With Luke Parry, Lancaster University.
All seminars online. Please contact sue.davis@nottingham.ac.uk for the link. Subject to change.
Part of the Environment and Society Seminar Series.
Abstract
Amazonia continues to receive intense interest from bio-physical scientists due to global concerns about deforestation and forest degradation. However, the human dimensions of environmental change in region are relatively neglected, despite the vulnerability of Amazonian people to climatic change and political and economic shocks. In this talk I focus on an under-researched study context -- remote towns and surrounding rural areas in central Amazonia -- far from deforestation frontiers and sometimes weeks or even months' travel from major cities. Adopting an inter-disciplinary approach, my research utilizes a range of methods and scales of analysis to explore and confront issues including: systematic under-estimates in climate-health risks; rainfall variability and human health; and ways in which urban remoteness interplays with governance and disaster vulnerability.
Luke Parry, Lancaster University
Luke is an interdisciplinary social scientist whose current research focuses on health inequities and disasters. He has a long-term interest in identifying pathways towards socially-just and sustainable futures for tropical forest regions, particularly the Amazon. He has been a Senior Lecturer in the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) since 2017 and was a Lecturer from 2012. He was an ESRC Future Research Leader Fellow from 2014 to early 2017.
His research program makes links between political ecology (particularly of health), food systems, urbanization and climatic change. For instance, he was the Principal Investigator of an ESRC funded project on "Amazonian cities and extreme hydro-climatic events: research to reduce vulnerability". He uses mainly quantitative approaches and seeks to ask and answer policy-relevant questions. Luke has been working in, and learning about, the social, health, environmental and political dimensions of tropical forests since 2002.