Land Body Ecologies
We are a global transdisciplinary network exploring the deep interconnections of mental and ecosystem health. Since 2019 we have been working to understand and engage with the experiences of land trauma among land dependant and Indigenous communities. Our research is rooted within communities at the forefront of today's climate, ecosystem and land rights issues. Through long form collaboration, we seek to understand the traumas endured when the land suffers.
A short video introduction to LBE project and team.
Videographers:
Invisible Flock, Antti J. Leinonen, Jason Taylor, Quicksand.
Land Body Ecologies team members recording sounds of the hydropower station that sits on the river Kemi, Finland, 2022. © Invisible Flock.
Team
Ayesha Ahmad
Ayesha is a senior lecturer in global health at City St George’s, University of London and honorary lecturer at the Institute for Global Health, University College London. She holds a PhD in medical ethics and has developed specialisation in mental health ethics.
Her research expertise is in transcultural psychiatry and cross-cultural mental health, working particularly in contexts of conflict and humanitarian crisis resulting from disasters including environmental change.
Samrawit Gougsa
Samrawit is part of Minority Rights Group International (MRG) a non-governmental organisation working to safeguard the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and Indigenous peoples worldwide, and to promote cooperation and understanding between communities.
It is guided by 150 partner organisations, which represent minority and Indigenous peoples in 50 countries. It has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and observer status with the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.
Invisible Flock
Invisible Flock are an award winning interactive arts studio operating at the intersection of art and technology.
We are artist led.
Our aim is to open up critically important ways of thinking about how we live, how we connect and share to live better together in a global society. To achieve this we believe that art must be made alongside a broad range of different people. We infiltrate many sectors aiming to have a creative impact on ecology, politics, health and society and to expose wherever possible that everything is fluid and can be rebuilt and reconfigured to be better.
Quicksand
Quicksand is an interdisciplinary design research and innovation consultancy based in India. Our work is driven by an approach that seeks to build on a rich, evocative understanding of people and environments, into meaningful opportunities. This is done through multidisciplinary collaborations, expressed through manifests that thread product, service and systemic interventions.
All our work is grounded in the realities of people, co-creating with rather than for; tuned to inform and inspire, and focused on realising experienceable value.
Outi Autti
PhD Outi Autti specializes in multidisciplinary research in the fields of environmental sociology, migration studies, rural education, and human geography at Giellagas Institute, University of Oulu. She holds the Title of Docent in Cultural Sociology at the University of Lapland. Her current research interests include human-environment relationship, health and wellbeing in the northern circumpolar areas, people's experiences and the social contexts of their narratives. Power relations, inequality, and marginal positions have been of interest to her throughout her research career.
Sylvia is the Chief Executive Officer of Action for Batwa Empowerment Group (ABEG), a non-profit organisation in Uganda working for the empowerment of the Indigenous Batwa community. Sylvia, a member of the community herself, was motivated to establish the organisation after seeing and experiencing first-hand the political, social and economic marginalisation that her community faces. She has represented her community at national, regional, and international human rights forums, where she has boldly spoken out against the unbearable injustices the Batwa continue to suffer on the government's watch.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and Management and Master of Arts in Organisational Leadership and Management.
Sylvia Kokunda
Kaisa Kerätär
Kaisa is a biologist and she has worked in both the environmental and creative sectors as a researcher, manager, producer and a consultant.
She works at Waria; a cultural, artistic and design organisation creating new projects and businesses while also working in the environmental sector, researching freshwater ecology and environmental impact assessment. In her work she likes to combine scientific, artistic and sociological approaches and examine interactions between nature and human, land-based knowledge and intergenerational dialogue.
Her roots are in Finnish Lapland, in Forest Lapp culture.
I grew up in Karen village with nine brothers and sisters learning local wisdom and traditional knowledge. On the other hand, I finished a master's degree from Open University. Learning about global change with local roots is also part of what I learned from ARI (Asean Rural Institute) in 2009. I believe that small scale farming can lead to sustainable development and beautiful living.
In 2011, I started Lazy Man Coffee to fight mono cropping corn and introduce alternative farming to the people in Karen village. I hope to direct the coffee market to Thailand and share the "slow down for the Earth" philosophy. The most delicious is rice, the most beautiful is human, the best smelling is a baby, the coolest water. Pgak'yau words that fell into my heart since I first heard them.
Siwakorn Odochao
Daniel Kobei
Daniel is the founder and Executive Director of Ogiek Peoples' Development Program (OPDP), an NGO in Kenya that promotes the human and land rights of the Indigenous Ogiek. One of his key achievements is leading the Ogiek to winning a landmark case against the Government of Kenya in May 2017, where the Ogiek received recognition of their rights to live in Mau Forest.The ruling marked the first judgement from the highest institutional human rights body in Africa to favour the cause of Indigenous Peoples, setting a precedent for similar cases across the continent.
He has MBA in Strategic Management and a Post Graduate Diploma in Project Appraisal and Management.
Collaborators
Vishalakshi Padmanabhan
Vishalakshi Padmanabhan is the founder of Buffalo Back Collective, a network of small-holding organic farmers around Bangalore. Buffalo Back is seeking to change the relationship between urban consumers and their food, striving constantly to evolve a better and healthier food system. Their work also centres on building awareness and knowledge to strengthen our ability to exercise sustainable choices. Buffalo Back Collective also hosts the Secretariat for the Participatory Guarantee Systems Organic India (PGS OC), which is a cause driven social organization of 17 farming collectives across India, dedicated to bringing about an inclusive platform for small and marginal organic producers, to collaborate and flourish in the domestic market through a process based on verifiable trust.
