All you need is development?

Professor Lyla Mehta, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex:  “Climate change and uncertainty from ‘below’ and ‘above”.

Professor Lyla Mehta works in and co-leads the Resource Politics cluster at the Institute of Development Studies, UK. A sociologist working in development studies, she uses the case of water and sanitation to focus on rights and access to resources, resource grabbing, the politics of scarcity, gender, power and policy processes. Her work also concerns climate change and uncertainty and gender, displacement and resistance. She has extensive research and field experience in India and southern Africa. She has published about 90 scientific publications including the most recent edited book, Flows and Practices: the politics of integrated water resources management in southern and eastern Africa.

The talk will be followed by a presentation on “Water and power, water’s power: Volatile ecologies and politics of vulnerabilisation in Laos” by Mira Käkönen, Development studies, University of Helsinki.

Warmly welcome on Monday, March 5th at 14:00 until 16:00 Unioninkatu 35, room 344 (third floor). Since the room has limited places, please contact paola.minoia@helsinki.fi to register, by Thursday 1st of March. 

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In the morning, at 10 am in Auditorium XV, University Main building, 4th floor: Prof. Lyla Mehta will serve as opponent of the doctoral defense of Johanna Hohenthal (development geography): Local ecological knowledge in deteriorating water catchments – Reconsidering environmental histories and inclusive governance in the Taita Hills, Kenya.

On Wednesday the 14th February 2018, (the day before the conference), a series of workshops will be offered for Masters and PhD students.

9-12  Masters Workshop held by Prof Barry Gills (HY) and Dr Paola Minoia (HY), with Prof Jun Borras (Erasmus Univ. Rotterdam), Tieteiden talo, Kirkkokatu 6, Room 208

9-12  UniPiD DocNet DocShop: “Q&A with Jesse Ribot” – organized by Prof Anja Nygren (HY), Johanna Kivimäki (UniPID), and Dr. Aili Pyhälä (HY), with Prof  Jesse Ribot (SESE, Illinois), Tieteiden talo, Kirkkokatu 6, Room 309 Please find more information on this workshop here.

14-16 Indigenous Studies/Development Studies workshop held by Ass. Prof Pirjo Virtanen (HY) and Dr. Aili Pyhälä (HY), with Prof Sian Sullivan (Bath Spa University) NB. Different Location: SSKH210, Snellmaninkatu 12. For more information, including how to register, please contact Assistant Professor Pirjo Virtanen (pirjo.virtanen@helsinki.fi).

Warmly welcome – everyone and anyone – to the first Development Studies brown bag seminar of the spring semester 2018!

Associate Professor Kevin St. Martin, from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Title of talk: “Beyond the End of History: Taking Action in Rights-Based Marine Resource Management Regimes”

Friday, February 9th at 14:30 until 16:30 Unioninkatu 35, Seminar room 105

Kevin St. Martin received his Ph.D. from Clark University and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University. He is an economic geographer and political ecologist with a specialization in the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He is interested in critical analyses of economic and resource management discourse as well as participatory projects which foster alternative economic practices. His current research critically examines the implementation and practice of new forms of marine governance such as Ecosystems-Based Management and Marine Spatial Planning and their implications for community economic and environmental well-being.

Dr. St. Martin’s research has been funded by grants from various NOAA programs and the NSF, and he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2010 to Norway for his project Drawing Communities Together: Assessing the Potential of Participatory Environmental Mapping for Marine Resource Management and Community Development.

Dr. St. Martin has published in top academic geography and marine policy journals and has contributed book chapters to key publications in environmental and economic geography. He has recently edited a volume titled Making Other Worlds Possible: Performing Diverse Economies, which is the first book in a new book series with the University of Minnesota Press called Diverse Economies and Liveable Worlds. St. Martin is an editor of the aforementioned book series as well as an associate editor for the journal Maritime Studies.