“Anything they want to learn from Utrecht University is on demand of the communities”

The faculty of Geosciences is working on a strategy to collaborate with the Global South in a meaningful, inclusive and mutually beneficial way. We interviewed people who currently work with the Global South to explore their experiences. Today we speak to assistant professor Annisa Triyanti, whose work focuses on disaster governance and climate risk for sustainability. Triyanti grew up in Indonesia, and moved to the Netherlands during her PhD.

In which way do you currently collaborate with the Global South?

“One of my current projects, SEA-CCHANGE, looks into how coastal communities perceive climate change and its interrelation with their cultural heritage. They might not use the words ‘climate change’, but they do experience the changes. Many communities practice a lot of natural conservation with their knowledge. Sometimes it is about connecting different communities so they can learn from each other and we can learn from them.”

Why do we need to collaborate with the Global South?

“We are currently dealing with challenges at the earth system level: sea-level rise, climate change, coastal flooding. We can’t think and work limited by boundaries and borders because everything is interconnected. It is about the social-economic wellbeing of marginalized people living on the coast. The Global South suffers from what the Global North produces. We need to understand our responsibilities and impacts and work together in partnerships with the Global South.”

What do you need to create a meaningful collaboration?

“I like to call these projects where you are learning from the community ‘slow science’. You are listening and genuinely finding out what the community needs: what’s in it for them? We live and work in a system that values publishing papers and tangibly measurable efforts. My point is not to undermine that type of science. It is very difficult to break the current system of metrics over process, but when you work in the context of the Global South, you need to link the research to the people who will use your results. 

It takes a lot of time, patience and perseverance to do slow science. You need to listen and respect the needs of the other, often societal actors as partners. It’s less about getting the findings and the emphasis in these kind of project lies on impact and increasing the wellbeing of the most vulnerable and marginalized people. Building trust with these people needs an investment of time and patience. The process is not straightforward, and it can take years.

It can be very meaningful to involve local partners and small agencies who are dealing with problems on the ground instead of just big institutions. Another one of my projects in the Banggai archipelago in Indonesia is about those communities. When it comes to nature conservation they have a lot of indigenous knowledge. We facilitated peer-to-peer shared learning among several indigenous communities. They learn not from us but from each other. We don’t impose anything on them; anything they want to learn from Utrecht University is on demand of the communities, like how to talk to policymakers. In that way we empower indigenous practices and integrate their values and input into local, provincial, and national policies.”

What can Utrecht University and the faculty of Geosciences do better when it comes to collaborating with the Global South?

“Currently more people from the Global South are being hired. This is a good start as we are gathering different types of knowledge and science such as political ecology. Also the awareness of the importance of collaborating with the Global South is growing.

Something that is still needed is institutional support and strategic partnerships. This is not just up to Geosciences, it goes all the way up to the university level. On a more practical level is administrative support: it can be very difficult to send money to or invite people from the Global South, for instance.

Students and staff could be better equipped in international contexts. Intercultural training for staff and students who are not from the Global South can help understand different types of interest of parties from different countries. We need to build the system to equip staff, students and researchers to work meaningfully and equally with the Global South.

We need a faculty-wide discussion on decolonization. We talk about the romantic side of it, but right now there is no concrete action and there is a resistance to talking about it. If we want to be transformative, we need openness and a high level of awareness. Everyone can learn.”