The Sustainable Futures in Africa (SFA) Network project has since 2016 designed and piloted a range of activities that: (1) address the need for innovative methodologies that cut across the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities; (2) translate existing ODA-focused projects into opportunities for new networks of trust and commitment, and new lines of inquiry; (3) shape new opportunities for impact that address locally-articulated socio-ecological problems and challenges; and (4) underpinning all of this, generate research that critically acknowledges and works with all manner of academic, political, economic, and cultural distinctions between the ‘global north’ and the ‘global south’.   

Mia Perry from the School of Education at the University is the CR&DALL Co-I

The PI from Glasgow is Prof. Deborah Dixon (Geographical and Earth Sciences). Other Co-Is are Dr. Daniel Koehn (Geographical and Earth Sciences); Dr. Neil Burnside (Engineering); Dr. Brian Barrett (Geographical and Earth Sciences); Prof. Adrian Boyce (SUERC). There are a number of other external and internal collaborators. In addition to the core members noted above, Glasgow collaborators include: John Briggs, Joanne Sharp and Emma Laurie, Human Geography; Susan Waldron, critical zone management; Jaime Toney, environmental geochemistry; Marian Scott, environmental statistics; Richard Williams, geomatics; Margaret Smith, fine arts; Ian Watson, engineering. Collaborators in Botswana: MmaB Modise and Rebecca Lekoko, education, University of Botswana; Olekai Thakadu, environmental communication, University of Botswana. Collaborators in Malawi: Boyson Moyo, soil science, Bunda College of Agriculture; Deepa Pullanikkatil, environmental management consultant, LEAD and ABUNDANCE; Elson Kambalu, artist and community leader. Collaborators in Ethiopia: Dr Elias Lewi, tectonics and geothermals, Addis Ababa University; Mauricio Fernandes, Planet Earth Institute; Collaborators in Uganda: Kevin Aanyu and Andreas Schuman, geology and petroleum studies, Makerere University; Twine Bananuka and Joseph Watuleke, education, Makerere University.

This project has now continued with further funding sourced from the Scottish Funding Council and more details are found at this link.

The purpose of this project is to scope the potential of phytostabilisation – planting designed to keep materials in place - as an environmentally sensitive, inclusive and low-cost strategy that will allow for an enhanced social resilience in the face of food insecurity and economic precariousness (keeping roads working) while at the same time enhancing the ecological resilience of much needed arable lands (designing roadsides that mediate erosion and can potentially even become productive in their own right) and the long-term social resilience of communities that are precariously connected via these roads.

This foundation-building project brings together a range of expertise to produce a cohesive inter-disciplinary strategy for enhancing a ‘slow’, socio-ecological resilience by engaging social arts and public pedagogies with environmental sciences to help bridge the gap between immediate needs and sustainable futures. This dynamic involves an engagement with: 1. Public and community based pedagogies to understand and educate those involved in the possibilities, requirements, and implications; 2. The arts to engage social imaginations of alternative futures, civic belonging, and community cohesion; 3. Geochemistry, engineering, and agronomy to ensure the appropriate and effective design of techniques and selection of organisms; 4. Geopolitics and environmental governance as a means of envisioning the broad social, political and cross-border contexts within which these can be proffered; and 5. Community, cross-cultural, and multimodal facilitation.  

PI and Co-Pis: Mia Perry and Deborah Dixon (School of Geographical and Earth Sciences)

Start and End Date: Oct 2016 – Jan 2017

Funder and funding amount: ESRC (Impact Acceleration Account); £13,000