The Great Green Wall and Sahelian Environmental Imaginaries: Green Fix and the Persistence of a Policy Idea

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Detlef Müller-Mahn
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 502827934

The necessity to address the challenges of climate change and environmental degradation is usually expressed in terms of visions of desirable futures, which are implemented through large-scale green transformation programmes. This research project aims to explore high-end conceptualisations of African green futures by studying how ideas of greening the Sahel region have developed, persisted and been contested. It understands future visions of green transformation as ‘socio-technical imaginaries’, i.e., as the application of modern technologies for a ‘technical green fix’. The findings will be used to explore the ways in which contested and changing visions of green transformations can provide a contribution to long standing debates on the persistence of ideas, with the tools and methods to develop an interdisciplinary approach to studying environmental socio-technical imaginaries. This study will ultimately help challenge entrenched imaginaries, and their associated governance and political economic relations. This will be achieved through a participatory exhibition, focus groups, interviews and archival research and the research findings will be shared through a final conference, academic publications and the production of a comic book. The study will be conducted in Burkina Faso, Senegal and Ethiopia by an interdisciplinary team involving political historians, human geographers, and social and cultural anthropologists.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Jeremy Allouche