Land Body Ecologies
We are a global interdisciplinary network exploring the deep interconnections of mental and ecosystem health. Since 2019 we have been working to understand and engage with the experiences of land trauma among land dependant and indigenous communities. Our research is rooted within communities at the forefront of today's climate, ecosystem and land rights issues. Through long form collaboration, we seek to understand the traumas endured when the land suffers.
A short video introduction to LBE project and team.
Videographers:
Invisible Flock, Antti J. Leinonen, Jason Taylor, Quicksand.
Land Body Ecologies team members recording sounds of the hydropower station that sits on the river Kemi, Finland, 2022. © Invisible Flock.
Team
Ayesha Ahmad
Ayesha is a senior lecturer in global health at St Georges University of London and honorary lecturer at the Institute for Global Health, University College London. She holds a PhD in medical ethics and has developed specialisation in mental health ethics.
Her research expertise is in transcultural psychiatry and cross-cultural mental health, working particularly in contexts of conflict and humanitarian crisis resulting from disasters including environmental change.
Samrawit Gougsa
Samrawit is part of Minority Rights Group International (MRG) a non-governmental organisation working to safeguard the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide, and to promote cooperation and understanding between communities.
It is guided by 150 partner organisations, which represent minority and indigenous peoples in 50 countries. It has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and observer status with the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.
Invisible Flock
Invisible Flock are an award winning interactive arts studio operating at the intersection of art and technology.
We are artist led.
Our aim is to open up critically important ways of thinking about how we live, how we connect and share to live better together in a global society. To achieve this we believe that art must be made alongside a broad range of different people. We infiltrate many sectors aiming to have a creative impact on ecology, politics, health and society and to expose wherever possible that everything is fluid and can be rebuilt and reconfigured to be better.
Quicksand
Quicksand is an interdisciplinary design research and innovation consultancy based in India. Our work is driven by an approach that seeks to build on a rich, evocative understanding of people and environments, into meaningful opportunities. This is done through multidisciplinary collaborations, expressed through manifests that thread product, service and systemic interventions.
All our work is grounded in the realities of people, co-creating with rather than for; tuned to inform and inspire, and focused on realising experienceable value.
Outi Autti
PhD Outi Autti specializes in multidisciplinary research in the fields of environmental sociology, migration studies, rural education, and human geography at Giellagas Institute, University of Oulu. She holds the Title of Docent in Cultural Sociology at the University of Lapland. Her current research interests include human-environment relationship, health and wellbeing in the northern circumpolar areas, people's experiences and the social contexts of their narratives. Power relations, inequality, and marginal positions have been of interest to her throughout her research career.
Agnes Kabajuni
Agnes is the Regional Manager of Minority Rights Group Africa (MRGA) in Kampala, Uganda, where she oversees programmes that range from responding to urgent health and education needs of marginalised communities, to defending collective land rights and advocating for legal recognition. She is a human rights and gender expert with 20 years’ experience in NGO programming, research, and advocacy.
Agnes holds a BA in Sociology and Kiswahili from Makerere University and a MA in Human Rights from the University of Essex.
Daniel Kobei
Daniel is the founder and Executive Director of Ogiek Peoples' Development Program (OPDP), an NGO in Kenya that promotes the human and land rights of the indigenous Ogiek. One of his key achievements is leading the Ogiek to winning a landmark case against the Government of Kenya in May 2017, where the Ogiek received recognition of their rights to live in Mau Forest.The ruling marked the first judgement from the highest institutional human rights body in Africa to favour the cause of Indigenous Peoples, setting a precedent for similar cases across the continent.
He has MBA in Strategic Management and a Post Graduate Diploma in Project Appraisal and Management.
Kaisa Kerätär
Kaisa is a biologist and she has worked in both the environmental and creative sectors as a researcher, manager, producer and a consultant.
She works at Waria; a cultural, artistic and design organisation creating new projects and businesses while also working in the environmental sector, researching freshwater ecology and environmental impact assessment. In her work she likes to combine scientific, artistic and sociological approaches and examine interactions between nature and human, land-based knowledge and intergenerational dialogue.
Her roots are in Finnish Lapland, in Forest Lapp culture.
Sheila Ghelani
Sheila works as both an independent and collaborative artist, having made research-led performance work, place-responsive live art, moving image works, and social art projects engaging participants across age and background, in the UK and internationally for over 25 years.
She is interested in the relationship between art and science with particular focus on hybridity informed by her own experience of being mixed heritage (Indian/English), and the practice of medicine and care.
Sylvia Kokunda
Sylvia is the Chief Executive Officer of Action for Batwa Empowerment Group (ABEG), a non-profit organisation in Uganda working for the empowerment of the indigenous Batwa community. Sylvia, a member of the community herself, was motivated to establish the organisation after seeing and experiencing first-hand the political, social and economic marginalisation that her community faces. She has represented her community at national, regional, and international human rights forums, where she has boldly spoken out against the unbearable injustices the Batwa continue to suffer on the government's watch.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and Management and Master of Arts in Organisational Leadership and Management.
I grew up in Karen village with nine brothers and sisters learning local wisdom and traditional knowledge. On the other hand, I finished a master's degree from Open University. Learning about global change with local roots is also part of what I learned from ARI (Asean Rural Institute) in 2009. I believe that small scale farming can lead to sustainable development and beautiful living.
In 2011, I started Lazy Man Coffee to fight mono cropping corn and introduce alternative farming to the people in Karen village. I hope to direct the coffee market to Thailand and share the "slow down for the Earth" philosophy. The most delicious is rice, the most beautiful is human, the best smelling is a baby, the coolest water. Pgak'yau words that fell into my heart since I first heard them.
Siwakorn Odochao