Transdisciplinary research as transformative space making for sustainability: enhancing propoor transformative agency in periurban contexts contexts

In this paper we discuss how transdisciplinary development research (TDR), if approached in particular ways, can not only to produce new knowledge, but also foster deeper systemic changes in the knowledge system itself. We are concerned with systemic change that supports pro-poor sustainability transformations, and conceptualise the processes that contribute to this type of systemic change as 'transformative space making' (TSM). TDR as TSM can generate possibilities for the integration of diverse knowledges into decision making, whilst also creating new opportunities for subaltern knowledges to achieve greater influence, through enhancing the transformative agency of the poor. Thus, our conceptualization goes beyond the idea of TDR for the co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge, and recognizes the need to address structural injustices in knowledge systems. In TDR as TSM the development of strategies to reveal power relations and navigate the politics of structural injustices becomes as important as refining the principles for robust collaborative knowledge production. To demonstrate the operationalization of TDR as TSM, we draw insights from our long-term involvement in TDR case studies of emergent environmental and health challenges in peri-urban contexts in India. We identify mechanisms which build legitimacy of pro-poor knowledges, whilst simultaneously creating ‘readiness’ to take advantage of opportunities for interventions to support change in policy and practice at multiple scales. We highlight the politics of alliance building both within and beyond the research team; arguing that attention to alliances is central to understanding the role of TDR in creating possibilities for transformative change. Finally, we argue that development research funding and commissioning agencies should pay attention to the mechanisms of TSM, alongside more recognised aspects of the planning, monitoring and evaluation of TDR initiatives, in order to provide appropriate support for enhanced impact

Local environmentalism in peri-urban Ghaziabad: emergent ecological democracy?

This paper explores the potential of a range of peri-urban environmentalisms to come together in support of sustainable urbanisation. The present-day ‘urban,’ along with the dominant planning visions of urbanisation, lack in inclusivity, deliberative democracy, grassroots innovations, and bottom-up processes of knowledge generation. To sustainably transform this scenario, there is a need for the participation of various sections of citizens, who should be seen not just as subjects of planning, but as creators of a planning framework that emerges from both contestations and innovations in everyday living. Our earlier research on a peri-urban village situated between Delhi city and Ghaziabad town suggested that there is little support for continuation of agriculture in such areas, despite its strategic importance for sustainable urban development. Agriculture could contribute to the greening of urban spaces while enhancing the livelihoods of the poor, recycling urban waste and producing perishable food items for the urban populations. However, we found that present-day government schemes, as they unfold–often under the banner of sustainability–tend to exacerbate peri-urban inequalities. Having observed local citizen environmental action in Ghaziabad, we wanted to understand the potential role it could play in dealing with the environmental crises facing the district and region. During the course of our research we came across a distinctive peri-urban civil society activism, which cannot be viewed in binaries and reflects a pluralist spectrum that allows for alliance building. This environmentalism in Ghaziabad is distinct from the ‘environmentalism of the poor’ practiced by rural and forest dwelling groups; from the dominant elite urban ‘green development’ practices and discourses of ‘bourgeois environmentalism’; and from the urban politics of the poor. It reflects the possibility of creating bridges across sectional interests–rural and urban, red and green ideological streams– and across classes

Ecosystem Services and poverty alleviation in urbanising contexts

The impacts of urbanisation on ecosystems and the dependence of urban populations on ecosystem services are widely acknowledged but poorly understood. In the Global South, rural–urban linkages are increasingly shaped and transformed by the processes of peri-urbanisation, through which rural areas become increasingly enmeshed in a mosaic of rural and urban land use and juxtaposed rural and urban livelihoods and overlapping institutions. Peri-urban areas are frontiers of sustainability transformations, where deep and sustained engagement with communities of the poor, and enhanced understanding of dynamic ecosystem service-poverty alleviation interactions, can reveal possibilities to improve the health and livelihoods of both urban and peri-urban residents, whilst also supporting more effective, efficient and equitable management of environmental resources. We demonstrate this through an example of peri-urban food systems in the outskirts of Delhi, India

Local Environmentalism in Peri-Urban Spaces in India: Emergent Ecological Democracy?

This paper explores the potential of a range of peri-urban environmentalisms to come together in support of sustainable urbanisation. The present-day ‘urban,’ along with the dominant planning visions of urbanisation, lack in inclusivity, deliberative democracy, grassroots innovations, and bottom-up processes of knowledge generation. To sustainably transform this scenario, there is a need for the participation of various sections of citizens, who should be seen not just as subjects of planning, but as creators of a planning framework that emerges from both contestations and innovations in everyday living. Our earlier research on a peri-urban village situated between Delhi city and Ghaziabad town suggested that there is little support for continuation of agriculture in such areas, despite its strategic importance for sustainable urban development. Agriculture could contribute to the greening of urban spaces while enhancing the livelihoods of the poor, recycling urban waste and producing perishable food items for the urban populations. However, we found that present-day government schemes, as they unfold–often under the banner of sustainability–tend to exacerbate peri-urban inequalities. Having observed local citizen environmental action in Ghaziabad, we wanted to understand the potential role it could play in dealing with the environmental crises facing the district and region. During the course of our research we came across a distinctive peri-urban civil society activism, which cannot be viewed in binaries and reflects a pluralist spectrum that allows for alliance building. This environmentalism in Ghaziabad is distinct from the ‘environmentalism of the poor’ practiced by rural and forest dwelling groups; from the dominant elite urban ‘green development’ practices and discourses of ‘bourgeois environmentalism’; and from the urban politics of the poor. It reflects the possibility of creating bridges across sectional interests–rural and urban, red and green ideological streams– and across classes.ESRCEcosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) Programm

