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Exploring environmental, political and social questions in relation to contested and uneven processes of development. Our research covers six main themes: environment and resources, gender, geopolitics, global health, poverty and migration, and political ecology.

We examine these themes in both urban and rural settings and in a variety of geographical regions including, Africa, Asia and South America.

People

Helen Adams

Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

Majed  Akhter

Senior Lecturer in Environment and Society

Umar Al Faruq

PhD student

Sarah Bracking

Professor of Climate and Society

Andrew Brooks

Reader in Uneven Development & Deputy Head of Department

Projects

Community disaster relief action – flooding in Kenya
Nature4SDGs

This project explores the relationships between the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and livelihood strategies of poor rural households in the Global South. It involves international collaboration between researchers in the UK, India and Sweden. Poor rural communities are particularly dependent on nature to meet their daily food and income requirements. By analysing household-level data from seven countries, this project explores how key policies – particularly those related to conservation and agriculture – affect the way in which people draw on nature to support their wellbeing. The project aims to help meet the UN’s SDGs while protecting the wellbeing of the poorest communities across the world.

Decolonisation of infrastructure
Decolonising infrastructure: Empire, expertise, and the imaginative geographies of the Colombo Plan, 1950-1973

After the Second World War, planners and politicians across Asia attempted to develop national economies through the construction of large infrastructural projects. This meant dependence on flows of capital and expertise provided by western powers. To provide capital and expertise, and to address geopolitical concerns after decolonisation, Western powers set up the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia. This project uses original archives to conduct a geopolitical economic analysis of the politics of infrastructure planning in South and Southeast Asia in the context of decolonisation from the British Empire. It questions the extent to which local elites became tied to established centres of world power and how emergent Asian national economies were brought within a post-imperial geography through anti-communist ideology. This project is funded by the Social Science Research Council (USA).

    Image missing an alt value
    Training Diplomats of Postcolonial African States 1957-1997

    Analysing the spatial dynamics of transnational diplomatic training to understand postcolonial state-building in Francophone and Anglophone Africa.

    Image missing an alt value
    Violence Against Women and Girls in transnational perspective in Rio de Janeiro and London

    Examining localised and transnational dynamics of violence against women and girls in Brazil and the UK.

    Publications

      Activities

      London International Boundary Conference
      London International Boundary Conference

      This conference is dedicated to developing multidisciplinary approaches to better manage complex territorial and boundary disputes. It is convened in partnership with the public international law firm, Volterra Fietta.

      Events

      12Jun

      7th London International Boundary Conference

      Join us as we explore topical issues and share perspectives on how to address them.

      Please note: this event has passed.

      People

      Helen Adams

      Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

      Majed  Akhter

      Senior Lecturer in Environment and Society

      Umar Al Faruq

      PhD student

      Sarah Bracking

      Professor of Climate and Society

      Andrew Brooks

      Reader in Uneven Development & Deputy Head of Department

      Projects

      Community disaster relief action – flooding in Kenya
      Nature4SDGs

      This project explores the relationships between the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and livelihood strategies of poor rural households in the Global South. It involves international collaboration between researchers in the UK, India and Sweden. Poor rural communities are particularly dependent on nature to meet their daily food and income requirements. By analysing household-level data from seven countries, this project explores how key policies – particularly those related to conservation and agriculture – affect the way in which people draw on nature to support their wellbeing. The project aims to help meet the UN’s SDGs while protecting the wellbeing of the poorest communities across the world.

      Decolonisation of infrastructure
      Decolonising infrastructure: Empire, expertise, and the imaginative geographies of the Colombo Plan, 1950-1973

      After the Second World War, planners and politicians across Asia attempted to develop national economies through the construction of large infrastructural projects. This meant dependence on flows of capital and expertise provided by western powers. To provide capital and expertise, and to address geopolitical concerns after decolonisation, Western powers set up the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia. This project uses original archives to conduct a geopolitical economic analysis of the politics of infrastructure planning in South and Southeast Asia in the context of decolonisation from the British Empire. It questions the extent to which local elites became tied to established centres of world power and how emergent Asian national economies were brought within a post-imperial geography through anti-communist ideology. This project is funded by the Social Science Research Council (USA).

        Image missing an alt value
        Training Diplomats of Postcolonial African States 1957-1997

        Analysing the spatial dynamics of transnational diplomatic training to understand postcolonial state-building in Francophone and Anglophone Africa.

        Image missing an alt value
        Violence Against Women and Girls in transnational perspective in Rio de Janeiro and London

        Examining localised and transnational dynamics of violence against women and girls in Brazil and the UK.

        Publications

          Activities

          London International Boundary Conference
          London International Boundary Conference

          This conference is dedicated to developing multidisciplinary approaches to better manage complex territorial and boundary disputes. It is convened in partnership with the public international law firm, Volterra Fietta.

          Events

          12Jun

          7th London International Boundary Conference

          Join us as we explore topical issues and share perspectives on how to address them.

          Please note: this event has passed.