Our research seeks to creatively and critically explore possibilities and practices towards healthy and just water and society relations across rivers, lagoons, coastal regions and oceans. We are interested in researching efforts to protect, govern and re-claim waters taking as analytical entry infrastructure, knowledges and policy practices.
Our work is rooted in social science scholarship, especially in human geography, political ecology, feminist Science and Technology Studies and governance research. We employ largely qualitative methodologies although we also experiment with multimodal methods to better understand human and more-than-human relations.
Reflecting about the role researcher(ers) and science(s) in shaping (our) understandings of social and ecological relations is key in our work. Key is also cultivating a critical perspective that remains attentive to uneven power relations and inequalities, while still supporting constructive thinking and interventions.
We like to work collaboratively within and beyond academia. This include being involved in larger inter- and transdisciplinary research projects, developing spaces, frameworks and formats for supporting collaborations and cultivating, on a day-to-day basis, dialogue between the social sciences and other disciplines and publics.
Our work develops in close cooperation with the Marine Governance Group as together we seek to strengthen social science perspectives at HIFMB and, more broadly, in marine worlds. With the Marine Governance Group we share a well-equipped qualitative research laboratory and foremost the recognition that social science research is fundamental to protect oceans and their function for humans and the environment.
Our Team for Marine Policy and Management
Team lead
Rossella Alba
Want to become part of the team?
Two PhD positions will be advertised shortly. Stay tuned!