Jennifer Katanyoutanant
Jennifer Katanyoutanant works with interactive mediums like VR, installation, and food to facilitate communication and co-create systems of sharing and exchange. Recent fascinations include food systems research through sensory interactions, playable critical thought and virtual spaces for shifting power imbalance. Past projects explored ecological manifestations of the Youtube recommendation algorithm, diverse creative communities in emerging technology, and cultivating remote intimacy through food and web performance.
Nishant Srinivasaiah
Nishant has been observing elephant populations and individuals for more than ten years now. He has a doctorate in behavioural ecology of Asian elephants in a changing peri-urban environment from the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Nishant heads the Frontier Elephant Programme at the Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning, Bengaluru and he is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science. His work involves improving human and elephant relationships, through design that promotes peaceful interaction and sharing of space between humans and elephants.
2021 – 2024
Previous Participants
Jenni Laiti
Jenni Unni Aili Laiti (1981) is a Sámi artivist, Indigenous rights activist and duojár, traditional Sámi craft maker. She is from Aanaar (Inari), Finnish side of Sápmi and lives now in Jåhkåmåhkke (Jokkmokk), Swedish side of Sápmi with her family. Her family belongs to the Sirges Saami reindeer herding community. Laiti has been active in the Saami civil society since she was 16 years. In recent years she has been active in the fight against a planned mining project in her home village, advocating for climate justice in Sápmi and working with local Sámi communities to strengthen self-determination.
Laiti ́s artivistical work composes culture jamming, direct action, performances and community art. Her work deals with colonialism, decolonialism, right to one ́s own culture and land, traditional knowledge, sustainability and living as a human being in the end of this world.
Dr. Nicole Redvers
Dr. Nicole Redvers, ND, MPH, is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation (NWT) and has worked with Indigenous patients, scholars, and communities around the globe her entire career. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and is a Western Research Chair and Director of Indigenous Planetary Health at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. She has been actively involved at regional, national, and international levels promoting the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in both human and planetary health research and practice. Dr. Redvers is the author of the trade paperback book titled, ‘The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles’.
Ilan Kelman
Ilan Kelman is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, England and a Professor II at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway.
His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, including the integration of climate change into disaster research and health research. That covers three main areas: (i) disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy http://www.disasterdiplomacy.org
(ii) island sustainability involving safe and healthy communities in isolated locations http://www.islandvulnerability.org
(iii) risk education for health and disasters
Colin Luoma
Colin Luoma is a Lecturer at Brunel Law School where his research focuses on the intersections between cultural rights, Indigenous and minority rights, and environmental justice. He previously was a Legal Researcher for Minority Rights Group International where he worked on litigation, advocacy and research matters concerning biodiversity conservation and the rights of Indigenous peoples under international law. He holds a PhD in Law and a Juris Doctor degree and is a qualified lawyer in the United States.
Selina Nwulu
Selina Nwulu is a writer, researcher and independent consultant. She has been a voice for climate justice for over 10 years, working with both a number of grassroots, charity and arts organisations, in both a creative and consultancy capacity, to strengthen narratives around the gaps between race, justice and the climate crisis.
She has worked extensively in the civic sector for a number of NGO organisations in a research and social policy capacity. Her poetry and essays have been widely featured in a variety of journals, short films and anthologies as well as translated into Spanish, Greek and Polish and exhibited in New York and Ireland.
She was Young Poet Laureate for London 2015-16 and shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2019. She is also a 2021 Arts Award Finalist for Environmental Writing. Her debut full length poetry collection, A Little Resurrection, is out with Bloomsbury in Autumn 2022.
Bharat Mirle
Bharat Mirle is a self-taught, independent filmmaker from Bangalore. His short documentary, 175 Grams was the winner of the Sundance Short film Challenge, and was screened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. His first fiction short ‘Vaahana’ was the winner of the 2018 Jakarta International Humanitarian and Cultural Award. His first feature film, The Road To Kuthriyar, had its world premiere at the 2021 Busan International Film Festival and has been screened at festivals across the world including the 2022 Moscow International Film Festival, the London Indian Film Festival and the Ottawa Indian Film Festival Awards where it won Best Director.
Tessa McWatt is the author of seven novels and two books for young people. Her fiction has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the City of Toronto Book Awards, and the OCM Bocas Prize. She is one of the winners of the Eccles British Library Award 2018 for her first non-fiction book, Shame On Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging, which won the 2020 Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize 2020 and the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction. Her latest novel, The Snow Line, was shortlisted for the Volcano Prize. She is also a librettist and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
Laetania Belai Djandam is an Indigenous environmental activist and a climate and health practitioner descending from the Dayak Ngaju and Ma'anyan Tribe of Borneo Island. She grew up surrounded by a traditional wisdom that calls for the protection of both ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ which has translated into years of activism across local, national, and international platforms. Belai’s passion for planetary health grew from volunteering on-site at Health In Harmony’s affiliate organization, Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), where she assisted in community-designed solutions in the nexus of climate, health and conservation. Belai holds a BMedSci in Health and Human Sciences from The University of Sheffield and is currently the Climate Officer of Health Care Without Harm - Asia. Her activism focuses on youth empowerment, advocacy for Indigenous rights, and community-based forest management.
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Arjun Kapoor is Program Director and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society (CMHLP). He is a lawyer and psychologist with experience in human rights, access to justice and mental health. Arjun has led the capacity building of over 3000 stakeholders in implementing India’s Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 and National Mental Health Policy, 2014. Previously, he co-led the Keshav Desiraju India Mental Health Observatory – a repository of data and information on mental health laws, policies & services to promote evidence-based policy for mental health in India. He currently co-leads Outlive – a youth suicide prevention programme in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune and also leads ENGAGE – an adolescent suicide prevention programme in Chhattisgarh in collaboration with the Department of Health & Family Welfare and Department of School Education, Government of Chhattisgarh.