Expecting resistance to these imposed changes and their various depredations, Katz found little—at least not within the realm of political economy. The local responses to these changes—which included the commodification of everyday life, devegetation of the proximate environment, and transformed social relations of production — encompassed resistance in an array of material social practices that also included resilience and what she called reworking. The flux among these practices, and their mutual reinforcement helped to keep the community afloat during often difficult transitions.

In this seminar Katz will introduce this constellation of practices, which she calls the '3Rs,' (resilience, resistance, reworking) as they unfolded in this case study of environment and development in rural Sudan.

Situating resilience in relation to other responses to change may be of use in thinking through some of the dynamics of social, environmental, and political economic sustainability in a variety of ecological systems.

About Cindi Katz
Cindi Katz is a professor of geography, environmental psychology and women's studies, and Executive Officer of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York.

Her research addresses social reproduction and the production of space, place and nature; the consequences of global economic restructuring for everyday life; the politics of knowledge; children and the environment; and the intertwined spatialities of homeland and home-based security.

She is the author and editor of several books including Growing up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children's Everyday Lives (Minnesota 2004). Her current work addresses the cultural politics of contemporary U.S. childhood as spectacle, and radical urban practice in New York and Detroit.