Abstract
The northern Indian Ocean region, incorporating the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman and Laccadive Seas, can be seen as an understudied marine transcultural borderland. This project aims to build a transdisciplinary ‘Southern Collective’ of natural and social scientists, and non-academic experts to address societal and environmental problems facing coastal communities in this region. Our collective will undertake activities to address two broad climate and livelihood related themes for interdisciplinary research, namely transboundary coastal and marine resources, and forced migration and adaptation. The Southern Collective will co-create digital learning modalities in order to re-center local knowledge around these themes. We will also create a web-based portal to facilitate grassroots public engagement and democratize knowledge generation in and for the region.
Principal Investigators

Annu Jalais
Assistant Professor, South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore

Aarthi Sridhar
Programme Head, Dakshin Foundation

Rapti Siriwardane
Researcher, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research

Alin Kadfak
Researcher, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Participants

Ahilan Kadirgamar
Senior Lecturer University of Jaffna + Chairman, Northern Cooperative Development Bank

Sujatha Byravan
Independent Consultant and scientist, Chennai

Avilash Roul
Guest Faculty, IIT Chennai

Mohammed Saiful
Scientist, Bangladesh Agricultural University

Khushi Kabir
Social Justice rights’ campaigner, Nijera Kori

Than Pale
Professor, Anthropology Department, Yangon University

Pradeep Singh
Research Associate, IAAS Potsdam