About Us

Sunil Santha is a faculty at the Centre for Livelihoods and Social Innovation, School of Social Work in TISS Mumbai. As a social work educator interested in action research and reflective practice, Santha strives to strengthen climate action and promote transformative social innovations. His curricular innovation includes developing context-specific models of entrepreneurial action and emergent livelihoods. At the Centre for Livelihoods and Social Innovation, Santha has developed the Adaptive Innovation Model, which strives to design people-centered adaptation strategies that will have the intent and effect of our decisions and actions on the structures and processes shaping equality and justice, care, and empowerment for those who are disadvantaged and vulnerable in society. Therefore, such an approach involves not only strengthening the adaptive capacities of vulnerable groups but also deconstructing certain dominant narratives linked to sustainable livelihoods and climate change adaptation. Sunil’s recent book Climate Change and Adaptive Innovation: A Model for Social Work Practice (Routledge, 2020) has evolved from these ideas, experiences, and learning.

Sariaka Olmstead-Rakotondrazafy received a master’s in forestry, environment, and development in 2014 from the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar (ESSA). Seeking to deepen her knowledge of oceans and the marine environment, she completed a master’s in marine and lacustrine science and management (Oceans and Lakes), an inter-university program organized by the Faculty of Sciences of VUB (Free University of Brussels). Working for different governmental projects and NGOs on coastal zone management, climate change, community livelihood, management plan of fisheries, and Marine Protected Areas management with coastal communities in various regions of Madagascar since 2012, she has developed a particular interest in ocean governance, small-scale fisheries, and coastal communities. In 2018, Olmstead-Rakotondrazafy received an award from the United Nations and the Nippon Foundation of Japan Fellowship. As part of the fellowship, she researched the Blue Economy and fisheries in Madagascar in collaboration with Saint Mary’s University in Canada. This inspired her to create Impacting Lives through Opportunities (SEILO) in 2020, a social enterprise that advocates for environmental protection and community empowerment.

Moenieba Isaacs is a full professor with the Institute for Poverty, Land, and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of Western Cape (UWC). She is the academic manager for postgraduate teaching and co-coordinator of accredited short-course training on the Political Economy of Land Governance in Africa. Her current research focuses on developing the concept of blue justice, linking it to spatial injustices and the gendered dynamics of women in living landscapes in and around enclosures in the blue economy. She has worked extensively with communities in South Africa and in engaged and reflective research, where she developed her thinking tools. She has and is participating in various research projects. She was the regional coordinator and founding member of TooBigToIgnore, a global network of small-scale fisheries research. She co-chaired the Human Dimension Working Group on Integrated Marine Bio-geo-chemistry Ecosystem Research (IMBER). She formed part of the UN Committee on Food Security’s High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE). She is part of the program committee of the Marine and Coastal Science for Management (MASMA) program—a regional competitive research granting mechanism providing funding and technical support for coastal and marine research, training, and communications in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region.

Julius Wilbard Mngumi is a lecturer at Dar es Salaam University’s College of Education (DUCE). He completed his PhD at the University of Glasgow in Scotland in 2015. His PhD thesis titled “Perceptions of Climate Change, Environmental Variability and the Role of Agricultural Adaptation Strategies by Small-Scale Framers in Africa: The Case of Mwanga District in Northern Tanzania” focused on farmers’ perceptions, knowledge, and understanding of climate change variability and its impacts in agriculture. His study also focused on the role played by the government in helping small-scale farmers adapt to climate change. It similarly explored indigenous knowledge and its role in informing farmers about climate change and its impacts on agricultural-dependent livelihoods.

Kyoko Kusakabe is a professor of gender and development studies at the Department of Development and Sustainability, School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. She has over 20 years of experience in research and teaching gender and development in Asia, especially in the Mekong Subregion. Aside from her academic work, she has experience working with NGOs and government organizations for gender mainstreaming and integration of gender issues. Her research focus is on gender issues in labor/work, especially on labor migration, garment factory workers, informal employment, and agriculture and fisheries. She is currently an executive committee member of the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Section of the Asian Fisheries Society. She is also a coeditor-in-chief of the Gender, Technology, and Development journal. She is a co-author of Thailand’s Hidden Workforce: Burmese Migrant Women Factory Workers (Zed Books, 2012, coauthored with Ruth Pearson) and coedited Fisherfolk in Cambodia, India, and Sri Lanka: Migration, Gender (Routledge, 2020).

More about our research journey at: https://items.ssrc.org/crisis-and-collaboration-across-the-indian-ocean/co-construction-of-knowledge-in-transregional-collaborative-research/