Violent Environments and Infrastructures

For its research on violent environments and infrastructures, bicc explores how differing worldviews on access to resources, climate-driven scarcity and development projects contribute to social conflicts, aiming to understand and address the link between violent conflict and social inequalities through the lens of sustainability.

The divergence of perspectives among individuals regarding the accessibility, regulation, utilisation and exploitation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, such as water, land, minerals or grazing land, provides a foundation for the emergence of social conflicts that can escalate into violent conflicts.

Furthermore, many who are marginalised and underprivileged across the globe are facing rising resource shortages due to climate change. Large-scale infrastructure, economic growth and nature conservation initiatives promise a better future. At the same time, these very initiatives may also obstruct some people's access to resources and jeopardise their local livelihood strategies. Climate change and long-term development strategies promote socio-ecological transformation processes that are fraught with social and political conflict.

bicc seeks to establish an applied understanding of sustainability that addresses the relationship between violent conflict and social inequality by tackling the challenges posed by the climate crisis, food insecurity, land-use change and the control of access to land.