Indian Ocean World Partnership Conference at the University of Mainz (June 2025)
From June 23–24, 2025, we organised an international conference focusing on “Research-Policy Links in the Indian Ocean World: Designing Resilient Futures on the Basis of Historical and Ethnographic Research” at the LEIZA in Mainz. As the final event of the 7-year long partnership “Appraising risk, past and present” in which Julia has led a team on research-policy links, the hybrid conference brought together 27 scholars from 11 countries and diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore how historical and ethnographic research can inform policy-making aimed at fostering environmental and social resilience across the Indian Ocean World.
The conference opened with an interactive workshop led by Prof. Dr. Sandra Joireman (University of Richmond, USA), on “How (not) to communicate your research to policy makers.” The session invited participants to reflect critically on the communication gap between academic research and policy implementation, encouraging thoughtful discussion on strategies for more effective engagement. The interactive workshop offered crucial tools on how we can better translate our findings into tangible policy.
June 24th marked the main day of presentations, organized into four thematic sessions and 9 contributions. Topics included environmental risk governance, coastal ecosystems, historical land use, and visual approaches to environmental knowledge. The sessions were chaired by Dr. Philip Gooding (McGill University, Canada), Prof. Dr. Franziska Fay (JGU Mainz), Dr. Eva-Maria Knoll (Austrian Academy of Sciences), and Julia, who guided rich and productive conversations throughout the day. Amongst the presenters were also three of our PhD candidates Everjoy Chiimba, Rupa Rupa, and visiting researcher Jamilah Ally Ramadhani, from Gujarat University, India, who shared insights from their current research projects and benefited from thoughtful engagement and feedback from fellow researchers in attendance.
The conference concluded with a closing dinner at Eulchen in Mainz, offering a relaxed atmosphere for final conversations and reflections. Sincere gratitude to the Indian Ocean World Partnership and the LEIZA for allowing us to use their facilities. We are hoping that our discussions fostered pathways for continuing and new collaborations.
