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Upcoming Events
Sociology Speaker Series
Locally Led Adaptation in Bangladesh: Transformation or Normalized Disruption?
Mon April 7th, 2025
12:15-1:45
200 Center Classroom

Danielle Falzon.Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Rutgers University – New Brunswick

Efforts to adapt society to the impacts of climate change across the Global South are failing. In Bangladesh, commonly known as one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world, significant adaptation work has been taking place for decades with limited effects. Part of the reason for this is that adaptation work has been carried out by a field of organizational actors that produce projects according to norms and best practices that are not well-suited to effective adaptation. These norms and practices also ensure that foreign funders and international organizations are most privileged in the field and have the most control over decision-making, while local actors struggle to determine their own futures. Recently, a new framework has entered the adaptation field: locally led adaptation (LLA). LLA challenges the prevalent top-down approaches to adaptation and instead asserts that the local people who are impacted by climate change should be the ones leading adaptation projects. In studying adaptation in Bangladesh, I saw LLA’s introduction into the field in 2020, and in 2023 when I returned for follow-up research, I found that everyone was talking about LLA. However, what appeared at first to be a transformative change turned out to be what I call a “logically sound disruption.” I demonstrate how LLA has been normalized into the existing logics of the adaptation field such that actors can adopt a transformative idea without significantly changing their practices. In doing so, I demonstrate the durability of fields, including their resistance to transformative change.

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Past Events

Fernando Riosmena, Professor of Sociology and Demography at University of Texas at San Antonio discussed “Cumulative disadvantage and the aging of Mexican immigrants in the United States” on March 3, 2025.

Quan Mai, PhD, Rutgers University, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, discussed “Precarious Transitions: How Precarious Employment Shapes Parental Coresidence among Young Adults” on October 25, 2024.

Rachel DonnellyAssistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, discussed “Structuralizing the Stress Process: States as Contextual Determinants of Stress and Mental Health” on October 7, 2024.

Samantha Simon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology and School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, presented “Before the Badge: How Academy Training Shapes Police Violence” on September 23, 2024

Dr. Kris Marsh, Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Maryland, presented “The Love Jones Cohort: Examining the Lifestyles of those Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class” on April 12, 2024.

Joel K. Bourne, Journalist with National Geographic, W.W. Norton, presented “Feeding the Planet: On the Road to Sustainability…or Agrigeddon” on April 4, 2024.

Dr. Deana Rohlinger, Professor of Sociology at Florida State University, presented “From the Computer Chair to the Streets: The Left, Digital Technologies, and Civil Society in the 21st Century” on April 3, 2024.

Dr. Caleb Scoville, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tufts University, presented “Stupid Little Fish: Extraction, Conservation, and the Politics of Environmental Decline” on March 22, 2024.

Dr. Jake Watson, Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University, presented “Resettlement Infrastructures: A Multiscalar Perspective on the US Refugee System” on September 29, 2023.

Dr. Patrick Greiner, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, presented “The racial differentiation of space, and the spatial differentiation of emissions: Understanding the relationship between redlining, and primary drivers of CO2 emissions in the U.S. cities” on April 20, 2023.

Dr. Bianca Manago, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, presented “A Call for Standardization: A Systematic Review of Mental Illness Labeling and Stigma Research” on April 6th, 2023.

Dr. Heba Gowayed, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University, presented “Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential” on March 30, 2023.

Dr. Kristen Harknett, Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, presented “Filling in the Paid-Leave Patchwork: The Role of National Firms in the Diffusion of Local Policy Mandates” on March 23, 2023.