Background

I am a physical geographer and sustainability scientist, and my main interests are to develop interdisciplinary research approaches to understand complex sustainability challenges. My research so far has mainly studied drivers and effects of land use change in areas where land is acquired by foreign agribusinesses, focusing on how people are affecting – and affected by – changes in land and water availability. Land use change is driven by multiple interconnected societal and environmental processes, which act on different scales in time and space.

Research

Across the world, poor and vulnerable communities experience escalating challenges associated with local manifestations of climate change, as well as pressures from the opening and closing of capitalist frontiers. My three-year postdoc project aims to support such communities’ agency in dealing with such pressures by developing novel approaches to co-create knowledge and facilitate communication of local sustainability challenges.

By combining participatory art and scenario thinking I will generate viable future scenarios, including a range of pathways for development. Tanzania constitutes a suitable context for such action-oriented research due to its economic development towards “jobless” large-scale agriculture, extractivism, and ecotourism. This type of development in the context of population growth, land-based livelihoods, and less available land, has enhanced inequalities and created new classes of landless and underemployed rural people increasingly vulnerable to environmental and economic shocks and stress. It is therefore important to identify local socio-economic and environmental challenges and interactions, and initiate discussions about how these challenges might develop under different socio-economic assumptions and scenarios. The ultimate purpose of using art in the scenario process is to create viable development pathways based on local concerns and aspirations, and as a communication tool for presenting challenges and opportunities under different futures.

The postdoc is conducted at the Department of Agricultural Extension and Community Development (DAECD), Sokoine University of Agriculture; the Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO), University of Copenhagen; and at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University.

For my PhD thesis I applied mixed methods to analyze 'land grabbing' from a global to local scale. The global to continental scale of analysis is quantitative and relates to the global connectivity of land acquisitions and changes in water supply and demand, while the local studies are qualitative and use participatory art to understand local perceptions of socio-environmental change, and future aspirations for change.

Prior to the Post Doc, I was engaged in a research project where we estimated changes in terrestrial carbon in Cambodia. Cambodia is a country that is experiencing rapid and extensive deforestation that can be partly linked to land grabbing. We mapped the changes in carbon pools in space and through time, and also mapped where the carbon loss is virtually export

Teaching

My teaching generally focuses on quantitative tools and methods related to geographies of change. But more recenty I have been the course coordinator for the LUMES course Earth Systems Science, which is a bridge beween key concepts in physical geography and how such knowledge is important for sustainability science. I have also held several lectures about participatory methods and the use of art. Below is a selection of courses that I have been teaching over the past 4 years.

• Course coordinator for Earth Systems Science course in the LUMES programme, 2020
• Spatial Analysis (Introduction to R, clustering, point patterns), 2017, 2019
• Land surface processes and landscape dynamics (lecture about land grabbing, and exercise about land grabbing in Uganda), 2019
• Geografisk informationsteknik (Vector analysis), 2019
• Theory and methods in physical geography (introduction to Excel, System Modelling), 2019
• GIS and climate change (online), 2019
• Geographical Information Systems, Introduction (online), 2019
• Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science: Concepts, Challenges and Approaches in Sustainability Studies (Big data and sustainability), 2018
• Sustainability Science (Participatory research), 2018
• LUMES Methods Seminars (Quantitative methods), 2018

Scientific Illustrations

I also have a particular interest of visualizing science as graphs, maps, paintings, and even stop-motion movies. A nice illustration is a good and efficient way to catch someone’s attention and communicate your scientific results. I am part time freelancing as a science illustrator, so if you need help with tables, charts, figures, maps, or other visualizations, don’t hesitate to contact me. www.emmalijohansson.com/illustrations