Introduction
Lecturer working on sustainable development, climate justice, and the Caribbean.
Expert
Leon Sealey-Huggins is a Lecturer in Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick. Leon completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds in 2014. The thesis constituted a sociological investigation into the politics of climate change in the Caribbean. It involved conducting ethnographic fieldwork with actors involved in activism, public engagement and policy-making across the region. The thesis found that while there are indeed trends towards depoliticised, and unsociological, responses to climate change in and around the Caribbean, it is impossible to understand these tendencies without reference to the history of the region as a formerly colonised area. Moreover, the current trajectories of development and climate change in the Caribbean need to be understood in relation to more recent shifts towards forms of neoliberal governance.
Leon’s other general research interests centre on and around: the sociology of climate change in the Caribbean; the conditions of contemporary higher education; explorations in activist-scholarship; and the impacts of neoliberalism on contemporary societies.
Leon has conducted consultancy work for UNESCO, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and others, as well as working in public and community engagement and activism.
Fields of expertise: Education, Environmental policy / climate change, Inclusive social development / inclusive societies / social inclusion, Social change / social transformations, Social innovation / public sector innovation / policy innovation