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Following the successful first and second series of Unlocking the SDGs – A Blueprint for the Future, Professor Monica Lakhanpaul and Professor Priti Parikh are back with a deep dive into the UN SDGs. Over five episodes, the series considers issues including the role of AI and education in the SDGs and what other countries are doing to achieve the goals. Listen as academics from across UCL’s faculties and beyond bring new perspectives and understanding to this complex global issue.
Priti Parikh 0:11
Welcome back to the second series of unlocking the SDGs a blueprint for the future. In this podcast, we explore the UN Sustainable Development Goals and what they mean for society and culture. I'm Professor Priti Parikh, Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and International Development at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction.
Monika Lakhanpaul 0:31
And I'm Professor Monika Lakhanpaul, Professor of integrated community child health in the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute for Child Health. In today's episode, we'll be considering the question of culture. It's a topic that isn't central to the SDGs to date, at least not explicitly, but perhaps should have been, what should be the role of culture? And can we achieve the goals without considering it? Today, we'll be speaking to Professor Nicola Milla UCL professor of Latin American history at UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, and Dr. Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp, associate professor in heritage studies at UCL Institute of Archaeology.
Priti Parikh 1:20
Professor Miller, thank you for joining us today. Firstly, what do we mean when we talk about culture? And how is it relevant for SDGs?
Nicola Miller 1:29
Well, Priti, I guess there are two ways that culture is commonly understood by by most of us. On the one hand, it refers to products of the human imagination geared not only to utility, but with some kind of aesthetic elements. So music, imagery, narrative, poetry, all those kinds of associations. Secondly, the ideas, customs and practices of a group of people or society. So in relation to the SDGs, it really refers to all the factors past and present, that shape human behaviour. So with the keypad languages, but thinking about values, beliefs, ideas, norms, customs, and conventions, there's a German historian, I'm a historian, so I tend to look at historians ideas, he writes about spaces of experience, and horizons of expectation. And I think that combination of experience, and expectations is quite a good way of thinking about culture. It's about how people understand their relationship between past and present and future, how they place themselves in relation to each other, and how they interpret their connections with the world. So the environment, all the people they encounter. So it's all those multiple processes of translation, both linguistic and behavioural, that go on in everyone's lives every day.
Priti Parikh 3:04
This is beautifully put, and rightly so around experiences, behaviour, imagery, arts,
Monika Lakhanpaul 3:12
the goals and targets have been criticised a for not referring more explicitly to culture. And just wondering if you could tell us how do you think really, from your experience, you think this impacts on achieving the goals?
Nicola Miller 3:24
I think one of the problems that if you look at a lot of the SD, GE research marvels, so it is in many spheres, the underlying assumption is that human behaviour is some kind of problem that needs to be corrected. And that, you might say, relies on some quite reductionist views about motivation. And it also possibly leads to a focus on the individual to the neglect of wider economic, political and social structures. So what the humanities offer, of course, is a set of theories, concepts and methods of understanding human behaviour in its full context. So structural conditions of inequality, cultural diversity, ethics, and world making, and subjectivities. And the humanities try to integrate those questions, and to think about them in relation to each other, and how they affect people's decisions on a day to day basis.
Monika Lakhanpaul 4:29
So just to think about that a little more than what you've really talked about as a few key words that experience expectation, ethics, and really what the humanities can do, really, to help us move forward in in this field. And that's a really important thing for us to think about as well. What is the role of humanities in taking culture forward?
Nicola Miller 4:49
Yes. And I mean, the SDGs are necessarily thinking about the future. But another aspect that the humanities offer is taking the long view because it's fascinating. If you look back I've got a colleague who works on Ancient Greece who is telling me about the kind of discussions they're having. They're about relationships between humans and the environment. The medievalists are thinking about these kinds of questions as well. So it was fascinating, deep history, about how humankind exists on this planet. And many of the examples that we can bring from, from all that long tradition of research and understanding, I think, you know, are valuable in thinking about how we go about implementing these goals today. It's not just that we want to understand more about people's behaviour. But there's a certain history kind of the past provides a set of case studies that we can draw upon in order to think better, perhaps, about what we're trying to do today.
