WEBINAR INVITE: Present And Imminent: Crises And Complexity In Mexico And South Africa

maHp/ACMS director Professor Jo Vearey will be taking part in this virtual South-South dialogue titled ‘Present and Imminent: Crises and Complexity in Mexico and South Africa’, organised by UNAM-Sudáfrica Centro de Estudios Mexicanos. The webinar will focus on contemporary and emerging crises in the two countries, including Covid-19. Vearey will be presenting on her interdisciplinary research focusing on the intersections between migration and health.

Both Mexico and South Africa face multiple ecological and economic problems, as reflected by biodiversity loss, water, food and energy crises, the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases, and new infections including Covid-19. Pressures from continued urbanisation, migration, and unemployment, partly due to such challenges, contribute to local anxiety, violence and systemic inequality.

In this panel, we use this mix of problems as portals to examine the interrelationship of physical, social and biological worlds, as studied by members of the two universities. We will focus on the twin challenges in urban Mexico and South Africa of climate change and migration, both of which present escalating challenges of scope and intensity. We will explore the bidirectional relationships of different crises, and will reflect on the challenges for improved governance and in implementing policies and programs. We will conclude by considering how these problems are common in LMIC, and the role of G-24 countries like Mexico and South Africa in addressing these questions, and in responding to them as a model of new global leadership.

Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Time: 9 am (Mexico City) 5 pm (Johannesburg) 2 am Wednesday 24 (Melbourne)
Duration: 1 hr. 30 minutes

The event will be broadcast on the UNAM-South Africa Facebook page.

[This webinar invitation has been slightly edited from its original version, which appeared on the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) website on February 2021.]

About Jo Vearey

Jo Vearey is a Professor and the Director of the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. She holds an Honorary Fellowship with the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, and a Senior Fellowship at the Centre for Peace, Development and Democracy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In 2015, Jo was awarded a Humanities and Social Science Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. Jo holds a MSc in the Control of Infectious Diseases (LSHTM, 2003), a PhD in Public Health (Wits, 2010), and has been rated by the National Research Foundation as a Young Researcher. In 2014 and 2015, Jo received a Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for outstanding young researchers. She was a Marie Curie Research Fellow in 2013, at the UNESCO Chair on Social and Spatial Inclusion of Migrants, University of Venice (SSIM-IUAV), Venice, Italy.

With a commitment to social justice and the development of pro-poor policy responses, Jo’s research explores international, regional, national and local responses to migration, health, and urban vulnerabilities. Her research interests focus on urban health, public health, migration and health, the social determinants of health, HIV, informal settlements and sex work. Jo is particularly interested in knowledge production, dissemination and utilisation including the use of visual and arts-based methodologies.

Jo has a range of international collaborations, including an ESRC-NRF funded project with the University of Edinburgh, a WOTRO funded project with the VU University, Amsterdam on migration and sex work, and partnerships with the University of Massachusetts Boston and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine‘s Faculty of Public Health and Policy and Gender, Violence and Health Unit.

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