Research

We are currently faced with the global challenge of tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and inequitable economic growth while striving to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recent observations and projections of rapid and uncertain social and environmental change threaten to undermine the livelihoods of marginal smallholders in the rural global south. This will reduce the resilience and increase the vulnerability of those most dependent on natural resources to sustain their living, and who have contributed least to the global problems impacting them.

Whilst smallholders employ a range of actions that have evolved over time and which help them overcome the multiple challenges they face, rapid social and environmental change threatens to breach the ability of many to cope. The ability of smallholders to adapt to rapid change is embedded within their ability to act collectively. My research studies the impact of rapid social and environmental change on the livelihoods of smallholders in the global south, and how collective action among smallholders can be supported to sustain their livelihoods.

Drawing on insights from a broad range of social theories and methods, my research aims to aid decision and policy makers in designing integrated, flexible, and inclusive institutional arrangements for social, environmental and economically sustainable outcomes. In order to achieve this, my research aims to provide critical insights into the institutional structures and processes operating at multiple levels of governance that shape the livelihoods of marginalised people, within which policy responses for sustainable development are embedded. Such insights will support research users, from the international to the household level, in sustainable decision-making and planning in the face of rapid environmental change.