A Tropical Lens

The landscape of the tropics is being viewed from a fresh tropical lens. This year, the United Nations declared 29June the ‘International Day of the Tropics’ – a day dedicated to celebrating and raising awareness of the tropical regions of the world. The ‘International Day of the Tropics’ testifies to the growing awareness of the significance of the tropics for the entire globe.This global dynamic calls for new engagements with and within the tropics. In the past, the tropics has been largely defined by the views of outsiders as the region captured the imagination of ancient philosophers and colonial explorers, of artists and scientists. During the inauguration for the ‘International Day of the Tropics’, a ‘tropics lens’ for assessing how knowledge and ideas benefitting the tropical region was proposed. This new lens requires the views of creative and innovative scholars: of critical and indigenous thinkers, explorers of the imagination, new media artists, of social scientists and colleagues in cognate disciplines.