Navigating uncertainty: Radical rethinking for a turbulent World

Introducing a new book and drawing on experiences from across the world, the talk will explore themes of finance and banking, technology regulation, critical infrastructures, pandemics, natural disasters and climate change.

The talk will contrast an approach centred on risk and control, where we assume we know about and can manage the future, with one that is more flexible, responding to uncertainty.

The book argues that we need to adjust our modernist, controlling view and to develop new approaches, including some reclaimed and adapted from previous times or different cultures. This requires a radical rethinking of policies, institutions and practices for successfully navigating uncertainties in an increasingly turbulent world.

Speaker: Professor Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project, PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Lessons From the Margins).

Chair: Professor Lyla Mehta, Professorial Fellow at IDS and a Visiting Professor at Noragric, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Host or Publisher Institute of Development Studies