Mark Tebboth

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Mark Tebboth

Dr

 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1193-8080

  • ENV

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

I have a number of active research areas but am particularly interested in research that addresses any of the following issues.

(1) Climate resilient development (pathways) are currently seen as one approach to balance the often competing demands between between climate action and development. Despite the developments in thinking in this area empirical studies exploring practically how (or even if) this can be achieved are thin on the ground.

(2) As climate impacts deepen the consequences for mental health will be more pronounced and more visible. Using solastalgia (the grief one feels when one's home / community are irrevocably lost or changed) as a starting point, I am interested in exploring how people and places manage feelings of loss brought on by climate change and how we can ensure that these more intangible elements are incorporated and recognised within climate responses at different levels (e.g. internationally within the loss and damage framework through to appropriate national and sub-national action to support mental health impacts).

(3) Human mobility associated with climate change has been a long standing interest of mine and I am always on the look out for exciting research that explores some of the many issues that link mobility, adaptation, and climate change.

(4) How people represent themselves and are represented during times of crises (for instance following disaster events) has significant and lasting implications for their longer-term recovery. Typically, those who are disempowered and marginalised are least able to shape the way that they are represented which undermines their abilities to express the type and nature of interventions and support that would be most beneficial for them. I am particularly keen to support and engage with empowering research that seeks to upend typical power dynamics and give voice and agency to those who are often less visible.

Please do approach me if you are interested in any of the issues highlighted above.

Personal profile

Areas of Expertise

Climate change impacts

Adaptation to the impacts of environmental change

Human Monbility, Migration and Displacement 

Resilience and Vulnerability

Global Environmental Justice

Framing of contentious environmental issues

Poltical ecology

Biography

I joined the School of International Development (DEV) as a Lecturer in the Environment and International Development in November 2018. I am an interdisciplinary social scientist whose research addresses issues related to how people and populations respond to and adapt to risks arising primarily from global environmental change. Within this broad area of research, I have particular interests in human migration / mobility and forced displacement, vulnerability, resilience and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction and risks linked to a changing global climate. I have worked in many countries around the world but currently focus on the Greater Horn of Africa, South Asia and Latin America. I have a number of currently active research projects including Successful integration pathways for migration as adaptation (SUCCESS), an IDRC FCDO-funded project in South Asia focusing on the development of evaluative tools and metrics to support migration as adaptation; an FCDO-funded project, Climate Change Local Adaptation Pathways (CLAPs) focusing on the migration and adaptation in India; in East Africa, PROSE: Evidence-policy pathways for Prosopis management in the Horn of Africa; and Voices of Recovery: recognising intersecting risks, capacities and pandemic recovery needs in marginalised communities of Latin America, funded by AHRC, IDRC, FAPESP (via the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities).

In addition to my work in DEV, I am a theme leader in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and am leading the Centre's research activities on understanding how to address the twin goals of poverty alleviation and achieving meaningful action on climate change. I am also the theme co-leader for the Climate@Uea initiative focusing on the 2020s as the critical climate decade. I co-convene the Masters in Climate Change and International Development and teach on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses covering issues linked to the governance of natural resources, climate change, and migration. Prior to joining DEV as a lecturer, I was employed as a Senior Research Associate during which time I worked on a number of research projects including a major programme of research in the pastoralist drylands of East Africa (Ethiopia and Kenya) through the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) research project funded by IDRC/DFID. I read for a PhD on the impact of extreme events on rural to urban migration in China, at the UEA. Before embarking on my PhD, I worked with a varied career in the fields of climate change, related environmental issues and international development.

 

Academic Background

I graduated from the School of African and Asian Studies at University of Sussex with a joint degree in Geography with Environmental and Development Studies in 2001. I returned to University in 2011 to read for a MSc in Climate Change and International Development at the School of International Development at UEA where I graduated with Distinction and one the Blaikie Prize for best dissertation in politics of the environment. I subsequently remained at UEA to read for my Doctorate in migration and international development where I was supervised by Prof. Declan Conway, Prof. Neil Adger,  and Dr. Catherine Locke in the UK and Prof. Peng and Dr. Wu at Fudan University in China. My thesis explored the links between mobility and resilience in the context of climatically-driven environmental change in China. Using two villages in Anhui Province, China as a comparative case study, I investigated the impact of two types of climatically driven environmental change (a flood and a drought) with a specific focus on the role of mobility. My study employed a novel conceptual framework that combined elements of Leach et al’s (1999) ‘Environmental Entitlements Framework’ with a resilience framing to understand the processes, characteristics and outputs that contribute to resilience at different levels of analysis. Through the use of this novel conceptual approach, I explored issues of social heterogeneity and mobility endowments and entitlements. Key findings from my research were published in 2019 in the Journal of Global Environmental Change.

Upon completing my PhD I took up a post-doctoral position in the School of International Development before moving into my current role as Lecturer in the Environment and International Development

Research Group or Lab Membership

Global Environmental Justice Group

Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

Migration Research Network

Keywords

  • Environmental Social Sciences
  • Climate change adaptation
  • Vulnerability
  • Resilience
  • Migration Studies
  • Mobility
  • Immobility
  • Migration and social cohesion
  • Global Environmental Justice
  • Poverty
  • Inequality
  • Geography (General)

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  1. SDG 1 - No Poverty
    SDG 1 No Poverty
  2. SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation
    SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
  3. SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
    SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
  4. SDG 13 - Climate Action
    SDG 13 Climate Action

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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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