UWTSD Events

The World Academy of Science and Art (WAAS) has partnered with UNESCO BRIDGES and other partner organisations, including the Global Futures Laboratory of Arizona State University, SDSN Europe, and the World University Consortium to bring to you the International Conference on Education for Human Security.

The following panel is co-sponsored by WAAS and the BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition in UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations progamme, led by the UK Hub at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

“Learning with (not about) the world: Anthropological methods for a resilient future”

Participants: Luci Attala, Fadwa El Guindi, Steven Hartman, Marta Neskovic & Vesna Vučinić
When? 6:00 – 6:50 pm CET on Mar 7, 2023

Thinking about the future can be overwhelming, but mechanisms that encourage creative thinking about prospects can empower and engender resilience. This panel thinks through the imaginative intersections between diverse research methods and educational activities so as to consider their role in creating a safe future fit for the generations to come.

Learning with (not about) the world is at the root of Anthropology. Anthropology views its core methodology as a relational contextual exercise whereby engaging parties learn from each other to avoid doing both social and environmental damage. This diverges from many research methods that might involve creating artificial conditions and changing variables to understand the world.

The panel will discuss how anthropological tools may be used to think about what futures we all want, whilst also encouraging the resilience and confidence to adapt in the real world. Such educational tools that enrich available methods for understanding and engaging in the world, whilst enabling learners to participate in co-creating the conditions for equitable human security at different scales, may well be essential to meeting the very real social and environmental challenges of present and future generations.

The Conference will take place online.

Register here.

The UK Hub of the UNESCO BRIDGES Coalition at University of Wales Trinity Saint David launched  in an event that brought together academia, community projects, art, gaming, and indigenous knowledge.

The launch event, entitled E(e)arth, took place in The Reading Room of the Alex Building in Swansea, Wales on the 2nd of November 2022.

The launch introduced the aims, values and opportunities of the UK Hub by showcasing projects that use the strengths of the Humanities to generate innovation in thinking and action.

The launch was not a passive affair. It was active, informal and required the audience’s engagement. If we are to move into new ways of understanding, we need bold action. The launch responded to that call.

E(e)arth

The projects presented at the launch demonstrate different approaches and methods of knowing the Earth (and earth).

1. Munekan Masha: Reviving Water in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

The first project was devised and is led, by a group of indigenous people from Colombia who decided to teach conventional environmental scientists their previously unrecorded methods of land regeneration. This project is presented by Prof. Alan Ereira, UWTSD, the Tairona Heritage Trust (THT) and a representative of the Kogi people, Jose Manuel Mamatacan who was trained as emissary by his people to be able to join the launch event.

2. What it is to be there

The second project presented is an interdisciplinary collaboration with a Welsh artist, Helen Acklam, who asks questions about being in the earth and uses the arts to work with the soil and explore relationships with the taken for granted lives underfoot.

3. Serious Gaming: can games save the world?

The third project, presented by GamEngage, demonstrates the imaginative and creative power of playing games to seek solutions to environmental issues. Games encourage positivity and allow players to collaborate to harness tensions and frustrations to untangle complex problems around sustainability and climate solutions.