Priti Parikh 5:55
Absolutely, Nikola, there's so much we can learn from history. And in a way, I feel it's an injustice that SDGs do not directly address the issue of culture. Now, I know you recently published a report on the contributions of the humanities, to achieving the SDGs. And why this is below its true potential. What else could the humanities contribute to? And what are the obstacles to make this happen?
Nicola Miller 6:19
Apart from what I've already said about the really sort of understanding the complexity of human behaviour, and taking a long view, I think another really important aspect that the humanities can bring is the work that's been done on the politics of knowledge. Because the SDG initiative is based on the conviction that it's both possible and desirable to identify common goals for societies all over the world, there will be different views on that position. But we have to acknowledge and welcome the fact that these goals do command an impressively widespread acceptance across a whole range of different different societies internationally. But even so I think the Endeavour as a whole would benefit from critical scrutiny of those claims to universal knowledge. And that underlying assumption that knowledge can be transferred intact from one context to another. I mean, one of my colleagues in the Comparative Literature Department, Florian Mussnug, UK has this wonderful project called the Eco untranslatable rules, which is about how, you know some of the key concepts that are being talked about from, say, indigenous societies or my own area of expertise, the idea of Buen Vivir, of living well, and Buen Vivir is often translated into the, you know, the Anglo Saxon well being, but actually, it's a very different concept. It's much more extensive. And it's much more systematic, in its really a whole kind of philosophy, cosmology. So the difficulty of translating, some of the basic terms are to be used sustainability, that means different things at so many different societies and among different people in relation to the environment. So I think that whole question of the politics of knowledge and the question of, you know, that really complicated relationship between the universal and the local, which is being addressed, of course, in all fields, but the humanities have a distinctive contribution to make to that,
Priti Parikh 8:25
Nicola, I think you've hit the nail on your points on politics of knowledge and how sustainability is defined and perceived across disciplines, especially since the goals are built on the understanding that complex interconnected problems require holistic solutions, and cross disciplinary responses. Being an engineer, I'm going to ask you this question on how humanities and STEM subjects can work more closely together to address SDGs.
Nicola Miller 8:50
It has to be acknowledged, I think that it's not easy. I think in many ways, that's the most important starting point about your cross disciplinary work. I think he's absolutely crucial. We all do. But more work needs to be done, I think on really articulating our different methods and understanding that sometimes, it is actually very difficult to reconcile the different methods in different subjects. And it's that process I think, of scrutinising our working practices is a necessary first step I've come to think, before you go straight into what you might call this substantial aspects of the research. We need to kind of workshop our methods and practices and come to understand each other as different intellectual communities. Before we can really talk about the substance of things. It's almost like you know, when academics go out to work with creative practitioners or something, they have to spend quite a lot of time sort of thinking okay, so what actually do you do when you get up in the morning? I think in a way, engineers physicists, geologists, Comparative Literature people, translation scholars, they they do have things to say to each other. But I think there needs first of all to be more explicit awareness that the conversation isn't necessarily going to take off immediately. And that if you want to get beyond the kind of initial excitement to improvise ation, and oh, isn't it wonderful that we're all talking to each other, you need to kind of do some possibly quite tedious, nitty gritty work of trying to understand each other, and the way that the different scholars use the same term.
Priti Parikh 9:02
Absolutely. In my interdisciplinary work, I find that understanding the language being used in different disciplines and finding common ground is extremely important. But once that is done, I find those partnerships are extremely beneficial.
Nicola Miller 10:55
Absolutely, no, no, I mean, there's nothing. There's nothing more intellectually exciting, I think, when you've got to that point, and you can really have a proper conversation. And really, I think it would be a huge step forward, if it could just basically be a rule that any kind of big cross cross disciplinary project had to have a humanities person at the table from the start, because it is still often thought of as an add on, humanities are sort of brought in to kind of talk about the communication of the results or humanities are brought in to contribute a case of do some artistic reflection on on scientific results. And those those projects can produce some marvellous things. But they're not getting to the heart of the way that culture and all the questions rolled up in that hugely complicated term that we've been trying to unpack a little, all those questions need to be there at the beginning? Because how are you going to change human behaviour, if you don't actually understand it properly?
