Ravi Anand Loknath and Larissa Miranda-Heinisch of the MSc in City Design and Social Science, along with Vaishnavi Shankar of the MSc in Urbanisation and Development, have been awarded a Geographical Fieldwork Grant by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). The Fieldwork Grant, which is the Society’s longest running grant scheme, offers support for UK-led research teams carrying out geographical field research overseas. The grant, worth up to £3000, is given to small research teams making a significant contribution to geographical knowledge.
Collectively, Ravi Anand, Larissa and Vaishnavi put forward a proposal on “Interpreting Informal Human Geographies”, a detailed documentation and research of an informal settlement in São Paulo, Brazil. The proposal is the culmination of their independent projects at the London School of Economics: Larissa’s on the open communal spaces that define the informal community; Vaishnavi’s on how the community is building resilience frameworks to address the threat of climate change; and Ravi Anand’s on the informal commerce systems and micro-economies that sustain the community.