Dr. Kariũki Kĩrigia is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the School of the Environment and African Studies Centre at the University of Toronto. Kariuki’s research lies at the intersection of climate change, biodiversity conservation, land governance, African indigenous knowledges, and sustainability in Africa. Kariuki works in close partnership with African indigenous organizations and African universities in pursuit of knowledge co-production for sustainable livelihoods. His publications include an edited book volume titled “‘African Potentials’ for Wildlife Conservation and Natural Resource Management: Against the Image of ‘Deficiency’ and Tyranny of ‘Fortress’”, and a recent co-authored journal article titled “Land grabbing in pastoral areas: insights from Eastern Africa”. His current book project is tentatively titled “Promises of Property: Dispossession, Displacement, and Conservation in African Indigenous Commons”. Kariuki’s past research addresses multiple SDGs and has spanned many countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, the Netherlands, and Canada, focusing on food security, agriculture and agribusiness, floriculture and foreign investments in Africa, payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes, community-led hydroelectricity projects, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), microfinance in rural Kenya, land and water governance, and climate anxiety among youth.
Professor Jauregui’s research addresses how governance and security institutions and actors reflect and shape dynamics of social order and state power. Her monograph Provisional Authority: Police, Order, and Security in India (University of Chicago 2016) is an ethnography of everyday police practices in northern India. She is co-editor of Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency (University of Chicago 2010) and The SAGE Handbook of Global Policing (Sage 2016), and author of numerous chapter contributions and research articles published in American Ethnologist, Asian Policing, Conflict and Society, Journal of South Asian Studies, Law and Social Inquiry, Public Culture, Qualitative Sociology, and Security Dialogue.
Professor Jauregui is currently Principal Investigator on the SSHRC Insight Grant funded project “Police Unions, Democratic Transformation, and Social Justice,” a comparative transnational study of organized policing, identity and labor oriented police associations, and police governance and politics in South Asia, Latin America, and Turtle Island/North America.
Steve Easterbrook received his Ph.D. from Imperial College, London. He studies the development of computational models for understanding climate change, along with the role of models and data visualizations for sharing that knowledge about climate and sustainability with other communities. He teaches courses on Systems Thinking, Climate Literacy, and Software Design.
Emine Fidan Elcioglu is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She received a B.A. in economics and history from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. At the University of Toronto, she teaches courses on critical migration studies, race and ethnicity, and qualitative research methods.
Her research examines immigration politics as a window into broader dynamics of inequality, domination, and resistance. She is the author of Divided by the Wall: Progressive and Conservative Immigration Politics at the U.S.–Mexico Border (University of California Press, 2020), an ethnographic study of why ordinary Americans mobilize around immigration politics even when they doubt their actions will bring change. Most recently, she has also published on the appeal of conservative politics among the children of immigrants, the entanglement of environmentalism and restrictionism, the relationship between guns and nativist movements, and the political consequences of Canada’s private refugee sponsorship system.
Diego Moura Panario is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto’s Munk School, where he is pursuing a double major in Public Policy and International Relations with a minor in Statistics. He is committed to advancing SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) through his academic and professional work. He has gained both international and professional experience through an exchange at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and through his work at the United Nations Development Programme in Istanbul and Addis Ababa. He has also held roles with Statistics Canada and the University of Toronto Students’ Union Board of Directors. Through his work, he has contributed to projects that strengthen data for evidence-based decision-making, promote inclusive governance, and support community representation. His interests include public opinion research, social policy, public transit, and international development.