UCRSEA Panels Sessions at the 2018 Urban Affairs Association (UAA) Conference
- April 4, 2018 - April 7, 2018
- Toronto, Canada
UCRSEA will be holding two panel sessions and presenting eight papers at the 2018 UAA Conference under the special topic, “Shaping Justice and Sustainability Within and Beyond the City’s Edge: Contestation and Collaboration in Urbanizing Regions”. These are:
Panel 1 — Climate risks management in rapidly developing cities
Organizer & Moderator: Prof. Amrita Danière
Flood Vulnerability and Resilience in Peri-Urbanizing Vietnam: A Case Study from Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam by Hue Le and Ly Bui (Vietnam National University, Vietnam)
Flood: Impact and Responses in Khon Kaen City in Thailand by Astrud Lea Beringer and Jutamas Kaewsuk (Mahasarakham University, Thailand)
Urbanization and the Master Urban Plan of Vientiane: Issues and Prospects by Thanousorn Vongpraseuth (National University of Laos, Lao PDR)
Enhancing urban climate change resilience in Southeast Asia: Lessons from the field by Amrita Daniere and Yanjun Cai (University of Toronto, Canada)
Panel 2 — Environmental policies in urban planning
Organizer: Dr. Gwenn Pulliat
Moderator: Prof. Douglas Young
Theory of Planned Behavior as framework for communicating health related climate risk in peri-urban: A case of school children in Mekong Delta in Vietnam by Quynh Anh Nguyen (National Institute for Science and Technology Policy and Strategy Studies, Vietnam)
In Pursuit of Urban Resilience: Climate Change Adaptation in Cambodian Cities by Laura Beckwith (University of Ottawa, Canada)
Despite the environment. The implementation of the environmental policy in rapidly growing Lao Cai, Vietnam by Gwenn Pulliat (University of Toronto, Canada)
Migrating towards vulnerabilities: The cascading impacts of structural violence, climate change, and migration on Myanmar labour migrants in Phuket, Thailand by Angelica de Jesus (University of Toronto, Canada)
Intersections of Social and Environmental Change in Southeast Asia
- November 17, 2017
- York University
Piti Srivongchai and Ly Quoc Dang, Graduate Fellows of the Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership (UCRSEA), will be presenting their research papers on November 17, 2017 at York University, 12:30 pm-2:15 pm.
Piti, who is a doctoral candidate at Khon Kaen University, will present his paper, “Guidelines to Reduce Individual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions for Low Carbon City in Khon Kaen, Thailand”. This is a qualitative study which investigated the changes in individual human lifestyle that are necessary to contribute to the reduction of GHG through the Low Carbon City initiative in the Khon Kaen municipality, Thailand. Seven conditions of individual behaviour that impact GHG reduction were examined: character, knowledge, attitude, motivation, persuasion, role models and equipment support. Based on his findings, guidelines for improving individual contributions through Low Carbon City to reduce GHG have been proposed.
Dang’s paper is on “Gender Inequality and Urban Floods in Can Tho City, Vietnam.” Using a feminist political ecology framework, he examines gendered relationships in terms of rights, roles and responsibilities in families and communities affected by floods in Can Tho, Vietnam. Based on fieldwork, he also seeks to understand the impact of women’s involvement in flood management and environmental and climate justice. Dang is a doctoral candidate in Women’s and Gender Studies at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and a researcher at Can Tho University of Vietnam.
All are welcome. Please RSVP to ycar@yorku.ca.
Doing Fieldwork in the Global South
- November 9, 2017
- Munk School of Global Affairs
The UCRSEA Partnership Project is holding a seminar on “Doing Fieldwork in the Global South” on 9 November 2017, 2:00-4:00 pm at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. This is especially relevant to students who are interested in undertaking field research in Asia. Dr. Gwenn Pulliat, UCRSEA Postdoctoral Fellow, organized the event and will include UCRSEA-funded students who carried out their research in partner countries in Southeast Asia.
UCRSEA Panel Session at the Canadian Council of Southeast Asian Studies (CCSEAS) Conference
- October 27, 2017
- York University
UCRSEA organized the panel, “Community vulnerabilities to Climate Change in Secondary Cities”, at the CCSEAS Conference with Profs. Amrita Daniere and Lisa Drummond as convenors, on 27 October. Paper presenters were:
- Dr. Gwenn Pulliat, University of Toronto: Farmlands and the environment in Lao Cai, Vietnam
- Try Thuon, Royal University of Phnom Penh: The Politics of Spatial Arrangement, Urbanization and Climate Change: Case study from Battambang, Cambodia
- Tammy Chou, University of Toronto: Social and Environmental Safeguards in the Dawei Special Economic Zone in Myanmar
- Taylor Whitfield, University of Toronto: Drought Vulnerabilities & Water Consumption Patterns in Khon Kaen, Thailand
UCRSEA Panel at ICAS10
- July 20, 2017 - July 23, 2017
- Chiang Mai, Thailand
UCRSEA convened two panel sessions at the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS 10) held in Chiang Mai, Thailand on July 20-23 under the title, “Trends and Trajectories of the Mekong Region: Understanding the Implications of Regionalisation, Urbanisation and Climate Change”. Dr. Pakamas Thinphanga, Arika Bridhikitti, Daniel Hayward, Hoa Lo Thanh, Ei Shwe Sin Phyo and Try Thuon shared their respective research.
