Rethinking Urban Nature from the South

Urban nature is not a blank slate, not just an extractable resource, not a deployable “solution”—is it not instead a contested terrain, shaped by power, history and competing visions of the future? Dominant modes of environmental governance, rooted in Western epistemologies and technocratic logics, reduce nature to a tool for climate mitigation, resilience, revitalization, or commodified aesthetic experience. These frameworks, masquerading as universal, silence plural ways of knowing and being, erasing the myriad socio-ecological entanglements that animate lively worlds in the urbanizing Global South. Nature-based solutions, green and blue infrastructure, and adaptation policies, often framed through elitist environmentalism, serve the interests of the privileged while displacing poor people’s collectively built settlements, appropriating indigenous practices, and instrumentalizing the agency of non-human actors—rivers, wetlands, wildlife—that are integral to urban ecologies.

In contemporary Southern cities, these policies reproduce exclusionary urban development, reinforcing colonial legacies of dispossession and epistemic violence. The Global South is cast as perpetually ‘catching up,’ its urban nature seen as derivative or incomplete, rather than as a site of alternative ontologies, evolving knowledges and practices, and vibrant socio-ecological relations. This is not merely an environmental issue but a political one: a struggle over who defines nature, who benefits from it, and who is erased in the process.

The task, then, is to unsettle urban nature as we understand it—to foreground Southern perspectives not as a counterpoint to the North, but as a reimagining of urban nature itself. How do cities in the Global South produce nature through social, political and ecological entanglements? What forms of resistance emerge when marginalised human and non-human actors reclaim their place in urban ecologies? And how do these situated knowledges challenge universal claims of Western environmental governance?

In an era of climate destruction, growing authoritarianism, and deepening inequality, urban nature cannot be reduced to a technocratic fix, or a blueprint for sustainability projects that assuage the privileged. It demands a different way of thinking—one that listens to the voices of rivers, the resilience of informal settlements, and the insurgencies of indigenous practices. In responding to this conjuncture, this symposium is a call to reimagine urban nature as a site of potentiality, power, prefiguration, and multiplicity, rooted in the lived realities of the Global South.

Key themes and questions include:

• How do dominant nature-based solutions perpetuate exclusionary, Western-centric understandings of urban nature?

• What alternative ontologies of nature emerge from Southern cities, and how do they disrupt dominant paradigms?

• How do marginalised human and non-human actors shape urban nature, and what forms of resistance and adaptation emerge in these entanglements?

• In what ways does urban nature intersect with histories of coloniality, dispossession, and socio-ecological resistance?

• How can a decolonial approach to urban nature inform global environmental governance and just transitions?

Expected outcomes:

• A critical and interdisciplinary rethinking of urban nature that foregrounds Southern perspectives on socio-ecological entanglements.

• Tangible outputs, including a collaboratively authored journal article building on the symposium's thematic discussions.

• A collaborative research network committed to advancing environmental thought from the Global South.

Call for Participation
We invite PhD students, early-career researchers, and scholars working on Global South urbanisms to participate in the symposium on April 15, 2025, at the University of Sheffield. The event will be hybrid, allowing both in-person and online participation.

Format 

The symposium aims to bring together scholars from urban studies, planning, geography, anthropology, political ecology and environmental humanities. It seeks to bridge theory and practice, moving beyond critique to explore situated, context-driven strategies for reimagining urban nature.

We encourage contributions from researchers engaging with diverse theoretical approaches—including but not limited to decolonial, queer, feminist, indigenous, and post-humanist perspectives—that challenge dominant frameworks of urban nature. Participants may present empirical research, theoretical reflections, or methodological innovations that foreground Southern ontologies and epistemologies of nature. While this symposium centers on Southern/Eastern perspectives, it also welcomes those working empirically in Northern contexts who seek to learn from and work with Southern theory. The challenges of urban nature are global, but the solutions need not—and indeed cannot—be universal. By fostering dialogue between North and South, we aim to disrupt the unidirectional flow of knowledge that has historically characterised environmental governance.

The symposium will be in a roundtable format where we each get to share our own reimaginations of urban nature, with two keynote provocation presentations in each session.

Support for Participants:

• Train tickets will be provided for participants traveling from within the UK to attend in person.

• Hybrid joining options will be available for those unable to travel to Sheffield.

To express interest in participating, please submit a 100-word abstract.

Deadline: March 25, 2025 (5 pm GMT).

Accepted participants will be notified by March 27, 2025.

Submission Form: https://forms.gle/RwdShAhPdXvpFZVu9

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For any enquiries, please contact Andrew Hughes (ahughes10@sheffield.ac.uk). 

Acknowledgement: The ReWET Project is one of the 21 projects in REDAA. REDAA is a programme that supports locally led research and action for nature restoration and climate resilience in Africa and Asia. It is funded by UK International Development from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and managed by IIED.

We look forward to your contributions in collectively rethinking urban nature from the perspectives of Southern cities.