Dr. Ana Leal

Cooperation is essential for addressing collective environmental threats. However, research on how cooperation occurs in communities directly exposed to such threats remains limited, particularly in highly affected regions of the Global South, such as eastern Africa. In these contexts, cooperative responses to environmental threats are often shaped by specific institutional arrangements, community relations, and shared beliefs and social norms, which help sustain collective social life amid environmental vulnerability. In this talk, I will present quantitative and qualitative evidence on how cooperation occurs among community members in the context of land degradation in Ethiopia. By examining cooperation in real-world, climate-vulnerable community settings beyond the Global North, this work contributes to a more inclusive, contextually grounded, and ecologically valid understanding of cooperation in the face of environmental challenges.