Read more about it on the May-August 2017 Partnership Update.
Airbeam Training Workshops
- July 4, 2017 - July 7, 2017
- Bago and Maubin, Myanmar
The Myanmar Project team held two training workshops on the proper use of the Airbeam, an environmental measurement device, on July 4–5 at Bago University and July 6–7 at Maubin University. Specifically, the training workshops aimed to: (1) teach participants about PM 2.5, its sources and why it is harmful to health; (2) teach participants how to use the device, upload the data to the Aircasting website and use the website; and (3) help participants plan on how they can use the device for teaching, research, and advocacy.
For the full story, go to the May-August 2017 issue of the Partnership Update.
Proposal Write-Shop on “Engaging Cities in Climate Resilience”
- May 15, 2017
- Phnom Penh, Cambodia
A “Proposal Write-shop” was run on May 15th in Phnom Penh, in which graduate students working with the UCRSEA project and potential future students came together to develop research proposals to address the growing problem of climate change for cities in Southeast Asia. The focus was on developing better research questions and research design within a short proposal.
The workshop also aimed to facilitate exchange between UCRSEA graduate students based in Southeast Asia and those in Canada, and to forge links between the UCRSEA research team and Southeast Asian graduate students. A total of 14 students participated in the workshop.
Profs. Amrita Daniere, Lisa Drummond, Douglas Young, Vanessa Lamb and Dr. Danny Marks served as presenters and discussants.
3rd Annual Workshop of the Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership: Collaborative research for the future of cities
- May 8, 2017 - May 12, 2017
- Battambang, Cambodia
“Our ancestors told us we must think first, do later. So this [urban climate resilience] research aligns with our saying because we have to think a lot or else create impacts later,” said H.E. Nguon Ratanak through a translator. This foresight perhaps comes from necessity. “People in this region are familiar with climate [disasters],” he continued. Battambang City and the greater Battambang province have experienced both drought and severe flooding in recent years.
Due to Battambang’s susceptibility to climate disasters, which can also be exacerbated by the urban sprawl the city is experiencing, it is one of the few in the region with a master plan for urban development that includes an awareness for climate change’s impacts on building a “livable, healthy, [and] prosperous city.” H.E. Nguon Ratanak, however, noted that the plan is “not perfect” and welcomed the chance for the assembled researchers to help improve it.
In his keynote address, Dr. Jonathan Rigg also addressed the future of communities such as Battambang, which straddle the line between urban and rural. He analyzed how the urbanization process and the change in the environment impact residents’ livelihoods and reshape urban poverty and vulnerability.
Battambang’s growth points to a larger trend of economic development in Southeast Asia. The percent of the population living on less than 1.25 USD has shrunk rapidly from 40% in 1990 to 14% in 2010. Yet, Dr. Rigg argued that this statistic alone obscures more complex realities of change. While on paper, poverty may be on its way to “eradication”, according to the World Bank poverty threshold, participating more actively in a capitalist economy comes with its own set of vulnerabilities as people sell off farmland to participate in short-term labor contracts in cities and factories, and the booming population of such urban areas outstrips the capacity of the current infrastructure – as typically witnessed by the insufficiency of waste and water management infrastructures.
Based on the case studies of eight secondary cities in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, UCRSEA’s work aims to illuminate the impacts of climate and environmental change on Southeast Asia’s changing landscape and growing economy. That goal can only be achieved with the collaboration of municipal governments, such as Battambang’s, that are tasked with governing some of the most rapidly changing areas in the region.
UCRSEA is a five-year partnership between the University of Toronto, the Thailand Environment Institute, and multiple other partners in the Greater Mekong Sub-region sponsored by IDRC and SSHRC. The Partnership is currently in its third year.UCRSEA Panel Session at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2017 Conference
- April 9, 2017
- Boston, USA
The UCRSEA Partnership Project held a panel session, “Addressing the Challenges of Urban Climate Change Resilience and Vulnerability in Southeast Asia”, at the Association of American Geographers 2017 Conference on April 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. UCRSEA staff and students presented papers on their recent research studies carried out under the Project. Among them are Dr. Gwenn Pulliat, Angelica de Jesus, Nathan Stewart and Furqan Asif. Prof. Amrita Daniere, UCRSEA Co-Director, chaired the session.
Abstracts of the papers can be found here.International Public Seminar on Urban Floods and Gender Perspectives in Southeast Asia
- March 8, 2017
- Chiang Mai University, Thailand