Priti Parikh 11:58
So Nicola, if he had the power to declare an 18, SDG, rich, possibly related to culture? What should it be?
Nicola Miller 12:07
I think, I would say to promote knowledge and understanding of translation and interpretation, both linguistic and more broadly, cultural across societies literally report on humanity's contribution to achieving SDGs address the point that culture isn't just one set thing, but really, cultures vary across the world. How can this diversity support the conversations around addressing the goals? Again, it's not easy. I think that's that's an important starting point. Because I work on on that in America, even when I tried to have conversations with a colleague working on Africa. It came up recently in a project we would have been doing on indigenous ecologies and environmental crisis. And another term indigenous in Latin America is, is basically a rallying point, a call to solidarity is a mechanism for political mobilisation. In Africa, it's much more complicated, and in many societies that term is is rejected. So even what seems to be a fairly familiar term in in, in everyday discourse, is deeply conflictual. But I think the all that we can do, or the best that we can do is to articulate these problems, I'm talking to each other about them. Keep bringing people together from as many different backgrounds as possible, not just different societies, but different positions in society and talk and converse on understand the differences and be prepared to acknowledge the conflicts but but understand also the shared interest in finding common cause where we possibly can.
Monika Lakhanpaul 13:47
But thank you so much, Nicola, for an amazing insight. I've learned a huge amount, and also thinking about culture and how this fits in with all our work on the SDGs. It's critical, really to making a better future for all.
We now turn to Dr. Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp, associate professor in heritage studies. I want to thank you for joining us today. Johanna, let's get your take on humanities in the SDGs. Please, what are some of the ways that humanities and culture could help to achieve the goals?
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp 14:22
So I come from an anthropology and heritage studies background and I just want to tell you a bit about heritage studies. So it broadly concerns the management of the past for the present in the future. But at the Institute of Archaeology, where I'm based, there's a real significant focus on understanding the politics within that. So thinking about what Nicola mentioned before the politics of knowledge, but for example, how governmental decision making around whose heritage matters, what the priorities are, and whose knowledge counts and the management of that heritage has significant long lasting impacts on both people's lives and the environments in which we live. And this critical lens maps on to the broad critique, as mentioned just now around the sustainable development goals. So namely how to align these top level articulations of what it is that we need to live a good life within the complex, entangled inhuman reliant realities on the ground. So for me what heritage brings is the recognition that the SDGs haven't emerged out of nowhere as fully formed facts. The ways in which they are categorised and articulated does not represent a universally shared logical truth. They are the product and inheritance of a particular way of understanding scarcity, ethics, well being and the relationship of humans to their environment, and a whole host of other ideas and concepts. So in a way, the SDGs have their own politics and heritage. In particular, if we consider that evolution from colonial ideas around aid, I think it's really important to recognise this and to seek to understand what the implications of this heritage are to the ways in which the SDGs are implemented. But I also think it's important to consider and value a more traditional definition of heritage as those tangible, intangible and environmental aspects of our lives that connect us with a broader collective past and create a sense of shared belonging, heritage can be a tool for unity, collectivity and community building and recuperation. And by this, we might include things like monuments, historic buildings, and archives, but also songs, languages, recipes, and stories are places like rivers, waterfalls, and forests heritage is officially integrated into global human rights discourse through, for example, the United Nations declarations of the rights of indigenous peoples, which includes rights to historic land to treasures and belongings taken during colonial occupation, and to speak and revive indigenous languages, I find it really surprising that the SDGs don't take into account the significance of access to heritage and self determination in its call to action. Because heritage is woven through everything we do. It's a powerful tool that can cause immense rubble harm, as well as bring peace and collective care.
Monika Lakhanpaul 16:50
Thank you so much for that. And I think, you know, that sense of belonging is something that we talk a lot about, especially with the diverse communities that I work with in my work as well, and coming from an Indian heritage as well. So it's very close to my heart. Johanna, I was just wondering, are there examples of significant humanities research that can support the delivery of the goals? And are you aware of any interesting work in this area?
