A new project to empower those who lack voice in climate action and to provide alternative ways to share risk perception has been awarded £190,000 in funding.
A grant from Official Development Assistance (ODA) Challenge-Oriented Research Grant 2024 from the British Academy will support researchers from the University of Aberdeen in combining musical and hydrology knowledge to provide creative outputs on socio-economic, cultural, and emotional connections to water.
Led by Professor Suk-Jun Kim in Music along with Dr Christina Ballico (Music) and Dr David Haro Monteagudo (Geoscience), the project titled "Futures of Listening: Water Knowledge from Two Cities" will focus on vulnerable local communities in Jakarta and Istanbul which face prolonged water-related risks due to climate crisis and ineffective or maladaptive water policies.
It will bring together experts in hydrology and water security, sound studies and technology, participatory and experimental filmmaking, urban government and asset-based community building, and urban design practice.
They will examine gaps between existing policies and the communities' perceived risks and experienced impact and to explore ways in which their local knowledge and socio-economic, cultural, and emotional connection to water can be brought to policy design and implementation.
Professor Kim said: “Our work will build upon a project entitled Futures of Listening which was a sound studies and art and research initiative centred around the question of what is going to happen to the ways in which we listen in a couple of decades. This included a ‘listening to climate change’ element which we were keen to expand upon.
“We will use creative practices to encourage those who lack in power and voice in climate action to share risk perception, local knowledge and experience.
“These will be captured in sound, on film and in other mediums with a shared theme of our responses to water. We will then use this to explore gaps between existing water related policies and local water knowledge.”
The project is an international collaboration between the University of Aberdeen, Jakarta-based art collective Forum Lenteng, and Urban.Koop, a collective network of independent urban design practitioners in Istanbul.
It will be mapped to the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development with a focus on SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; SDG 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; and SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.