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

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Authoritarian populism and the rural world

International conference, 17-18 March
The Hague, Netherlands

Authoritarian populism is on the rise, boosted in part by support from rural areas. This conference examines why, and explores the alternatives. What are the social and political processes in rural spaces that resist or respond to regressive, authoritarian politics? How can they be mobilized and supported? The event is organised by the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI).

Full event details

Download the programme (PDF)

Social media

Follow @TheERPI on Twitter and join in the conversation on the hashtag #ERPI2018.

Conference speakers

Plenary speakers include:

Burak Gürel (Koç University), Laksmi Adriani Savitri (Samadhya Institute), Eduardo Gudynas (Latin American Center of Social Ecology), Natalia Mamonova (The Institute of International Affairs, Sweden), Andries du Toit (PLAAS, University of the Western Cape), Zack Exley (Justice Democrats/Left Right Forward), Achin Vanaik (Transnational Institute), Dzodzi Tsikata (University of Ghana), Khin Zaw Win (Tampadipa Institute), Rebecca Tarlau (Pennsylvania State University), John Gaventa (Institute of Development Studies), Stha Yeni (Tshintsha Amakhaya), Sofia Monsalve (FIAN International), Karin Nansen (REDES/Friends of the Earth Uruguay), Raj Patel (University of Texas at Austin), Hilary Wainwright (Red Pepper), Marc Edelman (City University of New York) and Henry Saragih (Serikat Petani Indonesia/La Via Campesina) (tbc).

Live video from the event

Plenary sessions will be streamed live online. For details of timings see the ISS website.

Visit the Livestream page

Article series: confronting authoritarian populism

Articles by speakers and organisers on the online magazine openDemocracy explore the issues around the conference.

Confronting authoritarian populism: the rural dimension
Ian Scoones, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Lyda Fernanda Forero, Ruth Hall, Marc Edelman, Wendy Wolford, and Benjamin White

Hindu authoritarianism and agrarian distress
Achin Vanaik

Why #DefendAfrin? Confronting authoritarian populism with radical democracy
Amber Huff, Salima Tasdemir, and Patrick Huff

Sacrifice zones in rural and non-metro USA: fertile soil for authoritarian populism
Marc Edelman

Islamophobia gastronomica – on the food police, rural populism and killing
Raj Patel

Authoritarian elitism and popular movements in Brazil / Élites autoritarias y movimientos populares en Brasil
Wendy Wolford and Sergio Sauer

The demise of emancipatory peasant politics? Indonesian fascism and the rise of Islamic populism
Laksmi Savitri, Devi Adriyanti, Hanny Wijaya, Ciptaningrat Larastiti, Abdul Rahman, and Benjamin White

How populism directed against minorities is used to prop up Myanmar’s ‘Democratic’ revival
Khin Zaw Win

After the peace agreement, authoritarian extractivism persists as rural development in Colombia
Lyda Fernanda Forero and Danilo Urrea

State, corporate and chiefly power is being contested from below in South Africa
Ruth Hall

Go to the list of articles

Other STEPS news

STEPS Annual Lecture: Kate Raworth

Kate Raworth, author of the bestselling book ‘Doughnut Economics’, will give the STEPS Annual Lecture at the University of Sussex on 14 May 2018.

The lecture, entitled ‘Economics as if we wanted to survive the 21st century’, is free to attend but registration is essential.

Full details & registration

Andy Stirling on evidence, expertise and democracy

STEPS co-director Andy Stirling (SPRU, University of Sussex) gave a keynote address at the Melbourne School of Government’s conference ‘A Crisis of Expertise’. The video of the talk, ‘Expertise and Democracy: from adversarial crisis to mutualistic renewal’, is on the conference website. You can also listen to a podcast recorded at the event, where Andy discusses his ideas and background in further detail.

Conference video

Vacancy: Research Fellow in Agrarian Transformations

The Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex is seeking to appoint a Research Fellow in Agrarian Transformations full time for 12 months from 1 June 2018, to work on a DFID-ESRC funded project on pathways into and out of poverty through agricultural transformations in Kenya and South India, led by Dr. Saurabh Arora.

Apply for this post

New publications from the STEPS Centre

Why peri-urban ecosystem services matter

An event and briefing focused on India’s peri-urban spaces and how ecosystem services can help them to flourish, arising from our Risks and Responses to Urban Futures project.

Briefing: Making the most of peri-urban ecosystem services ESPA briefing by Fiona Marshall, Jonathan Dolley and Nathan Oxley
Event: Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation in Urbanising India, 6 March 2018, Delhi

Kenyan farmers and the African 'Green Revolution'

A new working paper explores how 'Green Revolution' technologies and practices are aligned with the views and aspirations of small farmers, drawing on case studies in three regions of Kenya.

Working paper: Farmers’ agency and experiences of agricultural change in rural Kenya: Insights from exploratory fieldwork by Joanes Atela, Charles Tonui and Dominic Glover
Blog: Where is the agency of farmers in Africa's 'new Green Revolution'? by Joanes Atela, Charles Tonui, Dominic Glover and Saurabh Arora

Climate change and uncertainty

Three new IDS Briefings and a STEPS working paper explore differing perceptions of uncertainty and climate change in India.

Addressing Climate Change Uncertainty in Dryland Kachchh, India
Shilpi Srivastava and Lyla Mehta

Transforming Urban Governance to Manage Uncertainty and Climate Change in Mumbai, India
Hans Nicolai Adam, D. Parthasarathy and N.C. Narayanan

Bringing Together Voices to Address Climate Change Uncertainty in the Indian Sundarbans
Upasona Ghosh and Shibaji Bose

Working paper: Living on the Edge: Climate Change and Uncertainty in the Indian Sundarbans
STEPS Working Paper 101
Upasona Ghosh, Shibaji Bose and Rittika Brahmachari

Blog posts

Forking the SDGs: How prototypes could transform the new global goals
Adrian Smith, 4 March 2018

Pastoralism is changing in the Horn of Africa
Ian Scoones, 15 February 2018

The Transformation Labs (T-Labs) approach to change
Per Olsson, 14 February 2018

GOSH Roadmap: democratizing technology, from a Latin American perspective
Julieta Arancio, 12 February 2018

Events

21 March 2018
When the Wolf Guards the Sheep: Green extractivism and confronting the industrial machine
Seminar by Alexander Dunlap, University of Sussex

10 April 2018
Contextualizing authoritarian populism and emancipatory rural politics
Panel at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans

Emancipatory rural politics II: resisting, mobilizing and creating alternatives
Panel at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans

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