7th International Degrowth Conference | Manchester
Update! The conference is now planned to take place in the week of July 5th 2021 (Originally 1-5 September 2020)
The conference will be organized by the international degrowth research network and the International Society for Ecological Economics and will retain its existing overarching theme of ‘Building Alternative Livelihoods’. It will also keep existing subthemes. As the overarching theme has new importance in the light of the global pandemic, there will be a new additional call in September 2020 looking more specifically at the implications of the Covid 19 pandemic for building and rebuilding alternative livelihoods.
Politics for Catastrophic Times: how to find the terrestrial
Panel Proposal, ECPR General Conference 2020
Deadline: 10th of February, 2020 – send abstract (no more than 500 words) to louise.knops@vub.be and mihnea.tanasescu@vub.be
Chairs:
Louise Knops, doctoral candidate, Political Science department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Dr. Mihnea Tanasescu, post-doctoral researcher, Research Foundation Flanders, Political Science department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The Anthropocene is the geo-epoch in which we find ourselves today, a period of history that is characterized by the transformative impact of human activities on the global scale of geology. In recent years, the body of literature exploring the political consequences of this new historical reality
has expanded tremendously. For example, Isabelle Stengers’ essay, “in Catastrophic Times: resisting the coming barbarism” (2015), from which this panel borrows its title, is a lucid examination of what thinking politically in this new geological time requires. Bruno Latour, in both Facing Gaia (2017) and Coming Down to Earth (2018), has announced that politics will from now on happen in a New Climatic Regime. This opens a number of paths for reflection, some of which this panel is interested in investigating further. Latour goes beyond a diagnosis of the tragedy that is unfolding and offers a normative direction to adapt to it without succumbing to ethno-nationalism or epistemological delirium.
It is urgent to shift sideways and define politics as ‘what leads toward the Earth and not toward the global or the national’. Belonging to a territory is the phenomenon most in need of rethinking and careful re-description; learning new ways to inhabit the Earth is our biggest challenge. Bringing us down to earth is the task of politics today’ (Latour, 2018). This move sideways is driven by the attraction to “the Terrestrial”. Yet, it remains unclear what this might mean in concrete political terms.
In this panel, we invite contributions that attempt to engage with this exercise. In particular, we welcome contributions that go beyond traditional approaches in social science by front-staging the Anthropocene as decisive contextual factor and considering “nature” no longer as décor of politics but as political actor in its own right. We particularly welcome multi-disciplinary contributions that grapple with what the terrestrial might mean for politics today, how we might re-design political theories and systems for the Anthropocene, and how classic ideological notions (such as freedoms and liberty) are changing under the increasing geological nature of political conflicts.
- Theoretical contributions which revisit democratic theory to re-imagine politics in the Anthropocene. http://www.bruno-latour.fr/node/754
- Conceptual and methodological contributions which discuss methods to approach politics and political phenomena in the new climatic regime.
- Empirical contributions that present cases of movements, actors, institutions that accommodate more-than-humans and prefigure a terrestrial kind of politics,
- Undisciplined contributions that spell out in practical detail the possibilities of a terrestrial politics.
Questions of interest might be:
- What would “Terrestrial” politics look like?
- To what extent is climate change redefining the landscape of political conflicts, cleavages and ideologies today?
- How can affect theories reorient our understanding of politics as an exercise in becoming terrestrial?
- What are the limitations of conceptualizing Anthropocene politics through the dominant metaphor of climate change?
- What is the place of ecology, and science in general, in the new climatic regime?
- Which are the contemporary movements and contentious actors that are already signalling a move towards terrestrial politics, and what lessons can we learn from them?
These are just a few questions to be approached and debated during this panel.. Authors from a wide range of disciplines are invited to submit their papers: political sciences, sociology, philosophy, geography, social movement studies, political ecology, human ecology, feminist theory and gender studies, urban studies, anthropology, cultural studies, etc. We do not expect ready answers, but rather welcome a series of papers that can help us take the debate on terrestrial politics one step further.
ECPR General Conference 2020 – University of Innsbruck, 26-28 August 2020
CFP Water Governance Section
Chairs: Nicolas Jager, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg (nicolas.jager@uni-oldenburg.de)[ Manuel Fischer, Universität Bern, EAWAG (Manuel.Fischer@eawag.ch)
Water governance has for decades been a major area for studies of the policy process, regulation, and public administration, contributing to new developments in the field of environmental governance and beyond. Currently, water management is facing severe challenges due to climatic change, biodiversity loss, urbanization, or population growth. This Section offers a platform for scholars dealing with recent developments in water governance, as well as interdisciplinary work considering the interactions of institutions with the environment, technology and infrastructure. We invite contributions relying on interdisciplinary, new and innovative concepts, methods and empirical research, representing the state of the art in water governance and opening up the research agenda for the future. Our Section includes Panels led by established and emerging scholars in the field. These Panels look at the main challenges around water governance: inter-relatedness of governance with infrastructure (1) and ecological systems (2,5,6), issues of dispersion of authority in a multi-level and multi-stakeholder/multi-sector (3,4) context, as well as questions of change and transformations (all Panels).
