Welcome to People & Ecosystems – a space for exploring people, systems, and how they navigate change!
We often think and talk about development, sustainability, livelihoods, climate change, innovation, inequality, or economic growth as though they are unrelated subjects. They aren’t. A community’s ability to withstand or cope with a disaster may depend on the health of its ecosystem, the strength of its local economy, the availability of social support, the quality of its institutions, and the information people have access to. A young person’s livelihood may be shaped not only by their skills or ambition, but by the structure of the economy, access to markets and finance, technology, social networks, public policy, and the opportunities available in the place where they live. A city’s resilience to flooding is not simply an environmental question – It is also a question of infrastructure, planning, inequality, governance, livelihoods, communication, and how people interact with the systems around them.
People and ecosystems are connected – and so are the systems that shape our lives.
Why People & Ecosystems?
I created People & Ecosystems out of a simple curiosity: What happens when we look beyond individual challenges and start paying attention to the systems around them?
The challenges people face are increasingly interconnected. Environmental change affects economies. Economic pressures affect communities. Social inequalities influence exposure to risk. Institutions shape how societies respond to disruption. Technology changes how people work, communicate, organise and create.
While all this is true, much of the way we communicate about these issues still assume they are unrelated. People & Ecosystems is an attempt to look across those boundaries. It is a space to explore how people, communities, institutions, economies and natural systems interact – and how those relationships shape their resilience and the possibilities for sustainable futures. The emphasis is on understanding how systems work, how people navigate change, what enables resilience, and where opportunities for better futures might emerge.
What will I write about?
People & Ecosystems will bring together research, analysis, observation and reflection across several interconnected areas:
- Environmental Systems and Resilience (How do people and communities experience environmental change?)
I will explore questions around climate and environmental risk, sustainability, natural-resource systems, disaster resilience and the relationship between human activity and the ecosystems on which societies depend. I will particularly pay attention to African and Kenyan contexts, where environmental, economic and social realities are often deeply intertwined. - Economic and Livelihood Systems (How do people make a living amidst ever-changing economic systems?)
I will explore questions around economic resilience, livelihoods, inequality, work, entrepreneurship, creative economies, social and solidarity economies, and the systems that enable (or constrain) economic participation. - And Way More in between: I will explore multiple other subjects in between – including Communities, Institutions and Social Systems (questions of social resilience, community systems, institutional capacity, collective action, governance and the relationships that hold societies together); Data, Evidence and Development (how data, research, geospatial information, visualisation and storytelling can help us understand complex development questions and communicate them more meaningfully); and Communication & Behaviour Change (how communication shapes how people how people perceive risk and transform their behaviour).
What to Expect
People & Ecosystems will be a space for curiosity, investigation and reflection – drawing lessons and insights from my work and those of others. You may find a mix of Insights/Essays; Data stories; Field Notes; Research Reflections; Maps and Geospatial Explorations; Visual Art; Case Studies; Frameworks and Conceptual explorations; and/or Commentary and reflections on emerging issues.
So, welcome and stay tuned! This is an evolving publication. I anticipate that its questions will change/evolve as I learn, research, observe and engage with people, communities, institutions and the systems that connect them.