Stockholm Resilience Centre
Jamila Haider is a postdoctoral researcher studying resilience and development. Her research looks specifically at development as a process of coevolution where ecosystems and people are deeply intertwined.
Her PhD thesis (2017) explored how efforts to alleviate poverty can better account for coevolving relationships between people and nature. Persistent poverty is often conceptualised as a poverty trap, a concept which has thus far failed to incorporate interdependencies between human well-being, nature and culture. As such, interventions to alleviate poverty are often ineffective or may even exacerbate poverty - especially in areas with rich biological and cultural (biocultural) diversity. Drawing upon multiple approaches, Jamila's PhD thesis advances new conceptualisations of development that more explicitly incorporate social and ecological interdependencies, and offers a new lens for examining the implications of development interventions. Jamila's work also underscores the need to improve how we navigate tensions among the various contrasting epistemologies and methodologies that together are needed for delivering a rigorous sustainability science.
Further interests include: assessing resilience, stewardship, integrating knowledge systems, early-career journeys in sustainability science, and gardening.
Prior her PhD at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Haider completed her Master's degree at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis used Elinor Ostrom's Social-Ecological Systems framework to assess institutional governance of Joint Forestry Management in Tajikistan. Jamila has Bachelor degrees in Biology and Political Science (Development Studies focus) from Carleton University, where her Honour's thesis focused on Community Based Natural Resource Management in South-East Madagascar. She worked from 2009-2011 as an International Development practitioner with the Aga Khan Foundation in Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
Jamila is also an author of the book, "With Our Own Hands: A celebration of food and life in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan,"
Key research Interests: social-ecological, resilience, development, food systems, biocultural diversity, mountains, relational
Member Since: 2020
