SMUS Action4 - Academia+Practice

Follow the link below to watch the video “Understanding Nature and Societies through Ethno-graphy: A Transdisciplinary Perspective” https://link.springer.com/video/10.1007/978-981-99-6725-4

This video showcases the ‘ethno-graphic’ approach as a tool for analysis and application by combining ethnography, photography, and videography methods. It demonstrates the relevance of this methodology in heritage, ecological and development research. It provides readers with a better understanding of observed scenes through multiple interpretations. The video uses practical-empirical socio-ecological projects as case studies and highlights the expertise required to implement this method. It establishes the relevance of ‘ethno-graphy’ as an innovative approach in transdisciplinary socio-ecological research and actions.

The video is ideal training material for students, scholars, policy practitioners and activists seeking sustainable and inclusive solutions across diverse ecological settings.
Jenia Mukherjee

The future belongs to the youth and we love to collaborate with students and create platforms for them to advocate their water futures themselves.

We look forward to our youth day at the Modern High School International premises where the students of Bamanghata and Kheyadaha High School of the East Kolkata Wetlands interact with the MHSI students to co-learn about their surrounding waters.



Jenia Mukherjee Sukrit Sen Sara Ahmed Shreyashi Bhattacharya SMUS Action4 - Academia+Practice

SMUS India 2023 – Conference Report

The 3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS Conference India 2023) was held at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee, India) from 20th to 26th February 2023.

This “3rd RC33 Regional Conference Asia: India” was held in collaboration with the Research Committee on “Logic and Methodology in Sociology” (RC33) of the “International Sociology Association” (ISA) and the Research Network “Quantitative Methods” (RN21) of the European Sociology Association” (ESA).

The SMUS conferences are a platform for knowledge exchange that allows researchers from the Global South and the Global North to establish long-lasting research collaborations in their respective fields. The six-day international conference aimed at continuing a global dialogue on methods and it attracted methodologists and researchers from the social and spatial sciences.

The conference report was prepared by the SMUS India Team led by the Conference convenor Prof. Gaurav Raheja and the Co-convenors Prof. Manish Kumar Asthana and Prof. Shubhajit Sadhukhan.

Read the full report of the Conference on this link -https://gcsmus.org/wp-content/uploads/SMUS_India_Report.pdf

3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability

In the following weeks, we will detail the events that took place during the 3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS Conference India 2023), held at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee, India) from 20th to 26th February 2023. The conference, which was also the “3rd RC33 Regional Conference Asia: India”, is a part of Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (GCSMUS).
India, being a country of many renowned advocates of education and research across the world, has emerged as a hotspot of revolutionary studies and innovations in the past few decades. This makes India, one of the best suited destinations to host the 3rd International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability in the Global South. As the conference aims to act as a medium to strengthen the Research network between Global North and Global South, the SMUS Conference India, was envisaged as a platform to provide a common ground for knowledge exchange and establish long lasting collaborations in the related fields.
The six-day conference aimed at continuing a global dialogue on methods, it attracted methodologists from all over the world and all social and spatial sciences e. g. anthropology, area studies, architecture, communication studies, computational sciences, digital humanities, educational sciences, geography, historical sciences, humanities, landscape planning, philosophy, psychology, sociology, urban design, urban planning, traffic planning and environmental planning.

SMUS Thailand 2024 – Sessions & Streams
The seven-day conference aims at continuing a global dialogue on methods and should attract methodologists from all over the world and all social and spatial sciences (e. g. anthropology, area studies, architecture, communication studies, computational sciences, digital humanities, educational sciences, geography, historical sciences, humanities, landscape planning, philosophy, psychology, sociology, urban design, urban planning, traffic planning and environmental planning). The conference programme will include keynotes, sessions and advanced methodological training courses.

At the moment there are 58 confirmed sessions, thus far organized into 13 streams. Check out the details of each session on the SMUS website - https://gcsmus.org/news/smus-thailand-2024-sessions/

Deliberations by PEIP students in the “Youth for Climate” programme at the American Center, Kolkata

On June 26, 2023, the PEIP (practical-empirical implementation project) team on East Kolkata Wetlands, participated in a round table discussion in the “Youth for Climate” programme at the American Center. The programme focused on discussions centered around the role of protecting and preserving ecosystems and ecological heritage in the Lower Ganga Basin (Kolkata and the Sundarbans delta), through action research such as mangrove plantations, exposure visits, etc.
The round table included students from selected schools of Kolkata and Sundarbans. The wetlands students involved in the PEIP shared their critical understandings on the ontologies of ‘urban’, ‘ecology’ and their interconnections. The critical reflections were outcomes of in-depth reflections of their very own everyday lived spatialities, captured through the application of the SMUS toolkit (of ‘ethno-graphy’) along co-learning sessions organized during the first two phases of PEIP execution– Stage 1: Data Collection and Stage 2: Analysis.
They discussed the methods that they had applied – from photography to interviews, participatory mapping, etc., and shared why they think that these outreach activities could be part of school curricula for spreading ecological awareness among the youth.

The Call will sponsor either one or two teams of academics and practitioners willing to employ a toolkit of spatial methods previously developed by the SMUS Action 4 Team in (respectively) one practical-empirical implementation project (PEIP) authored by the team in order to respectively address one SDG #11 target of their choice.
Applicant teams are both invited and expected to make use of the spatial-method toolkit of SMUS (SMUS Toolkit) as if this set of methodological techniques were a pair of “glasses” to be shared with both academics and practitioners of the team and beyond, thereby obtaining an alternative view of their professional-practical issue of interest.
For more information, complete call guidelines, and application form see the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability website: https://gcsmus.org/news/smus-action-4-call-for-applications-deadline-31-05-2023-2/

PEIP - IIT Madras
Re-Conceptualizing Urban Disaster and Climate Risk: An Ethnographic Exploration of the Everyday Spatiality of Urban Informal Labour in Waste Management
Our PEIPs (Practical Empirical Implementation Projects) draw on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11): “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Within this framework, the PEIP IIT Madras specifically addresses target 11.6 – “Reduce the environmental impacts of cities”.

PEIP – Kharagpur
Ethnography on the Kolkata Wetlands: Historically Enriched Relevant Intervention through ‘Toolkit’ Aided Grassroots Engagement.
Our PEIPs (Practical Empirical Implementation Projects) draw on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11): “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Within this framework, the PEIP Kharagpur specifically addresses target 11.4: “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage”

The PEIPs and the Toolkit Glasses

We wish to emphasize once again the major importance of the spatial-method toolkit of the SMUS (known as the SMUS Toolkit).

A cornerstone of our project, this set of methodological techniques operates as a pair of “glasses” to be shared with both academics and practitioners, thus enabling and promoting an alternative view of their professional-practical activities.

While the Pilot Project (https://gcsmus.org/action-4-exchange-2) carried out in São Paulo, Brazil, from late 2020 to early 2022 introduced the use and application of the SMUS toolkit, other Practical-Empirical Implementation Projects (PEIPs) have been utilizing this same methodological strategy in other countries for different research topics and subjects.

Learn more about the ongoing PEIPs here https://gcsmus.org/peips-2022-202/ and follow our social media pages for more information on past and ongoing results and outputs from these Projects.
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