Research Output – Debating Development Research

02/06/202602/06/2026

Conservation through Belief: Indigenous Spiritualities and Protected Areas

By Karen Heikkilä and Geethanjali Mariaselvam

It has long been acknowledged in biodiversity conservation and human development circles that local communities have a special role in safeguarding nature. Local religions and stewardship principles and practices have sustained the bond between people and their specific environments, amidst legal, capitalist and modernist pressures. This is supported by our case studies of communities living in protected areas in India and Malaysia that show how nature is interwoven with the society and culture of the communities.

15/05/202615/05/2026

Cooking Knowledge Together: Rethinking Collaboration in Academia

By Luca Sára Bródy

In an era of overlapping crises – from climate breakdown to deepening social inequalities – calls for more “impactful” research are everywhere. Universities promise solutions, funding bodies demand relevance, and scholars are expected to produce knowledge that can address urgent societal challenges. But what if the problem is not only what research produces, but how it is done – and why current ways of doing research so often fail to respond to these crises?

12/05/2026

Why Development Economics Should Claim Adaptation Finance

By Pınar Yardımcı

Adaptation to climate change has firmly entered the vocabulary of global development policy. From the Paris Agreement to the Sustainable Development Goals, international frameworks increasingly recognise that the most vulnerable countries need dedicated financial support to cope with a crisis they did not create. The rhetoric is unambiguous: adaptation is urgent, non-negotiable, and overdue.

17/03/2026

Rethinking “Development”: Why We Must Embrace Uncertainty

By Ian Scoones

When Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, stood on the Davos stage and proclaimed that the current moment is not one of transition but one of rupture, everyone seemed to agree. But what new ways of thinking are needed to navigate this momentous rupture when geopolitical realignment, radical responses to climate change and new economic relations must emerge? Into this heady mix comes the idea of ‘development’, a perspective that emerged in the post-colonial period of the liberal, rules-based order, which is now seemingly gone. How then should ‘development’ be reimagined for a new world?

24/02/2026

Unlocking the Benefits from Conservation? Indigenous Youth and Entrepreneurship in Drakensberg Park

By Jabulile Happyness Mzimela and Inocent Moyo

The Natal Colonial government initiated the establishment of protected areas in the Drakensberg in 1903, drawing on Eurocentric conservation models that sidelined Indigenous knowledge systems and governance structures. These approaches laid the foundation for the exclusion of Indigenous communities from decision-making over lands they have inhabited for generations. Such exclusions have had material consequences, contributing to marginalisation and the erosion of livelihoods.