Environment and Politics: Focusing on some of the most pressing contemporary challenges — including climate change, ecological resilience, resource politics, environmental justice, and sustainable consumption — research in this cluster focuses on the ways in which institutions, practices, and materials shape an environmental politics which addresses these challenges. Recognising the complex entanglements that shape the environmental issues of the Anthropocene, this cluster works to inform geographical thinking that has the politics of environmental justice and sustainability at its heart.

• Foster meaningful long-term relationships with a diverse range of project partners
• Create genuinely co-produced knowledge by working with project partners to agree upon mutual impact objectives at the design stage
• Develop media and communications strategies that extend the reach of our impact-related activities

Sounding Coastal Change is a research project in partnership with the National Trust that focuses on social and environmental change in North Norfolk. Using sound, music, and different kinds of listening, the project explores the ways in which the coast is changing and how people's lives are changing with it. The project draws together a number of diverse groups including residents, school children and young people, local interest and community groups, institutional stakeholders and their representatives, as well as visitors to the area. The project explores the ways in which the coast is changing and how this change is perceived and enacted by humans. You can find out more information about the project as well as listening to the sounds created in collaboration with the project’s partners here.

In the UK there are low numbers of women in and entering the Information Technology (IT) sector. In partnership with NASSCOM — the National Association of Software and Service Companies — this project has worked to address the UK’s low numbers by examining how India attracts and maintains a high representation of women in its IT sector. Identifying the gendered specificities of each labour market, this project has worked to shape professional practice in India, attempted to understand barriers to participation in the UK context, and in doing so influenced national and international policy. More information on the project as well as publications, reports, and media are available here.

Peace education can play a critical role in engendering the knowledge, values, skills and attitudes required to prevent and reduce conflicts such as those that have occurred in several African countries. So far, however, this has had limited effects. Part of the problem lies in the fact that pedagogies and curricula which underpin peace education are grounded in Eurocentric and liberal values, principles, and methods. By bringing together academics, NGOs, and disadvantaged communities, this AHRC-funded project works to understand and embed local community’s knowledges and values (including those central to peace) in teaching materials that support those most affected by conflict. Starting with work in Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, you can follow the latest from the project here.