Panels:
1) Water infrastructure reforms
Eva Lieberherr (ETH Zürich, eva.lieberherr@usys.ethz.ch); homas Bolognesi (University of Geneva, thomas.bolognesi@unige.ch)
The water sector entails fix and extensive infrastructure to deliver services. However, the current infrastructure systems face multiple pressures and are in dire need of maintenance, investment, rethinking and reform. While liberalization and New Public Management have been generally pivotal in shaping ongoing reforms, we find a wide diversity of institutional arrangements – with many failed examples. This Panel aims at exploring the interlinkages between infrastructure and institutional systems in the water sector. Important topics include the change of respective institutional arrangements over time and the consequences in terms of accountability and legitimacy, the link between big trends in water infrastructure reforms and (conflicts in) the policy process, or the questioning of centralized infrastructure in terms of efficient service delivery and types of institutional arrangements.
2) The governance of water quality protection
Florence Metz (ETH Zürich, florence.metz@usys.ethz.ch); Simon Schaub (Universität Heidelberg, simon.schaub@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de)
Clean water is a vital resource for humans and the environment, but significant pressures on water quality persist. To improve water quality, abundant research has been undertaken in the natural sciences. However, decision-making, governance and implementation challenges have been identified among the core obstacles towards clean water. Contributions by political science, also crossing disciplinary boundaries between social and natural sciences, are necessary to enhance our understanding of these challenges and to be able to find better solutions for improving water quality. This Panel focuses on the governance of water quality protection and pollution prevention, linking political approaches to the status of water resources. Potential topics include the choice of relevant policy instruments for water quality, cross-sectoral stakeholder participation and policy integration (e.g. industry, water quality, health), or the challenge of emerging pollutants.
3) European Water Governance and the EU Water Framework Directive
Frank Hüesker (UFZ Leipzig, frank.hueesker@ufz.de); Sissel Hovik (Oslo Metropolitan University, sissel.hovik@oslomet.no)
The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) was adopted almost 20 years ago and represents the cornerstone of the European water governance regime. It includes strong procedural provisions, e.g. for ecosystem-based management and public participation for all EU member states. Despite its ambitious ecological targets and institutional provisions, improvements of the status of European waters are mixed. Hence, the directive highlights the tension between integration and convergence on the one hand, and flexibility and local differentiation on the other. The Panel focuses on how different institutional arrangements handle tensions between harmonization and local differentiation and between integration and flexibility, as well as their impact on environmental performance. At the heart of these questions is the transfer or allocation of power in decision-making about a crucial natural resource, within and between member states of the EU.
4) Integrative water governance and the SDGs: Cross-sectoral links
Philipp Gorris (Universität Osnabrück, philipp.gorris@uni-osnabrueck.de); Manuel Fischer (Universität Bern, EAWAG, Manuel.Fischer@eawag.ch)
As part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6 – Clean water and sanitation), water governance figures high on the global sustainability agenda. The SDGs highlight the role of Integrated Water Resources Management, bridging the boundaries between different sectors, scales and actors, in reaching these goals. The Panel aims to provide a platform to discuss new and innovative conceptual approaches and methods to understand the design and implementation of integrated modes of water governance. Particular challenges related to SDG implementation lie in the implementation across the global North and South, and in the complex trade-offs and synergies between different SDGs. We explicitly welcome contributions with case studies in the global South or considering the interactions of SDG 6 and related SDGs.
5) Adaptive Water Governance in Social-Ecological Systems
Laura Herzog (Universität Osnabrück, lauherzog@uos.de); Mario Angst (EAWAG, mario.angst@eawag.ch)
For water governance to handle the increased pressure on water consumption and the health of aquatic ecosystems, it needs to be adaptive, considering the uncertainties and the complexity of ecological systems. This panel focuses on the ways in which adaptive capacities are built up within aquatic social-ecological systems and how these play out in the governance of such systems. Main topics include the conceptualization and empirical study of the adaptive capacity of existing water governance structures, the potential of adaptive governance to address different degrees of complexity within aquatic social-ecological systems, and the question of how characteristics of aquatic ecosystems influence the structures of adaptive water governance. We explicitly welcome inter-disciplinary perspectives, integrating ecological aspects into analysis, as well as conceptual contributions.
