Specialist short course

Ian Scoones is co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex and principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project, PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Lessons From the Margins).

He works on agrarian and environmental change, particularly in Africa. He has a particular interest in the connections between science, policy and the politics of sustainability. His long-term research on land, agricultural and livelihoods in Zimbabwe is covered in his regular blog, Zimbabweland. He is a member of the editorial collective of the Journal of Peasant Studies and on the editorial board of Ecology and Society.

Dr Amber Huff is a Research Fellow in the Resource Politics and Environmental Change Research Cluster and coordinator of the Centre for Future Natures.

Overall, her research asks questions about value, ethics, representation and justice in a changed and changing world. Her work explores evolving ecologies of crisis, commons and enclosures and engages with the global politics of environmental change and its linkages with new technologies and techniques of conservation and environmental management, natural resource conflicts and people’s struggles for justice and efforts to lead satisfying lives and build better futures. She has conducted research Madagascar, Kenya, South Africa, the Southern United States and the United Kingdom.

Early career researchers, PhD researchers and practitioners who work in fields relevant to sustainability and international development.

The course is in six parts, with video lectures and reading lists in each part. Some parts also include suggested exercises to help you think about particular challenges.

You can complete the course at your own pace.

Course structure:

• Introduction to the Pathways Approach
• Uncertainty and incomplete knowledge
• Technology, innovation and sustainability
• Resource politics
• Understanding policy processes
• Methods and methodologies

At the end of the course, you will have gained:

• An appreciation of the need to explore alternative pathways to sustainability, and how to understand what pathways are
• Knowledge of concrete examples of competing interests and views in a variety of domains of sustainability
• Understanding of the importance of uncertainty and incomplete knowledge
• Understanding of the importance of methods.