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp 17:13
So I think I want to speak a little bit to how heritage links to the sustainable development goals. And I just want to reflect a bit of my work not to kind of prioritise it, but it's just some of the ways that I've been thinking through these questions. So most of my work looks at the structural inheritance of particular ways of working and knowledge making within the field of professional practice and expertise. And I'm really interested in the era that came after widespread political decolonization. So the 1950s to around the 1990s. And while this is a time when particular ideas of what technologies and kinds of knowledge matter become embedded in new frameworks, that are about building better futures in the lead up to and perceived aftermath of decolonization, so the Sustainable Development Goals share a trajectory that maps onto this time period. So they're associated with an aspiration to eradicate poverty, and map progress towards a safer future for all in the aftermath of World War Two. So they come out of a very particular historical moment that is really focused on the needs that are developed, particularly within the European community during the Second World War. So I'm kind of I've got two main bits of research and I'm currently working on research that's around the colonial history of milk. So in particular, how Northern European relationship with milk including how milk intersects with issues around poverty, and post industrial Europe has dominated the global subsidisation and regulation of the milk industry. So I find milk is a really fascinating lens for understanding colonial processes because it shines a light on the prioritisation of particular forms of technological and scientific knowledge. And the implications of these when implemented in context that were not they were not built to understand. So for example, I'm really interested in how global organisations like the global dairy Federation, prioritised industrial milk processing and high volume over existing and functioning indigenous small scale milk industries, for example, in Eastern and Southern Africa. And this is all about heritage because industrial milk production is all about eradicating heritage from processes. So there's no room for sustainable cultural relationships with milk as heritage in an industry that is built on producing high volumes of globally mobile milk. And this is really important when we think about the Sustainable Development Goals for example, Zero Hunger, because it is built on a an idea of nutrition that's based on filling your belly on getting the right profile of vitamins, but not on the fact that milk is something that you get from your mother milk is something that you sit down as a family to consume. And in many milk cultures actually not it's an incredibly cultural and inherited kind of knowledge that is also about technology and science, but it is within a very different framework for thinking about nutrition and melt where milk sits within that to the way it is understood by you know the intersection of of milk age, for example, and the idea of milk and nutrition.
Priti Parikh 20:01
Milk cultures is extremely interesting. I grew up in Gujarat, western part of India, which led one of the largest movements in many cultures around cooperative societies. And that really transformed how small holder farmers could contribute to that industry. How do you think heritage studies can increase its relevance to the SDGs? What might this achieve?
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp 20:26
I'm actually just going to think about what I do in my other line of work. So I've also worked for 10 years as a curator of anthropology. And so I'm always thinking in very practical terms, and I was thinking when I was trying to prepare for this about repatriation, which is something that I worked on a lot over the last five years. So repatriation in a kind of European Framework involves a very legal conversation. So when people are claiming back belongings and treasures that are part of a very emotional and personal relationship with belonging and land, they have to engage in this very political, very legalistic language in order to reclaim those belongings home, I think within kind of heritage practice, there was a much greater emphasis on actually, the return of these belongings isn't about historical justice. It isn't about repair. But it's actually a much more integrated possibility of building new futures that both engage with the complicated and entangled aftermath of colonialism. But I've done so within a very different framework that prioritises life and belonging and relationships with people to the land, relationships with people to their families and their ancestors and their inheritance. That can play a huge role in both underlining the importance of repatriation as something that's not just about illegal conversation around ownership, but it's actually about building new sustainable futures and in turn can also feed back to the sustainable development goals by highlighting and recognising the importance of material heritage and cultural heritage and intangible heritage to this very aspirational idea that you can create a model of human wellbeing that is equitable and equal across all people and communities.
Monika Lakhanpaul 22:13
If the SDGs can be achieved, do you think Johanna culture needs to be involved? And are there any main obstacles to implementing them?
