An Evening to Get CLOSER

Reimagining Prosperity: Futures from the Global South

Introductions

Chair - Carolina Comandulli (CLOSER, Anthropology Department, UCL)

Why CLOSER? - Grace Iara Souza (CLOSER, King’s Brazil Institute, KCL)

Multidisciplinary within Brazilian Studies - Dr Jeff Garmany (King’s Brazil Institute, KCL)

Brazilian Environmental Conservation from the UK - Professor Anthony Hall (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Keynote Speaker

Professor Henrietta L. Moore is the Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity at UCL, where she is also Chair in Culture, Philosophy and Design. A distinguished anthropologist and cultural theorist, her recent work has focused on sustainable, prosperous futures and how to build them. Rather than relying on economic models of growth, her approach puts ideas about well-being, institutional change and social justice at the centre. By rethinking how knowledge is produced, challenging current economic models, and identifying overlooked social and political dynamics, Professor Moore’s approach places notions of well-being, institutional change, citizenship, and social justice at the focal point of her research. She is actively involved in the application of social science insights to policy at all levels, and is committed to involving grassroots communities in the production of new types of knowledge through ‘citizen science’. Professor Moore retains an ongoing interest in issues of globalisation, gender, social transformation and livelihood strategies, as well as in the relationship between self-imagining and democratic political decision-making. She has a continuing long-term research engagement with Africa, where she has worked closely with local communities for over thirty years.

Reimagining Prosperity: Futures from the Global South

Given the planetary challenges we face, we urgently need to formulate more explicit projects of transformation and transition. The announcement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015 emphasises that making substantial changes using tried and tested models is unlikely to work. This paper discusses how we might move beyond the SDGs to formulate diverse pathways to future prosperity, and explains why many of the philosophical and practical ideas arising in the Global South offer innovative ways forward.

Sponsors

King’s Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Centre (www.kcl.ac.uk/kissdtc)

UCL Economic & Social Research Council DTC (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/shs/esrc)