Important conversations begin at Ruralities and Regions in Transition - conversations you will not want to miss
Our three keynote speakers will challenge how we think about rural and regional futures in times of profound change. By bringing together leading research, critical reflection, and bold ideas, they will encourage us to question taken-for-granted assumptions about sustainability, development, and the role of rural places in a changing world. Their perspectives span over various disciplines and experiences, inviting us to engage with the challenges, and possibilities shaping the rurals today.
Ruth McAreavey
Professor at Newcastle University
The Rural Reframed: Knowledge, Practice, and the Politics of Development
The Rural Reframed: Knowledge, Practice, and the Politics of Development challenges comfortable assumptions about what “the rural” is and who gets to define it. It interrogates the power behind rural knowledge—asking whose expertise counts, whose lives are rendered visible or invisible, and how development agendas reshape rural realities. Bringing theory into conversation with lived experience, I will argue that reframing the rural is not a theoretical process, but a political act that determines whose futures are made possible—and whose are excluded.
The Planetary Praxis research group launched in September 2020 to undertake practice-based investigations focused on social, digital, and environmental justice. This talk offers an overview of the group's projects, with an emphasis on Smart Forests, a current initiative exploring the increasing digitalisation of forest environments worldwide. How do digital technologies organise the problem of environmental change, and what types of action do they facilitate? How can attention to social equity rework conventional approaches to digital technologies? This talk considers the potential of community-led practices to transform engagements with technologies and environments.
Kennedy Mbeva focuses on global disaster risk management, geoeconomics, and catastrophic climate change. He has contributed to several of the UN's climate reports and participated in international climate negotiations, with a particular focus on equitable development opportunities in a climate-limited world. Learn more about his keynote speech.
