Here is a recording of our latest webinar for the SocSES webinar series.
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Title:
Imagining the Impossible from Africa to the world: Co-producing transformation pathways towards safe and just futures for all
Abstract:
Close your eyes and imagine a future where we got everything right… Not the easiest task when we are surrounded by stories of war, climate change, famine, biodiversity loss and increasing inequity. This lecture explores the latest research in complex social-ecological futures thinking on visioning preferable futures for people and planet. It cuts across an intersection of anticipatory governance, imaginative capacity-building and decolonial futures thinking to describe narratives of transformative futures where all species on the planet thrive, linking to key intergovernmental agreements like the Global Biodiversity Framework and the SDGs. I will situate this research in the context of key concepts that I helped to develop like the Nature Futures Framework in IPBES, and ongoing work in the Transformation pathways workstream of the Earth Commission. Having imagined these futures, the next step is to explore the diverse pathways for how to get there. By unpacking a range of theories linked to transformations: from the X-curve to tipping points, I will showcase the latest research on transformation pathways drawing on examples around the world, including the city of Monterrey, Mexico, the De-Militarized Zone in Korea and tropical coral reefs. The central focus, however, will be on case studies from the African continent: the Barotse Cultural landscape in Zambia, the Mono Transboundary corridor in Benin-Togo, the Mzimba Kingdom in Northern Malawi and an continental-scope workshop held in Rwanda. Central to the lecture will be an exploration of speculative fiction and the arts in the context of participatory futuring for actioning transformative futures.
Bio:
Laura Pereira is a Professor in Sustainability Transformations and Futures at the Global Change Institute at Wits University and a researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. She is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, having been trained in ecology, law, zoology and human geography. She completed her DPhil in Geography at Oxford University in 2012, before working internationally at various institutions including the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, City University of London and Utrecht University. Laura was an ICSU Young Scientist and Future Earth fellow in 2012 and has been an Earth Commissioner since 2024, co-leading the workstream on Transformation Pathways. As well as being invited to give various high-level talks, such as for the World Economic Forum, WWF Fuller and Lovejoy symposia, Laura has sat on the IPBES Task Force on scenarios and models since 2019 and has contributed to intergovernmental assessment process in various roles since 2016. She is interested in the interface between indigenous and local knowledges and innovation, the role of futures techniques and visioning in enabling transformative change and developing innovative methods for knowledge co-production in Global South contexts. She is passionate about making stronger connections between the ocean community and work happening in terrestrial spaces, especially at the intersection between qualitative aspirational futuring and quantitative models, exemplified in her liaison role with the Earth Commission. Laura is the PI of various research projects funded by Biodiversa, the EU and was recently awarded an ERC Synergy as a co-PI of the AFRI-CAN project working on East African mountain social-ecological futures from deep pasts into far futures.
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This is the latest in a series of webinars. Past recordings can be found here.
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