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Workshop "Beyond Utopia: Crisis, Values and the Socialities of Nature"

Mon, 08/08/2011 - 15:41 — Harlan Koff
03/01/2012 08:35
03/03/2012 16:35
Europe/Luxembourg

 

WORKSHOP “BEYOND UTOPIA: CRISIS, VALUES AND THE SOCIALITIES OF NATURE”

SANTA BARBARA, USA, 1-3 MARCH 2012

University of California Santa Barbara

Consortium RISC

University of Luxembourg

 

Summary

 
This workshop explores alternative forms of human‐environment interaction in specific regional spaces in an effort to rethink the foundations of the politics of nature, and gain some clarity about the possibilities of sustainable development in a time of profound ecological and socio‐economic crises. The organizers have three goals in mind for this workshop. First, we wish to critically assess dominant political, economic and sociocultural models in order to understand the ways in which they have caused, enabled or hindered environmental crises. Second, we want to identify alternate traditions and visions of environmental stewardship and citizenship, in an effort to chronicle the diversity of creative and sustainable environmental values, worldviews and social practices that exist in various parts of the world. Third, we choose to discuss the role of alternative cultures of nature, how they have been marginalized as impractical, naïve and utopian but also how this utopia has concretely contributed to sustainable natureculture relations across the globe. Faced with the urgent task of creating an environmentally, economically and socially just and sustainable society, communities and practices considered by many in power as utopian present themselves as laboratories of innovation in sustainable development.

 

 
The workshop will take place at the University of California Santa Barbara (USA) on March 1‐3, 2012. It  will include a field trip in Santa Barbara to explore forms of sustainable environmental stewardship that work in practice. This call is open to all scientists willing to discuss and exchange ideas about the socio‐cultural dimensions of the environmental problematic hitherto neglected when compared with economic and political dimensions. The best contributions will be considered for publication in an edited journal volume or book.
 
Organizers
The workshop is organized by Casey Walsh (University of California Santa Barbara, local organizer) and Constanza Parra (University of Luxembourg). It is part of the ongoing activities of the Working group “Management of strategic resources, environment and society” of the Consortium for Comparative Research on Regional Integration and Social Cohesion (RISC) (www.risc.lu).