Pracademic in Training

Hi there, my name is Jessica Cockburn.

I am currently a Lecturer in Environmental Science at Rhodes University, in South Africa.

I grew up on a farm in a family passionate about conservation and social development and justice. I have always been curious about landscapes, and interested in trying to understand landscapes in an integrated way.

Through my work on Landscapes, Linkages, and Learning I have come to appreciate the value of a critical realist philosophy in underpinning and deepening inter- and transdisciplinary social-ecological research. I am curious about how people work together to address complex sustainability challenges in a variety of contexts and configuration: whether they are diverse stakeholders in rural landscapes, researchers working in partnership with policy-makers and practitioners, or researchers working together across disciplinary boundaries. I am interested in human-nature interactions as they play out in stewardship and sustainable livelihoods. To support my research on multistakeholder collaboration for sustainability, I draw on learning theories and realist evaluation approaches.

From 2018 - 2019 I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Environmental Learning Research Centre (Department of Education, Rhodes University). I like to think of myself as a ‘pracademic in training’, working towards generating transformative research on landscapes, linkages and learning.

During my postdoc I worked with Professor Eureta Rosenberg to develop a relational approach to collaborative stewardship in landscapes. This entailed conceptual and methodological development, drawing on a critical realist philosophy and transformative learning theories. We put these ideas into practice through two key areas namely (1) Green Skills and (2) Participatory and Realist Evaluation Methodologies, and participatory monitoring and learning. This was be built on strong partnerships with practitioners working in the fields of environmental stewardship, conservation, and natural resource management across South Africa. In this work I have continued to work alongside Living Lands as a research associate.

I am also collaborating with researchers internationally through the PECS Working Group on Collaborative Management and Governance to conduct comparative case study research on collaborative stewardship initiatives in diverse social-ecological contexts.

I was previously (2015-2017) a PhD Student in the Department of Environmental Science, also at at Rhodes University (See 'My PhD' tab for more on my PhD)

I call myself a 'Pracademic in Training' to reflect my commitment to constantly working towards bridging the gap between practice and academia through my studies and research career. I firmly believe that as researchers, we need to take more responsibility for how the research we do impacts society, and to continually reflect on our role as researchers in society. We need to think not only about WHAT we research, but also HOW we do research. My work is mostly in the social-ecological realm - both in research and practice.

Last updated: 23 January 2020.