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp 22:22
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think you can build a workable set of universal goals or calls to action without culture. I think the SDGs have been developed within a Northern European cultural framework, including, as I mentioned, a particular understanding of what good technology looks like and how it operates and what knowledge counts as truthful or useful. Not only does this need to be recognised, but the importance of looking to a much broader set of cultural frameworks has to be a priority. I think what we need is an inspirational and integrated framework that seeks to equitably support people to live their best lives, I think we need to recognise how peace and justice relies on shared belonging that sitting down to a meal with the people you love is as important as Zero Hunger, and that life on land is as much about inherited relationships with place as it is about biodiversity. I think this includes taking culture and heritage and the rights to access and self determination that circulate it seriously. And without that, I don't think that the Sustainable Development Goals can really achieve a purpose other than an aspirational list of things that we wish were available and equitable.
Priti Parikh 23:26
Absolutely Johanna, I think you've hit the nail there that culture and heritage is so vital in our day to day lives. And it really shapes and forms our experiences and interactions. If you had the power to decide on an 18th SDG, which relates to cultural heritage, what would it be?
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp 23:44
I've been thinking about that. And I find it really difficult to think with the discrete categories through which the SDGs are articulated. And I think what is needed is a stronger and broader framework that recognises how heritage is inter woven through and vital to making relevant all the sustainable development goals. So I don't want to throw your question back to you. But I find it really difficult to think about what that 18th piece would be. And I would rather see us look at each individual goal and think very carefully through participation through conservation through working with people whose lives are affected daily with some of the struggles that those goals seek to aspirationally work through to understand how heritage can be built more centrally into those goals, how they articulated how they're spoken about how they're thought about how they're implemented through policy and process.
Monika Lakhanpaul 24:46
Thank you very much. Johanna, Nicola, for joining us today. We've heard a great deal about how we can work better together, how we can train our future researchers, and how we can hear the voices of the people and understand really How the SDGs can make a difference to them when we think about culture, heritage, and humanities, but could you tell us where can we find more about your work? Nicola,
Nicola Miller 25:10
if you go to the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies website, just click through to our research page where you will find a link to the report, the UN SDGs contributions from the humanities. It's a fairly short report, but it sets out some of the main points that we've been talking about today. And there is also you'll find a link there to an app, the UCL SDG humanities app where you're invited to make your own contribution to our research, it's very easy, you have to just log in quickly. But it's it's a quick process. And then you can add comments, they can be very short, or they can be quite long. Or you can add links to research that you know about that relates to the SDGs. Even if it doesn't explicitly say that it's an SDG related research project, if you think it's relevant, and it's part of the humanities contribution, the contribution that should be recognised from the humanities to the all these goals, then please do contribute and let us know about it.
Monika Lakhanpaul 26:12
And you Hannah,
Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp 26:13
that sounds absolutely amazing, Nicola, thanks for sharing that I don't have anything nearly as comprehensive. I've been working with the Wellcome on the current exhibition on milk, which I really recommend if that's still on when you're watching this. And I also have a website called www.milkonthemove.org, which is still in progress. But it is where I am posting with other collaborators, ideas and thoughts around this relationship between technology and nutrition and the colonial history of dairy. I'm also the manager of a space at UCL East which is UCL is new site of the Olympic Park where I'm managing a space called the culture lab, which is an exhibitions and collections space. That's really trying to experiment with new ways of working. So trying to really push the boundaries in terms of what an institution that works with an archive that works with collections has the capacity to do both for communities who we share that campus with in East London but also for students and building a new generation of professional practice that is much more aligned with issues around social justice, for example.
Monika Lakhanpaul 27:23
You've been listening to unlocking the SDGs this episode was presented by me Professor Monica Lakhanpaul
Priti Parikh 27:29
and me Professor Preeti Parikh,
Monika Lakhanpaul 27:31
and produced by the UCL SDG initiative, with support from UCL educational media team and edited by FrontEar.
Priti Parikh 27:39
Our guest today we're Professor Nicola Miller and Dr. Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp, a huge thanks to both of you. If you'd like to hear more about podcasts from UCL, subscribe to UCL minds wherever you download your podcasts, or visit www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable-development/goals Join us next time on unlocking the SDGs