pathways: STEPS researchers and Summer School participants in conversation
STEPS Summer School 2018

Should we blame livestock for climate change?
Ian Scoones

Wilderness for whom? Negotiating the role of livestock in landscapes
Ian Scoones

The vegan craze: what does it mean for pastoralists?
Ian Scoones

Narratives of scarcity and the global land rush
Ian Scoones

BioLeft: experimenting with open source seed innovation in Argentina
Patrick van Zwanenberg

Transformations - our theme for 2018

Faced with a series of social and environmental stresses and shocks, there are urgent calls for radical, systemic change. What does it take to make these sustainability transformations emancipatory, rather than repressive?

Find out more on our Transformations theme page.