The interrelated crises associated with Global Environmental Change (GEC) – including biodiversity loss, climate change and the depletion of soils and waters – are mounting threats to both human and nonhuman life. While the natural sciences provide solid evidence of the magnitude of those threats, the social and cultural dimensions of GEC have received much less attention, although the importance of diverse forms of knowledge, imaginaries and practices in explaining and addressing these threats are increasingly acknowledged.
The research initiative ‘Sharing a Planet in Peril’ conjoins the University of Cologne’s outstanding expertise in Global South Studies and Environmental Humanities to tackle the burning environmental questions of our time. To this end we are building an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers, including scholars and affected communities from the Global South, in order to examine how the inequitable impacts of GEC are being experienced, narrativized, and responded to within different locations, discourses and media around the world. Informed by decolonial and multispecies methodologies and political ecology perspectives, this initiative seeks to uncover in particular the potential of a range of ideas and activities related to ‘sharing’ to facilitate more equitable, ecological and convivial lifeways.
Research Initiative 2023: Sharing a Planet In Peril
More CRC News
CRC Future Rural Africa Undergoes DFG Evaluation for Possible Third Funding Phase
17. July 2025
As the current, second funding phase of the Collaborative Research Centre TRR Future Rural Africa (2022-2025) is set to end in December of this year, ...
Read More »
Clemens Greiner Appointed Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape
4. July 2025
Clemens Greiner, researcher in Project C02 Energy Futures, Academic Coordinator of the Global South Studies Center (GSSC) and adjunct Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the ...
Read More »
Exploring Decolonial Heritage: A Visit to the Global Heritage Lab
3. July 2025
In June, a group of Future Rural Africa researchers visited the Global Heritage Lab in Bonn. The Global Heritage Lab is a research hub and ...
Read More »
Ruth Hall Appointed Director of PLAAS
27. June 2025
Ruth Hall, Professor at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa, has been appointed Director of the Institute for Poverty, Land and ...
Read More »
Planning the Future: Comparing Green Hydrogen Strategies in Chile, Namibia, and South Africa
26. June 2025
In their publication, Benedikt Walker and Britta Klagge (Project C02 Energy Futures) alongside Ravn Haid (University of Bonn) examine how spatial planning influences the development ...
Read More »