6) Transforming water governance in the face of climate change
Meghan Alexander (University of East Anglia, M.Alexander@uea.ac.uk); Maria Kaufmann (Radboud University, m.kaufmann@fm.ru.nl)
Climate change is often referred to as a ‘wicked problem’, characterized by high levels of uncertainty, interconnectivity and complex dynamics, affecting a host of public, private and civil society actors. Such wicked problems are typically regarded as incompatible with traditional forms of governance and arguably demand transformative change in existing governance arrangements. This raises a number of quintessential questions to address: What barriers and underlying ‘lock-in’ mechanisms reinforce path dependencies and constrain alternative pathways? What governance mechanisms and policy instruments are needed to leverage change and effectively adapt? What mechanisms are required to readdress social inequalities and ensure just transitions? Focusing on water governance, this Panel invites Papers that explore these questions across a range of water management issues.
Call for Contributors: Energy in American History: A Political, Social, and Environmental Encyclopedia
by Jeffrey WebbWe seek qualified researchers with specializations in environmental history, energy history, and the history of science and technology (and related fields) to serve as contributors to the forthcoming, two-volume reference work Energy in American History: A Political, Social, and Environmental Encyclopedia. The project will take readers from the earliest days of wood, wind, and horse power through the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Steam and into the era of coal and oil in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Entries will detail major energy transitions from fossil fuels to nuclear energy to the search for alternative and renewable sources of energy in the present era. The project aspires to be inclusive of environmental, social, and political themes, including the environmental impact of energy production, the social and cultural history of consumption, and a detailed survey of the relationship between changing U.S. energy needs and shifts in U.S. foreign policy. Contact Jeffrey Webb at jwebb@huntington.edu for a list of available entries, compensation information, and submission guidelines (including deadlines). The project is scheduled for publication in early 2021.
CALL FOR PAPERS – PANEL ON PRIVATE GOVERNANCE, CORPORATE POWER AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IN EUROPE
Chairs: Sandra Eckert, Andrea Lenschow and Jan Pollex
We would wish to draw your attention to our panel at the ECPR Innsbruck in August 2020. Please email your proposed contributions no later than 9 February, so that we still have time to put the panels together until the official ECPR submission deadline on 19 February 2020.
Email to: saneck@aias.au.dk ; Jan.Pollex@gsi.lmu.de
You will find our call for papers attached. It is part of the Environmental Politics Standing Group sponsored session, for further details see:
https://ecpr.eu/Events/SectionDetails.aspx?SectionID=962&EventID=132
FOSSIL FUEL SUPPLY AND CLIMATE POLICY: AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE The Queens College, Oxford, UK, on September 15th and 16th, 2020.
The words “fossil fuels” appear nowhere in the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change of 2015. However, when the UN Secretary General announced, on the eve of the climate talks in 2019, that “We simply have to stop digging and drilling”, it became clear the discussion around fossil fuels and climate has shifted. The conflict between continued fossil fuel exploration and production and global climate goals is now on the international policy agenda.
The International Conference on Fossil Fuel Supply and Climate Policy explores the many opportunities for, and challenges of, policies that aim to explicitly limit fossil fuel production, in recognition that many countries rely on fossil fuel extraction and trade for their energy security, economic development, and political influence.
This third conference will build on the first two, held in 2016 and 2018 at the same venue. The third conference will take place in a new political and policy context – one in which fossil fuel supply may play a more central role. 2020 will see the submission of new, more ambitious “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The climate negotiations (COP 26) will take place in the UK in November 2020, meaning Oxford (UK) in late 2020 can again be a timely venue. With fossil fuels now prominent in both international and domestic policy venues, the 2020 Oxford conference stands to be the most influential and timely yet.
for more information: www.fossilfuelsandclimate.org.
**Call for submissions to join an SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) 2020 pre-constituted conference panel submission on media, energy infrastructures, and periods of energy transition within settler colonial and postcolonial contexts***
Media both represent energy futures and are materially entangled in complicated energy presents. Media networks are also broadly conditioned by the long shadow of the colonial infrastructures and lifeways that to varying degrees determine how broadcast, data storage, and distribution are powered and practiced. Media are therefore key sites in which energy transitions and decolonization can be imagined, enacted, or resisted.
Our panel is an attempt to think widely about questions of energy transition and mediation, including not only contemporary decarbonization movements, but also historical periods of change. While we’re clearly in the midst of a groundswell of environmental media scholarship related to climate change and energy transition, more work still is needed to address how these historical and contemporary practices intersect with Indigenous sovereignty struggles, anti-colonial thought, and leftist organizing towards a just transition, particularly in these groups’ strategic use or resistance to media infrastructures.
Since periods of energy transition can open up other possibilities for social, cultural, economic, and political upheavals, how are media infrastructures channeling, responding to, facilitating or otherwise implicated in these currents of change? What role has media played both ideologically and aesthetically in historic settler states to help or hinder energy transitions? How might the currently entangled nature of media and energy infrastructures complicate or calcify these precedents? What models outside of colonial or capitalist logics can be draw upon to think energy and media differently?
