Tobias Zumbraegel completed a PhD with a focus on politics and sustainability in Qatar, Saudi and Kuwait, which was revised / expanded and published as "Political Power and Environmental Sustainability in Gulf Monarchies" in 2022 with Palgrave. The basis of the study is existing literature and 53 interviews. Given it is a doctoral dissertation at its basis, a lot of the text is basic context of the GCC (not written for an expert audience or someone already familiar with the region). The chapters are useful in tracking change, but also quite descriptive of history, such as organizations establishment and change over time. The book does develop some interesting political-economic-power layers to sustainability in the GCC. One downside is a heavily reliance on a few key sources, but this is a useful summary for someone new to the topic and/or region. A couple of notes:

"… the high number of various actors and agencies results in a loss of efficiency that is also a major explanation for countries' poor records on environmental policymaking, which became apparent in the second part of this chapter. Typically, state-owned or semi state-owned bodies do not cooperate with each other or exchange information. This has even created 'turf wars' in some instances, as the Saudi case shows. In addition to the lack of reporting, professionalism and coordination, ill-defined competencies, overlapping responsibilities and insufficient supervision have exacerbated the problem." (p. 128)

"Ultimately, the field of environmental sustainability offers insights on the highly porous and complex boundaries between what is private, public or state owned. This allows for completely new yet often highly under-researched forms of public–private assemblages that resemble neopatrimonial networks. It makes a case for how the economic context and various actors often operate as a prolonged 'arm of the state'." (p. 168) 

New OPEN ACCESS book

Cochrane, L. and Cafer, A. (2018) Does Diversification Enhance Community Resilience? A Critical Perspective. Resilience. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2017.1406849

Abstract: Resilience has become a key component of how practitioners and scholars conceptualize sustainable communities. Given sustainability's focal role in shaping international development funding, policies and programming it is imperative that we critically engage with the concepts embedded within the resilience discourse – including prescriptions for increased diversity. This article contributes to a discourse that questions this common recommendation for diversification, particularly as it relates to agricultural livelihoods and smallholder production. We provide examples from Ethiopia that demonstrate the two limitations of diversification. The first, that some forms of diversification are, in fact, maladaptive and reduce resilience. The second, that diversification is not always equal – some forms of diversification are only accessible to the most vulnerable. As the 2030 Agenda moves ahead in shaping what is considered important, and therefore funded and measured, we argue that much more context-specific nuance is required within the resilience discourse.

From journal here. On this site in full here.

Location: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Start Date: September 2017

Salary: $12,000/year stipend (with possibility of further scholarship opportunities)

THE PROJECT

Sustainable Development cannot be achieved through one sector alone, yet education in particular is seen as a vehicle to move us towards this goal. While there is a plethora of literature that examines the role of formal education for sustainable development (ESD), to date there has been very little research that examines the potential role for non-formal and informal education. The Arts (i.e. visual arts, performance arts, and literature) may be one form of informal ESD that can have a significant influence on the development of cultural norms and therefore play a critical role in creating the cultural changes needed to achieve a sustainable future. However, preliminary investigations to date have found that there are very few scholarly works associated with the topic. This dearth of found materials may be a result of poor bibliographic indexing by scholarly databases, because the materials are located outside of conventional scholarly mediums (e.g. websites, playbills, exhibition catalogues, and other grey literature), or simply because there are few written materials on this subject. The purpose of this research is to identify scholars, artists and practitioners working in the area where the Arts, ESD and sustainability intersect in order to document their conceptualizations of the role the Arts could/should play in achieving a sustainable future; to thoroughly examining the extent to which both the scholarly and grey literature addresses sustainability and the Arts. Further, it has been recognized that scholars, social innovators and artists are often isolated from each other, because of limited opportunities for knowledge exchange and dialogue, and a lack of common methods for knowledge mobilization and translation. As such, this research aims to develop and encourage collaborative partnerships and intellectual exchange among artists and scholars engaged in the intersection of the Arts, ESD, and sustainability.

RESPONSIBILITIES

This position will help with Phase 1 of this research which aims to identify scholars, artists and practitioners working in areas where the Arts, ESD and sustainability intersect; better understand how those working in this area conceptualize the role the Arts could/should play in achieving a sustainable future. Responsibilities will include identifying potential participants for the study; conducting in-depth interviews with participants; data entry and management; contributing to data analyses; conducting background research and report writing; and other clerical organizational duties as required. It is expected that students will undertake this work as part of their Masters thesis at Dalhousie University (with the suggestion of enrolling in the Master of Environmental Studies program in the School for Resource and Environmental Studies).

Interested individuals are asked to submit their application including a cover letter, curriculum vitae and the names of two references, to Dr. Tarah Wright.