Research Initiative 2023: Sharing a Planet In Peril

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.


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Cover Image with the Logo of Future Rural Africa and the DKG 2023

The Promises and Perils of Infrastructure – Envisioning Desirable Futures in the Global South: Future Rural Africa at DKG ’23

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Publication: Hope and Path Development in ‘Left-Behind’ Places – a Southern Perspective

By Gideon Tups, Enock Sackala and Peter Dannenberg, Project C01 Future in Chains. AbstractDespite universalising ambition, the literature on ‘left-behind’ places is dominated by viral,
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Can Conservation and Agriculture Work together for Inclusive Regional Development in the Zambezi Region?

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Publication: Bursting Pipes and Broken Dreams – On Ruination and Reappropriation of Large-Scale Water Infrastructure in Baringo County, Kenya

By David Greven, Project C02 “Energy Futures” Abstract In the course of Kenya’s Vision 2030 development plan, the Kenyan Northern Rift Valley recently became the
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Publication: Suspending Ruination – Preserving the Ambiguous Potentials of a Kenyan Flower Farm

By Anna Lisa Ramella, Mario Schmidt (Poject C06 “Testing Futures”) and Megan A. Styles (University of Illinois Springfield) Abstract This article focuses on the financial
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