CP Fellowships 2023
In 2023 Critical Pathways organised its first fellowship program. In autumn, Dr Alejandro Camargo (Universidad del Norte, Colombia), Dr Leocadia Zhou (University of Fort Hare, South Africa), and Dr Peter Cox (University of Chester, UK) each visited Utrecht for two weeks and organised various wonderful events. Below you can find their profiles and an overview of the events organised.
Alejandro Camargo
Alejandro Camargo is an environmental social scientist and working as assistant professor at Universidad del Norte, Colombia. He is interested in the intersections of nature, society, and politics in fluvial environments. Camargo’s work is informed by scholarship in political ecology, agrarian studies, development studies, and environmental anthropology. The goal of his Critical Pathways Fellowship has been to facilitate critical reflection about the formation of climate frontiers and the multiple voices that emerge from them in our contemporary world, asking what the reaction to a climate crisis reveals about underlying power structures.
Leocadia Zhou
Leocadia Zhou holds a PhD in Geography & Environmental Science. She is the Director at the Risk and Vulnerability Science Centre under the Faculty of Science and Agriculture at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. Her primary area of expertise lies in the study of climate change vulnerability and adaptation, specifically focusing on food, water, and energy security, rural livelihoods, and natural resource management. She is an accomplished researcher who has published over 60 peer- reviewed articles and four book chapters in internationally renowned journals.
Zhou’s work is grounded in transdisciplinary research, knowledge co-production,and community- engaged learning, which resulted in her receiving the Vice Chancellor Excellence Community Engagement Award in 2016. During the fellowships, Zhou will focus on the involving marginalized and underrepresented communities in bridging the science-policy gap and connecting public engagement to diversity and inclusion. Her specific focus is on water, energy and food communities in South Africa. During her time in Utrecht, Zhou provided a public lecture titled "Critical Pathways Lunch Lecture: Navigating Food Security Challenges in South Africa", and organised a workshop for Charm-EU Master Global Challenges for Sustainability and a guest lecture at the Copernicus Institute.
Peter Cox
Peter Cox is professor of sociology at the University of Chester, UK. His research and work published over the last twenty years focuses on cycling and sustainable mobilities. Cox has worked extensively with a range of academic, civil society and activist groups and networks. As a Critical Pathways Fellow Cox focused on the theme of Anthropocene Mobilities, examining how our everyday travel teaches us different ways of being in the world and learning to listen to the voices of the built environment and the voices of human as well as more-than-human bodies.