USER - Unit for Social and Environmental Research

Mission

To conduct and coordinate high quality inter-disciplinary research on the relationships between human society and the environment that will make a contribution to improving ecological sustainability, human well-being and social justice in the Southeast Asia region.

Activities

We carry out field-based action research on the interactions between livelihoods, lifestyles and social institutions with the environment. This body of research tries to be critical and reflective while striving to listen to the needs and claims articulated by socially vulnerable groups.

We help design and coordinate integrated studies of environmental change in the Southeast Asia region. These involve multi-stakeholder and -author assessments, scenario building and integrated modelling.

We build partnerships with and between diverse research and development organizations. These networks of collaboration often negotiate and jointly pursue shared research programs that are a basis for comparative analysis, synthesis and learning. See, for example, the water governance network and program M-POWER.

We contribute to theory development through critical synthesis and re-conceptualization of relationships. Key themes include resilience, knowledge systems, and governance.

Needs

We selected the acronym USER because it reflects our philosophy of trying to do the highest quality research we can while keeping the needs of users, whether decision-makers or action-takers, in focus.

What's
New

Sustainable Production-Consumption Systems: Knowledge, Engagement and Practice is our latest book. It encourages researchers and practitioners to adopt a systems perspective to challenges of sustainability - one in which both production and consumption considerations are taken into account. The book is a product of the SPACES international working group. The book is published by Springer

Critical States provides transboundary "state-of-the-science" reviews, case studies, and assessments of issues in the environmental change-development nexus in Monsoon Southeast Asia, including: governance and institutional challenges, urbanization, climate change, as well as land, energy and water use. Critial States was prepared as a a contribution to Monsoon Asia Integrated Study and the ERA program at USER. The book is published by SIRD/Gerakbudaya

Contested Waterscapes is the second edited volume in a planned series arising out of the international program M-POWER whose supporting network is coordinated by USER. The book is published by EarthScan. Volume I in the series "Democratizing Water Governance in the Mekong Region" is also still available from Mekong Press. 

ESG - Adaptiveness.  USER is contributing to new The Earth System Governance project of the IHDP by leading the initial program on Adaptiveness.  The 2009 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change to be held on 2-4 December 2009 will focus on "Earth System Governance".

USER is formally affiliated with the Faculty of Social Sciences at Chiang Mai University.