ESRC STEPS Centre
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The ESRC STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement centre uniting development studies with science and technology studies. Our cross-cutting work covers agriculture & food; energy & climate change; health & disease and water & sanitation.
You can visit the website at http://steps-centre.org/
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ESRC STEPS Centre [203]
Recent Submissions
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Political Ecology and Differential Vulnerabilities to Droughts among Livestock Farmers in South Africa: A Case Study of Mpakeni Community
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2020-01-10)Most of South Africa’s black rural population reside in the former homelands or Bantustans, commonly referred to as communal areas by the post-apartheid government (Clark and Luwaya 2017). Amongst a variety of livelihood ... -
A New Policy Narrative for Pastoralism? Pastoralists as Reliability Professionals and Pastoralist Systems as Infrastructure
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2020-01-01)This paper proposes that pastoralist systems are better treated, in aggregate, as a global critical infrastructure. The policy and management implications that follow are significant and differ importantly from current ... -
Kenya’s Youth Agricultural Livelihoods and the Land–Water–Environment Nexus
(STEPS Centre, 2019)Kenyan youth have started to embrace agriculture as a viable livelihood source following a decade of the ‘youth-in-agriculture’ narrative that promotes, among other things, agribusiness as a viable youth employment ... -
Green Transformations, Charcoal and Social Justice in Rural East-Central Tanzania
(STEPS Centre, 2019)Over the last 30 years, Tanzania has taken different policy approaches towards the conservation of forests. Intriguingly, from the earlier integrated conservation and development approach to the ‘newer’ green economy, the ... -
Transforming Access to Clean Technology: Learning From Lighting Africa
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2019)UK AID has recently invested in a new £39.8 million programme that aims to transform access to modern energy cooking services, or MECS, in Africa and Asia. In this working paper we demonstrate how reframing our understanding ... -
Smart as Democratically Transformative? An Analysis of ‘Smart City’ Sociotechnical Imaginary in India
(ESRC Steps Centre, 2019)‘Smart cities’ as sociotechnical imaginaries have been enthusiastically embraced by urban planners and policymakers around the world. In 2014, the government of India launched its Smart Cities Mission ostensibly to create ... -
Crises in Variegated Capitalism, Co-produced, Hydro-Social Impacts
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2019-08-12)My PhD fieldwork on Dutch aid in the Mozambican waterscape took me from one crisis-ridden research context, the Netherlands, to another, Mozambique. This working paper asks how seemingly unrelated crises in both countries ... -
Unpacking Uncertainty and Climate Change From ‘Above’ and ‘Below’
(Springer, 2019-07-13)Uncertainty is a key factor shaping climate and environmental policy at international, national and sub-national levels. It is usually defined as a situation characterised by indeterminacies and refers to what we cannot ... -
‘Good Governance’ as Conflict Resolution? Locally Mediated Governance and Mining Law at the Côte d’Ivoire Ity Gold Mine
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2019-07-01)This paper examines the exploitation and management of gold mining in the western region of Côte d’Ivoire and the associated local social tensions and conflicts. Taking a historical sociological analysis, the paper shows ... -
Destabilisation of Sustainable Energy Transformations: Analysing Natural Gas Lock-in in the case of Germany
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2019)In recent years, natural gas has seen increased support in the context of climate change mitigation. Described as a ‘bridge fuel’ it is seen as aiding in the low-carbon energy transformation process. This is puzzling, given ... -
What is Uncertainty and Why Does it Matter?
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2019)Uncertainty defines our times. Whether it is in relation to climate change, disease outbreaks, financial volatility, natural disasters or political settlements, every media headline seems to assert that things are uncertain, ... -
Can Pay-As-You-Go, Digitally Enabled Business Models Support Sustainability Transformations in Developing Countries? Outstanding Questions and a Theoretical Basis for Future Research
(MDPI, 2019-03-26)This paper examines the rapidly emerging and rapidly changing phenomenon of pay-as-you-go (PAYG), digitally enabled business models, which have had significant early success in providing poor people with access to ... -
The Knowledge Nexus and Transdisciplinarity
(Routledge, 2019-04-24)Recent decades have witnessed the emergence of various movements concentrating on interconnections among nature, society and technology – and the disciplines that deal with them – whether under the broad title of ... -
Sustainable Lifestyles, Livelihoods and the Circular Economy
(Routledge, 2019-04-25)In this book we address three separate yet overlapping thematic concepts and domains of knowledge, practice and discourse: sustainable lifestyles, livelihoods and the circular economy. Each of these concepts offer ... -
T-Labs: A Practical Guide
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2018-09-28)Between 2016 and 2018, the Pathways Network aimed to investigate new approaches for transformations to sustainability across different disciplines, cultures and contexts. The network carried out comparative research in six ... -
Transformations to Sustainability
(ESRC STEPS Centre, 2018-09-12)The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight how transformations to sustainable economies and societies are a major global challenge. This Working Paper offers a brief overview of different conceptual approaches to ... -
India’s Peri-Urban Frontier: Rural-Urban Transformations And Food Security
(International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), 2017-03-01)In India, peri-urban areas are too often neglected. Many people live in poverty and face increasing marginalisation and food insecurity. Yet peri-urban agriculture could be a major contributor to poverty alleviation and ... -
Making the Most of Peri-Urban Ecosystem Services
(Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA), 2018-02)Ecosystem services are vital for peri-urban and urbanising areas, and the people who live within them. In contexts of rapid urbanisation, these services are under threat from redevelopment, pollution and overconsumption, ... -
Why Peri-Urban Ecosystem Services Matter For Urban Policy
(Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA).Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA)., 2017-01-13)This briefing draws on recent research to show how people benefit from ecoystems in and around cities, and how these benefits can be integrated into urban planning and policy. There is a growing international consensus ... -
Grassroots Innovation Movements
(Routledge, 2016-08-15)Innovation is increasingly invoked by policy elites and business leaders as vital for tackling global challenges like sustainable development. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that networks of community groups, ...
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