Sunil Amrith: Breaking the Wall to Reimagining Environmental Justice in Historical Perspective
Sunil Amrith is this year’s Falling Walls Science Breakthrough in the Social Sciences and Humanities category. On 9 November 2022, he will take up the stage at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin. Find out more about the Science Summit three-day programme, other speakers and how you can take part: https://falling-walls.com/science-sum...
Scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities category set out to challenge our perception of the world, its history, and our place in it. What projects lead to new ways of thinking, have a great effect on society, and stand out in their academic approach? Let's celebrate the outstanding scientific ideas the Falling Walls distinguished jury selected from this year's nominations.
Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, He is the author of four books, including Unruly Waters (2018) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013). His work connects environmental history with the history of migration, with a focus on South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Amrith is the recipient of the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities, a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, and the 2022 A.H. Heineken Prize for History.
Sunil Armit's work puts global migration at the heart of global environmental history, bridging those two fields in new ways. His research shows that the origins of our global environmental emergency are inseparable from the inequalities that arose from the reshaping of the planet by human mobility in the age of empire. He uses historical perspectives to question current assumptions about how climate change and migration are connected, arguing against a reductive and deterministic view of their relationship. His perspective on global environmental history moves outwards from the languages, landscapes, and waters of South and Southeast Asia.
At the heart of his investigation is the reshaping of the planet by global migration. In order to understand what environmental justice demands now, we need to understand that environmental harm accelerated in tandem with human movement under conditions of unfreedom. This has led him to imagine the relationship between the climate crisis and migration as fundamentally a crisis of habitability, as large numbers of people around the world find their homes – places of attachment and belonging – becoming unlivable through sustained erosion as much as sudden crisis. Understanding this crisis of habitability suggests that our conception of environmental justice should expand to include the right to remain, as well as the right to migrate.
Sunil Amrith is this year’s Falling Walls Science Breakthrough in the Life Science category. On 9 November 2022, he will take up the stage at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin.
Find out more about the Science Summit three-day programme, other speakers and how you can take part: Falling Walls Science Summit 2022 (https://falling-walls.com/science-sum....
About the Falling Walls Science Summit
The Falling Walls Science Summit is a leading international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral forum for scientific breakthroughs and science dialogue between global science leaders and society. The event takes place every year from 7–9 November in Berlin, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. With formats Falling Walls Pitches (7 November), Falling Walls Circle (8 November) and Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year (9 November), the Falling Walls Science Summit is the leading forum for global science leaders from academia, business, politics, the media, and civil society to debate the potential of scientific breakthroughs to solve grand challenges and shape a sustainable future. The Falling Walls Science Summit is organised by the non-profit Falling Walls Foundation. More: www.falling-walls.com
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FALLING WALLS SCIENCE SUMMIT
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