Peri-urbanism in globalizing India: a study of pollution, health and community awareness

This paper examines the intersection between environmental pollution and people's acknowledgements of, and responses to, health issues in Karhera, a former agricultural village situated between the rapidly expanding cities of New Delhi (India's capital) and Ghaziabad (an industrial district in Uttar Pradesh). A relational place-based view is integrated with an interpretive approach, highlighting the significance of place, people's emic experiences, and the creation of meaning through social interactions. Research included surveying 1788 households, in-depth interviews, participatory mapping exercises, and a review of media articles on environment, pollution, and health. Karhera experiences both domestic pollution, through the use of domestic waste water, or gandapani, for vegetable irrigation, and industrial pollution through factories' emissions into both the air and water. The paper shows that there is no uniform articulation of any environment/health threats associated with gandapani. Some people take preventative actions to avoid exposure while others do not acknowledge health implications. By contrast, industrial pollution is widely noted and frequently commented upon, but little collective action addresses this. The paper explores how the characteristics of Karhera, its heterogeneous population, diverse forms of environmental pollution, and broader governance processes, limit the potential for citizen action against pollution

Structured Collaboration Across a Transformative Knowledge Network-Learning Across Disciplines, Cultures and Contexts?

Realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require transformative changes at micro, meso and macro levels and across diverse geographies. Collaborative, transdisciplinary research has a role to play in documenting, understanding and contributing to such transformations. Previous work has investigated the role of this research in Europe and North America, however the dynamics of transdisciplinary research on ‘transformations to sustainability’ in other parts of the world are less well-understood. This paper reports on an international project that involved transdisciplinary research in six different hubs across the globe and was strategically designed to enable mutual learning and exchange. It draws on surveys, reports and research outputs to analyse the processes of transdisciplinary collaboration for sustainability that took place between 2015-2019. The paper illustrates how the project was structured in order to enable learning across disciplines, cultures and contexts, and describes how it also provided for the negotiation of epistemological frameworks and different normative commitments between members across the network. To this end, it discusses lessons regarding the use of theoretical and methodological anchors, multi-loop learning and evaluating emergent change (including the difficulties encountered). It offers insights for the design and implementation of future international transdisciplinary collaborations that address locally-specific sustainability challenges within the universal framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Emerging insights and lessons for the future

This concluding chapter summarises the key findings of the ‘Pathways’ transformative knowledge network (TKN), its contributions to the ‘sustainability transformations’ literature and the lessons and implications for internationally networked, transdisciplinary research projects in the future. It revisits the theoretical anchors and methodological anchors introduced in Chapters 2–4, and draws on insights from the TKN from individual hubs in each of these areas, pointing to experiences both during the project and after its formal conclusion. It discusses the approaches used to foster cross-learning and evaluation in the project, and describes the single-, double- and triple-loop learning that this enabled. The chapter provides a deeper understanding of ‘transformative pathways to sustainability’ and the role that science and research can play in fostering them, not only through formal research outputs but also the tacit and experiential knowledge and the relationships that they can foster. The chapter closes by offering lessons and recommendations for researchers, funders, policy-makers, managers and practitioners with an interest in enhancing the contribution of social science and transdisciplinary research to the transformative agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.Fil: Ely, Adrian. University of Sussex; Reino UnidoFil: Marin, Anabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martin. Escuela de Economia y Negocios. Centro de Investigaciones Para la Transformacion.; ArgentinaFil: Marshall, Fiona. University of Sussex; Reino UnidoFil: Apgar, Marina. No especifíca;Fil: Eakin, Hallie. Arizona State University; Estados UnidosFil: Pereira, Laura. No especifíca;Fil: Charli Joseph, Lakshmi. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Siquieros Garcia, Mario. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Yang, Lichao. No especifíca;Fil: Chengo, Victoria. No especifíca;Fil: Abrol, Dinesh. No especifíca;Fil: Kushwaha, Pravin. No especifíca;Fil: Hackett, Edward. No especifíca;Fil: Navarrete, David Manuel. No especifíca;Fil: Mehrotra, Ritu Priya. No especifíca;Fil: Atela, Joanes. No especifíca;Fil: Mbeva, Kennedy. No especifíca;Fil: Onyango, Joel. No especifíca;Fil: Olsson, Per. No especifíca

Evidence-based national vaccine policy

India has over a century old tradition of development and production of vaccines. The Government rightly adopted self-sufficiency in vaccine production and self-reliance in vaccine technology as its policy objectives in 1986. However, in the absence of a full-fledged vaccine policy, there have been concerns related to demand and supply, manufacture vs. import, role of public and private sectors, choice of vaccines, new and combination vaccines, universal vs. selective vaccination, routine immunization vs. special drives, cost-benefit aspects, regulatory issues, logistics etc. The need for a comprehensive and evidence based vaccine policy that enables informed decisions on all these aspects from the public health point of view brought together doctors, scientists, policy analysts, lawyers and civil society representatives to formulate this policy paper for the consideration of the Government. This paper evolved out of the first ever ICMR-NISTADS national brainstorming workshop on vaccine policy held during 4-5 June, 2009 in New Delhi, and subsequent discussions over email for several weeks, before being adopted unanimously in the present form