Assessment Criteria for KTH Field Studies

Assessment Criteria for KTH Field Studies

A. Academic quality, 0-3p

• Is the project well written and well explained (including background, theory, aim, and method)?
• Is the project plan feasible?

B. Relevance for justice and sustainable development, 0-3p

1. Is there a clear description of how the project relates to social justice and ecological sustainability, locally and/or globally.
2. Higher points if references are made to explicit academic frameworks, e.g., on environmental justice, climate justice, or social justice (gender, sex, race, ability); and/or political ecology and/or science-technology-studies (STS), and/or socioecological resilience.
3. Higher points if the student has convincingly shown how their project will address a few specific SDGs, the UN Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030.

C. Impact, 0-3p

• Is the academic output relevant for social, economic, and/or environmental sustainability?
• Higher points if the students can show an implementation plan or possibilities of implementing the work in the short term.

D. Progression, 0 or 1p

• Is the project connected to an already existing research project or academic cooperation?
• Is there a clear plan for integrating the project output into the host organization’s work or in the local context?

E. Other relevant experience, 0 or 1p

• Other relevant experience directly connected to the proposed project or the context of the project, for example, knowledge of the local language, community engagement relevant to the project, relevant work experience, etc.

F. Master’s level, 0 or 1p

• Projects on the master’s level get 1,0p

G. Dissemination and communication, 0 or 1p

• Does the applicant(s) have a plan for disseminating and communicating results to relevant local, national, and international actors (such as authorities and organizations)?

In addition to the above, we will also cater to have diversified academic backgrounds of the students and a geographical spread of the selected projects.

We are using a half-point grading scale from 0-3p.

The terms

Environmental justice, climate justice, or social justice (gender, sex, race, ability); and/or Political ecology and/or science-technology-studies (STS) and/or socioecological resilience.

Definitions

Environmental justice is typically defined as distributive justice, which is the equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits. Some definitions address procedural justice, which is the fair and meaningful participation in decision-making. Other scholars emphasize recognition justice, which is the recognition of oppression and difference in environmental justice communities. … [I]nitiatives have been taken to expand the notion of environmental justice beyond the three pillars of distribution, participation, and recognition to also include the dimensions of self-governing authority, relational ontologies, and epistemic justice. (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_justice  with references therein; see also The Environmental Justice Atlas, ejatlas.org/ ; Temper, del Bene, and Martinez-Alier, 2015)

Climate justice is a type of environmental justice that focuses on the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalized or otherwise vulnerable populations. Climate justice seeks to achieve an equitable distribution of both the burdens of climate change and the efforts to mitigate climate change. … Climate justice [also] examines the historical responsibilities for climate change [so as to recognise] that those who have benefited most from industrialisation bear a disproportionate responsibility for the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, and thus for climate change. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus that people in regions that are the least responsible for climate change as well as the world's poorest and most marginalised communities often tend to suffer the greatest consequences. Depending on the country and context, this may include people with low-incomes, indigenous communities or communities of color. (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_justice  with references therein)

Social justice [addresses] the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals’ rights are recognized and protected. … [T]he emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity. (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice  with references therein)

Political ecology [has a] broad scope and interdisciplinary nature [which] lends itself to multiple definitions and understandings. However, common assumptions [include] three fundamental assumptions in practising political ecology: First, changes in the environment do not affect society in a homogenous way: political, social, and economic differences account for uneven distribution of costs and benefits. Second, “any change in environmental conditions must affect the political and economic status quo [and vice versa].” Third, the unequal distribution of costs and benefits […] has political implications in terms of … altered power relationships. In addition, political ecology attempts to provide critiques and alternatives in the interplay of the environment and political, economic and social factors. Paul Robbins asserts that the discipline has a “normative understanding that there are very likely better, less coercive, less exploitative, and more sustainable ways of doing things.” (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ecology )

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary area of research that seeks to examine how scientific discoveries and technological innovations shape society and vice versa. STS… merges two broad streams of scholarship. The first consists of research on the nature and practices of science and technology… The second stream concerns itself more with the impacts and control of science and technology, with particular focus on the risks, benefits and opportunities that science and technology may pose to peace, security, community, democracy, environmental sustainability, and human values. (Source: sts.hks.harvard.edu/about/whatissts.html ). STS scholars “look at how theories, methods, and material pieces of equipment are used in practice in specific social, organisational, cultural and national contexts – and they look at the effects of those practices. So the first lesson is this: STS attends to practices, and it is practical itself. The second lesson follows from this. STS works through its case-studies. If you want to understand STS you need to read it through its cases.” (Law 2016: 31)

Social-ecological resilience is “the capacity of a social-ecological system to sustain a certain set of benefits from biophysical processes, in face of uncertainty and change, for a certain set of humans” (Ernstson 2013: 15). — This definition comes from Ernstson (2013) who critiques overly functionalist and apolitical formulations of resilience, writing that: “If the guiding rule of analysis and application of ecosystem management is to sustain social-ecological resilience, interpreted as the ability to maintain the generation of ecosystem services (Folke et al., 2002), then it could be argued that system resilience can be sustained by maintaining unjust, even oppressive social structures, i.e. in which the distribution of (and access to) ecosystem services falls unevenly among the present and future population. With a two-fold perspective on social–ecological systems—both distribution and generation of ecosystem services are equally appearing—this way of thinking about resilience can be scrutinized and challenged, and instead invite to creative and radical thinking on political actions to transform the system towards both increased ecological resilience and social justice (Fig. 2). For this, I offer a more critically formulated definition of system resilience: Resilience is the capacity of a social-ecological system to sustain a certain set of benefits from biophysical processes, in face of uncertainty and change, for a certain set of humans.” (Source: Ernstson 2013).

Futher reading

Agyeman, Julian, David Schlosberg, Luke Craven, and Caitlin Matthews. 2016. ‘Trends and Directions in Environmental Justice: From Inequity to Everyday Life, Community, and Just Sustainabilities’. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 41:321–40.

Ernstson, Henrik. 2013. ‘The Social Production of Ecosystem Services: Environmental Justice and Ecological Complexity in Urbanized Landscapes’. Landscape and Urban Planning 109 (1): 7–17. doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.10.005 .

Law, John. 2016. STS as method. In: Felt, Ulrike, Rayvon Fouche, Clark A. Miller, Laurel Smith-Doerr (eds.) 2016. The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, fourth edition. MIT Press: Cambridge & London, pp. 31-57. Author’s copy here: heterogeneities.net/publications/Law2015STSAsMethod.pdf

Robbins, Paul. 2012. Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. — Chapter 1 “Political versus Apolitical Ecologies,” peopleplace.home.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/robbins_pe-chapter-1.pdf

Schlosberg, David, and Lisette B Collins. 2014. ‘From Environmental to Climate Justice: Climate Change and the Discourse of Environmental Justice’. Climate Change 5:359–374.

Temper, Leah, Daniela del Bene and Joan Martinez-Alier. 2015. Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: The EJAtlas. Journal of Political Ecology 22: 255-278.
Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas | Temper | Journal of Political Ecology (arizona.edu)

See also The Environmental Justice Atlas ( ejatlas.org/ ).