Activities and Events
We run a regular seminar programme, featuring a combination of external and internal speakers, along with activities and events, sometimes partnered with external organisations.
Get in touch if you would like to suggest a collaboration.
2026
Speaker: Professor Christian Rutz
Full details TBC
Speaker: Dr Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood
Affiliation: School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews
Title: Decolonising scholarship: addressing epistemic marginalisation of Global South scholars
Abstract: Discussion of the paper Ife led on African scholarship and on engaging with policy – critically examining North-South relationships and decolonising scholarship. How do we recognise and respect different sources of scholarship?
Okafor-Yarwood, I., Kadagi, N.I., Beseng, M., Ojewale, O., Onuoha, F., Clement, S.N., Shah, N. and Ukeje, C., 2025. Comment to: Rethinking maritime security from the bottom up: Four principles to broaden perspectives and centre humans and ecosystems. npj Ocean Sustainability, 4(1), p.65.Speaker: Dr Kerry Waylen
Affiliation: James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen
Title: Problem-shifting in the face of complexity? A reflection from watery research in Scotland
Abstract: This is not a standard talk based on a recent research study. Instead, it is an autobiographical meander, prompted by a recently being hosted by a project working on ‘problem-shifting’ (a term I will explain). I look back on some past research, and select 4 individual projects that relate to freshwater and catchment governance, that all share a normative aim of tackling sustainability challenges. What do evolving funder interests, research questions and findings tell us about progress in tackling the problems that underlie complex sustainability challenges?
Email Tim Stojanovic if you would like to meet with KerrySpeaker: Professor Richard Buggs
Affiliation: Royal Kew Botanic Gardens
Title: Genomics for future trees
Location: In person, Dyers Brae Room, or email [email protected] for the Teams link.
Time: 1pm-2pm
This is a joint seminar with the School of Biology CBD research group.
Email Mike Ritchie to organise a one to one talk with Richard after the seminar.
Speakers: Chau Cong Anh Nguyen and Fritha West
Title: Navigating the emotional geography of environmental change through participants’ lived experiences
Summary: A collaborative session from 2 ECRs (Cat and Fritha) aiming to present materials from current PhD Research (Part 1) and encourage open discussion on lived experience and emotional dimensions of environmental change (Part 2).
Lead by: Professor Rehema White
Summary: Discussion of policy contributions, creative enterprise, paper analysis, compassionate pedagogy and away day.
We critically examined policy related submissions by Learning for Sustainability Scotland for the climate change plan consultation.
We discussed how we might prepare policy submissions from our own research.
2025
Speaker: Dr Jasmin Packer
Affiliation: University of Adelaide, Australia
Speaker: Dr Mostafa Gamal
Affiliation: Queen Margaret University
Title: The anthropo-not-seen: colonialism and the ‘geographies of the present’
Abstract: What I propose to talk about are the ways in which the concept of the Anthropocene which occupies a privileged analytical/theoretical position in discourses of sustainability often hides and sets aside colonial histories that still shape the “geographies of the present”.
In this provocation, I wish to foreground the link between ecology and coloniality. I will engage with the concept of the Anthropo-not-seen (de la Cadena, 2019) in order to attend to “the material forms…ruins of the empire take when we turn to shattered peoples and polluted places” (Stoler, 2013, p.13). Central to this is the argument that the Anthropocene sets aside the ways in which ecological degradation is lived differentially both in time and space. I explore this with reference to a disused mine and 2 deserted settlements in the south east of Morocco. I argue that to understand the “geographies of the present” , as a manifestation of how landscape is produced, destroyed and what is “created by its destruction” , we need to engage with the imperial anthropos’s unseen “constitutive will to destruction”.
Speaker: Mandy Haggith
Event type: Book reading and poetry
Event title: The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them
Location: The Stewart Room
Time: 12-1:30pm
- The Independent’s non-fiction book of the month for July
- Book of the Day, The Guardian, 23rd July
- The Scotsman, first of their list of ten books about the outdoors to read this summer
- Books from Scotland, a Q&A with Mandy Haggith about the book
- A review in Caught by the River, written by Kirsteen Bell
Post-event update:
Mandy harvested ideas and words from the discussion in November and created a ‘poemish’ with these.
Poemish Version of Elm Words from St Andrews, Thursday 6 November 2025
Mandy Haggith ([email protected])
The following is a poemish re-ordering of words gathered at a seminar at St Andrews University. Participants wrote words on paper leaves and samaras in response to three prompts – first impressions of elms, concerns and hopes. The three pieces use all and only the words written on the leaves, reorganised to form something akin to a poem. This is a poetic inquiry method that I have written about here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14688417.2021.1982400
Elm
Embla, the first woman, a unique figure,
can’t remember the elm decline
or a 5000 year multiple association
with death, life, time and home.
Reminiscence, one big lifter,
seeing paintings of
unexpected childhood epiphytes,
festooned elm.
Death, fallen more than ever,
declines, hopefully.
Irreversibility
Anger at humans for causing climate change,
guilt and frustration at policy makers
refusing to tackle it before 2030.
College disconnected,
conflict over Belem.
Ecological concern:
deer, charismatic species,
often prioritised over trees,
so elmwood is depleted now.
Tree grief:
will my favourite tree
collapse, fall over, dead?
It’s ♥ breaking.
Reciprocity
Fife to Belem,
children are working together there
connecting community,
future generations suckering action
– evolution, ingenuity, fecundity –
green conversations,
creative community arts networks.
Many elms witnessed a new soothing way:
primary school enthusiasm,
a swish, still pilgrim,
a spring opportunity.
Children save elms!Speaker: Dr Tim Stojanovic
Affiliation: School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews
Title: Applying Paul Ricoeur’s Narrative Theory: Trends in Environmental Sustainability of UK Seas 1992-2022
Speaker: Dr Rehema White
Affiliation: School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews
Title: Critical conversations on education for sustainable development
Our recent book is now open access.
A chance to gather and decide on priorities for the year ahead.
Speaker: Dr Sanna Elina Ala-Mantila
Affiliation: University of Helsinki
Title: Using carbon footprints – challenges of scale and accuracy
Speaker: Dr Sanna Elina Ala-Mantila
Affiliation: University of Helsinki
Title: Sustainable urban planning
Ben Ong and Rehema White on Art and Sustainability
Sustainability in the Curriculum workshop
Facilitated discussion of ongoing projects and ideas
