The partnership
A research network for global environmental humanities
ReSuRGEH assembles researchers, conservation organisations, museums and policy groups in genuine collaboration on anthropogenic climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Universities, governments and NGOs have committed to the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. Progress is hampered by a failure to recognise how deeply sustainability science is embedded in technical, managerial and financially driven decision-making. Robust, evidence-based international projects are not addressing the SDGs at the pace or scale that timely transformation requires. That casts real doubt on the milestones of 2030, 2040 and 2050.
ReSuRGEH works on the gap those projects leave: the cultural, material and historical context that determines whether a sustainability intervention lands. Our network integrates transdisciplinary methods of global environmental humanities — a comparative approach combining the sciences, social sciences and critical humanities — to research the environmental impact of planetary histories of extractive capitalism, human exceptionalism, colonialism, gender and race.
To borrow the question of Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey, we must ask in every implementation of the SDGs: sustainability of what, and development for whom?
No other network brings together this combination of international scholars, conservation organisations, museums, policy advisors, creative practitioners and community partners around the link between the history of colonialism and the SDGs. For the first time in Canada, transdisciplinary environmental humanities researchers are organised around solving the social problems the SDGs name.
What we do
Five objectives
The concrete programme that carries the goals.
01
Convene biennial Alter/COP Rewrites
Hybrid deliberations across partner institutions producing alternate frameworks and policy alternatives to UNFCCC COP decisions, culminating in the Alter/COP Reboot at Concordia's Milieux Black Box.
02
Carry out six Open Air Sustainability Labs
Field intensives tied to landscapes whose human infrastructure was laid down by colonialism — tracking material and cultural histories of structural and epistemic violence, and amplifying local survivance.
03
Fund and advertise trainee opportunities widely
Well-funded positions promoted through academic and student associations and local communities, to build and sustain the equity composition of the team alongside real mentoring.
04
Develop new forms of knowledge mobilisation
White papers, the Speculative Life Almanac, locative media at Crawford Lake, a Barbados Museum exhibition, and augmented reality curation of Kew's Net Zero Palm House.
05
Work with low-carbon research methods
Fly-less events for members in the Quebec–Ontario corridor, and hybrid symposia, cluster gatherings, summer institutes and fieldwork preparation throughout.
Goals
Ten commitments for seven years
- 01
Integrate comparative transdisciplinary environmental humanities — critical humanities, social science and sciences — into sustainability research and policy.
- 02
Document the link between the uneven effects of anthropogenic climate change and planetary histories of extractive capitalism, human exceptionalism, plantation monoculture, colonialism, race and gender.
- 03
Reframe sustainability and environmental governance in terms of habitability rather than development.
- 04
Design six field intensives that learn from material archives shaped by the spatial, temporal and ecological dimensions of human-induced climate change.
- 05
Coproduce sustainability solutions with researchers and collaborators in and from local communities.
- 06
Strengthen cross-regional exchange among environmental humanities scholars, trainees and students, with policy forums, conservation organisations, museums and communities.
- 07
Bridge sustainability science and the social and cultural contexts producing climate change, opening up how problems get defined in the first place.
- 08
Embed equity, diversity and inclusion in the composition of the team, the research design and every recruitment strategy.
- 09
Build capacity in a diverse global cohort of trainees through field intensives, policy engagement, conferences and mentorship.
- 10
Amplify findings through knowledge mobilisation that reaches policy discussions, media and the public.
Equity, diversity and inclusion
Nine rubrics we hold ourselves to
Equity is a property of the research design here, not a section of the reporting. These are reviewed by the full team every year.
- 1
Research design and research practice are inseparable. Team members from the populations most affected by this research have been, and will remain, driving forces in how the project develops.
- 2
Research thematics are co-designed to be community-serving for multiple and intersecting underrepresented populations.
- 3
Equity-themed conferences and events are treated as core outreach for finding new collaborators.
- 4
Recruitment weighs what someone has accomplished with the opportunities they have had, not who has had the most opportunities.
- 5
Activities are planned around flexibility from the start: remote participation, childcare access, asynchronous scheduling, and respect for community-based responsibilities.
- 6
Accessibility costs are budgeted and accessibility considerations are built into event planning as a matter of course.
- 7
Emerging scholars are promoted through reserved funding, first authorship on co-publications, focused conferences and multi-level mentorship.
- 8
The team participates as a group in Concordia Equity Office workshops on accessibility, anti-racism and inclusive collegial connections.
- 9
The full team formally reviews equity performance and challenges every year, and course-corrects.
Data & ethics
How we handle what we gather
Research data is collected and archived at Concordia under the network’s Data Management Plan. Where appropriate, data and outcomes are made available to others following the FAIR principles, and following OCAP® principles for anything arising from collaborations with Indigenous and historically vulnerable communities. Trainees and researchers train in Concordia’s data management workshops.