Critical Sustainable Development Challenges

We are an interdisciplinary group of scholars who work on sustainable development and sustainable development.

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We take a critical stance towards sustainable development challenges and the idea of sustainable development. Our work spans issues of, for example, food justice, urban justice, climate justice, energy justice, digital justice.

Thinking through these critical ideas, the group members collectively wrote and published an article sketching some of our ideas on Sustainable Development and an agenda for post 2030 when the Sustainable Development Goals period comes to an end.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represented a key landmark in collaboration and shared agenda-setting to address global challenges across scales and geographies. However, despite initial optimism that measurable goals would support accountability and transparency in development, progress towards realising goals has been mixed. Global development agendas increasingly face challenges from the intensification of climate change, the return of populism and ethnonationalism, and a deepening of inequalities at intra- and inter-national scales.

Our research group interrogates the priorities that must inform the current development agenda and a critical post-2030 development agenda. To think towards this, we explore three questions of the development agenda: 1) can development be sustainable? 2) Can development be delivered through markets? And 3) can development be 鈥榞lobal鈥? To address these tensions and take a first step towards a more critical post-2030 agenda, our research agendas focus on spatialities, multiplicities and historicities of development.

Titled : more collaboration, less competition?, the article is available open access.

Kumar, Ankit, Stephanie Butcher, Daniel Hammett, Sandra Barragan-Contreras, Vanessa Burns, Ollie Chesworth, Gregory Cooper, et al. 鈥楧evelopment beyond 2030: More Collaboration, Less Competition?鈥 International Development Planning Review 46, no. 2 (2 April 2024): 227鈥42. .

Some project our members are involved in

: Learning with communities in Zimbabwe - Stories of food systems change

A participatory action research project that is a close collaboration between Pamela Richardson  (University of 葫芦影业),  Kufunda Village, PORET Trust and PELUM Zimbabwe .

A key questions that has been driving the research is 鈥淗ow does transformation towards more sustainable food systems take place?鈥 And for the project collective, 鈥渨hat are the positive changes that have been taking place towards more sustainable food systems in Zimbabwe?鈥 Find more information here:

Neighbourhoods fit for diverse young people: civic media practices and urban claims-making in Nepal and India

This action-research project is focused on exploring urban claims-making by young people in two secondary cities: Dharan, Nepal and Bhuj, India. In each city, a series of 鈥榗ivic media鈥 workshops鈥 are being conducted by locally-based NGO partners with emerging youth leaders, supporting young people to engage with digital tools to build evidence and advocate on issues that matter to their neighbourhoods and cities. The project aims to explore how diverse groups of young people can use civic media technologies to enable meaningful and equitable participation as 鈥榰rban citizens鈥 towards 鈥榥eighbourhoods fit for young people鈥.

The project is led by 葫芦影业 University, by Stephanie Butcher (PI) and supported by Rajanya Bose (PDRA). It partners with six other institutions, including Kathmandu University, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Hunnarshala Foundation, Lumanti Support Group for Shelter, and the International Institute for Environment and Development. It is supported by funding from the Fondation Botnar.

Members

Aishwarya Bhuta

Megan Blake

Stephanie Butcher

Ollie Chesworth

Gregory Cooper

Dan Hammett

Miguel Kanai

Dorothea Kleine

Ankit Kumar

Sihan Li

Winnie Musivo

Sammia Poveda (group lead)

Pamela Richardson

Bhavani Shankar

Cath Jackson

Monica Martin Grau

Tete' Mausse

Rajanya Bose

Anjali Purushotham

Martin A Watts

Shriya Bajaj

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