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
– Resource colonies and the mediated production of regional identity
– The expansion of unconventional fossil fuel extraction in state, industry, and/or activist media
– Continuities in place and aesthetic practices in representations of fossil and renewable energy sources
– Sacrifice zones and media practices in frontline communities
– White supremacy, affect, and energy under crisis
– How media and energy infrastructures might be integrated into Indigenous land sovereignty claims and practices (as in, for example, Māori claims to the radio spectrum)
Please submit a title, abstract (250-300 words), and brief bio to Anne Pasek (apasek@ualberta.ca), Hannah Tollefson (hannah.tollefson@mail.mcgill.ca) and Rachel W. Jekanowski (rachel.w.jek@gmail.com) by August 10th. If there is enough interest in the subject, we will put together two pre-constituted panels. We promise a quick turn around with decisions. We especially welcome contributions by women and BIPOC scholars.
Anne Pasek
Post-Doctoral Fellow / Transitions in Energy, Culture, and Society / University of AlbertaReviews Editor / Journal of Environmental Media
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The Third Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN)
Contested Natures: Power, Possibility, Prefiguration
When: 24 – 26 June 2020
Where: Brighton, UK
Organized by: The ESRC STEPS Centre (IDS/SPRU, University of Sussex) and The Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Secretariat (based at Lancaster University 2017 -2019; and moving to the University of Copenhagen 2019 – 2021). The conference is co-hosted by Radical Futures at the University of Brighton, with support from the BIOSEC project (European Research Council) and SIID at the University of Sheffield.
Session proposal submission deadline: 31 October 2019
Session proposal submission form: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/POLLEN2020
Notification of accepted sessions: January 2020
Conference web site: https://pollen2020.wordpress.com/
Call for session proposals
The POLLEN 20 organizing committee is pleased to announce a call for proposals for organized conference sessions. The deadline for submission of session proposals is 31 October 2019, and all proposals should be submitted via online form.
Conference theme
The contested notion of ‘nature’ is one of the central themes in political ecology, and the third biennial conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN), Contested Natures: Power, Possibility, Prefiguration, aims to explore plural natures and plural futures as sites of struggle and possibility whilst critically engaging with and ‘unpacking’ multiple and overlapping crises of our times.
As 2020 is the fifth anniversary of the POLLEN network, the organizers aim for the conference to be a time for taking stock and looking forward; for welcoming provocation and critique; questioning established notions of who is ‘the expert’ and associated epistemological hierarchies; exploring classic questions through novel concepts, lenses, imaginaries, (re)enchantments and embodied and decolonizing practices; and for finding inspiration in emerging debates and new alliances.
The conference will be structured to encourage critical reflection around the entanglements and encounters of political ecology with a variety of theories, approaches and philosophies, including but not limited to post-structuralist and Marxist to anarchist, feminist and queer perspectives within political ecology. As in previous meetings, POLLEN 2020 will combine the objectives of a traditional meeting with the collegiality and dynamism of a less structured, more participatory gathering.
To these ends, this call encourages proposals for themed sessions in a variety of both conventional and novel formats, aspiring to bring together perspectives and ways of sharing from across disciplines and geographic traditions, and welcoming contributions from within and outside the academy.
We particularly encourage transdisciplinary engagements and collaborations in political ecology (i.e. involving, for example, researchers in social sciences, natural / environmental sciences, environmental humanities and development studies; artists; journalists; practitioners; policy professionals; laypersons; activists; environmental justice campaigners and others).
Circulating calls, proposal preparation and submission
Information about the full conference theme, session formats and participation, guidance for preparing and submitting proposals for organized sessions and frequently asked questions are available on the POLLEN 20 conference web site. You will also find information of the conference venue, travel, accommodations, and accessibility that will be updated regularly in the coming months.
The conference committee and POLLEN secretariat can assist with posting calls to the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) web site and the conference web site. If you would like to post a call for papers or presenters, please send your call as an email attachment in .DOC format with proposed session title, session details / abstract and instructions for submitting potential contributions to session organizers to POLLEN@sussex.ac.uk with ‘CfP POLLEN 20’ in the subject line. Make sure to include all relevant information for potential participants in your session.
Inquiries about the conference
Inquiries about the conference, co-hosting, or questions about contributions to the Solidarity Fund for travel bursaries can be sent to POLLEN@sussex.ac.uk (please note that this is not the email address for the POLLEN secretariat).
A note on child care
We are exploring options for child care and compiling a list of local child care providers, but we need to gauge the level of interest. Please email POLLEN@sussex.ac.uk by 1 September 2019 if you think you will need child care to attend the conference. In the email, please provide the number of days, age(s) of child/children and any special needs, including special dietary needs, and include ‘POLLEN 20 child care’ in the subject line.