The world is turned upside down, the streets are empty. Behind this seeming tranquillity, there is a storm raging through our values and structures. This gives us the space to think about a complete ‘reset’. How can we restructure existing dysfunctional systems? In this new series, we will showcase the perspectives of a variety of thought leaders who will reflect on this present-day situation. Through the lens of their own area of expertise and with an emphasis on creativity. The corona crisis is, without a doubt, a crisis that is leaving behind a trail of victims. But which transformations will we be left within the aftermath?
Joyeeta Gupta
Joyeeta Gupta is full professor of environment and development in the global south at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam and IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft. She is also the Faculty Professor on Sustainability and she leads the programme group on Governance and Inclusive Development.
Next to this she is co-chair of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6 , which calls on decision makers to take immediate action to address pressing environmental issues to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals as well as other Internationally Agreed Environment Goals, such as the Paris Agreement.
Melissa Leach
Melissa Leach is Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex. She co-founded and co-directed the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre. As a social anthropologist she has carried out long-term ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa while engaging with scientific, policy and public discourses and debates around health, sustainability and development. She has led numerous interdisciplinary, policy-engaged research programmes in Africa and beyond. Amongst external roles, she was vice-chair of the Science Committee of Future Earth 2012 – 2017, lead author of the 2016 World Social Science Report on Challenging Inequalities and the UN Women’s World Survey on the Role of Women in Economic Development 2014, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). She was the lead social scientist in the UK/WHO responses to the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak and co-led the award-winning Ebola Response Anthropology Platform. She is now working on COVID-19 as co-lead of the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform and the Wellcome Trust-funded Pandemic Preparedness Project. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2017 was awarded a CBE for Services to Social Science.
Fragment from Tegenlicht episode of Sunday May 10, 2020: ‘Duurzaam nu of nooit’
