Transformation as Praxis: Exploring Socially Just and Transdisciplinary Pathways to Sustainability in Marginal Environments (TAPESTRY)

The project has developed a novel approach to exploring transformation, conceptualising it as bottom-up ‘praxis.’ We have studied how potentially transformative changes have played out in three marginal environments in India, namely the deltaic Sundarbans, dryland Kutch, and the megacity of Mumbai. The RCN-funded part of the project has concentrated mainly on the Sundarbans and Mumbai. In the Sundarbans, we have mapped out, using participatory methodologies such as photovoice, how local people experience and respond to climate change-related uncertainties. Through the formation of hybrid alliances of knowledge co-production between local communities, researchers, NGOs, and government representatives, we have explored alternative ways of securing livelihoods and more climate-resilient food production, as well as more broadly seeking to strengthen people’s health, agency, and ability to shape their own livelihoods. In Mumbai, our work has first and foremost focused on the Koli fishing community and how fishers can become more resilient and withstand the effects of climate change and pollution, as well as the pressures from developers and negative impacts from large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Coastal Road. Here too we concentrated on how forging alliances between the Kolis, NGOs such as Bombay61, researchers, and activists could contribute to empowering the fishing communities to shape their own futures through bottom-up planning initiatives and mobilising against development projects that affect them negatively. A key element of these activities was drawing on communities’ own local knowledge of coastal ecologies, mangroves, and urban river systems. The Tapestry research team consist of: Prof. L. Mehta, Institute of Development Studies, UK, Prof. D. Parthasarathy, Indian Institute of Technology, India, Dr. S. Movik, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Prof Nobu Ohte, Kyoto University, Japan

Through the creation of hybrid alliances, we succeeded in rolling out initiatives across the patches that both gave agency to local people and also facilitated and contributed to bottom-up processes of transformation. We challenged received wisdom regarding techno-centric development projects and highlighted the need to combine plural knowledge and build hybrid alliances for achieving socially just transformation. Local communities gained the confidence to speak in front of authorities about their local ecological knowledges and this has also enhanced their voice and agency and confidence in their livelihood options. In the Sundarbans, transboundary dialogues were well received by a range of stakeholders and we generated demand for future cooperation on climate change and loss and damage. In Mumbai, local agency and capacity were enhanced through the deliberative process of building net filters. The exhibitions, visual research, master plan surveys, stakeholder interviews, and digging into indigenous knowledge helped develop alternative framings and technical interventions for addressing livelihood issues and pollution problems. The visual methods and creative work lifted the hidden voices (of women, youth and children who are often left out) and marginalised practices to the forefront of the transformative imaginaries. Overall, the project functioned as a catalyst for collaboration and creativity across institutional and disciplinary boundaries, as well as amplifying the voices of the marginalised An important element of the project was creating spaces for bringing together diverse actors that are often not interacting, to foster greater understanding and communication about what can comprise transformative change. The regular Roundtables that were organised by the project resulted in a greater awareness among those involved – bureaucrats, academics, civil society representatives, local community representatives – of the diverse experiences and understandings of climate change-related uncertainty and what is required to bring about transformative change, and also created a greater sensitivity towards different disciplinary perspectives.

The objective of TAPESTRY is to examine how transformation may arise from below in marginal environments with high levels of uncertainty. Climate change uncertainties, especially at the local level, constitute one of the main challenges to the sustainability of societies and ecosystems, calling for systemic transformative changes. While uncertainty can exacerbate anxieties about the future, it can also provide an opportunity to create transformation and deep structural change. TAPESTRY focuses on three patches of transformation in India and Bangladesh - vulnerable coastal areas of Mumbai, the Sundarbans and Kutch - where hybrid alliances and innovative practices are reimagining sustainable development and inspiring societal transformation. TAPESTRY is organised in a transnational and transdisciplinary consortium across the UK, India, Bangladesh, Norway and Japan. Its conceptual innovation lies in studying transformation as praxis, by putting bottom-up change and the agency of marginalised people at the centre and by analysing how co-produced transformations can be scaled up and out. The project is particularly relevant to theme 1 and 3 of the call, i.e. governance, wellbeing, quality of life, identity and values in relation to transformations to sustainability. All these lie at the heart of the welfare and development challenges faced by India (a lower middle income country) and Bangladesh (least developed country). The project's outcomes and impact will inform processes to improve the quality of life of marginalised people affected by climate change related uncertainties, build action and capacity amongst all partners whilst generating evidence of how bottom-up transformation can take place in marginal environments