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- Convenor:
-
Katarzyna Bogdziewicz
(Mykolas Romeris University)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract
The session rethinks “resilient futures” through transformative environmental justice, exploring how Indigenous and local knowledge, decolonial practices, and cross-border solidarities can reshape green transition policies toward genuine co-governance and equity.
Description
The green transition is widely lauded as a model of sustainability and fairness. Yet, the research reveals a deeper tension: despite the rhetoric of inclusion and openness, many Indigenous, grassroots local, and cross-border communities remain marginalized in decision-making on energy and environmental policy. The present open session invites contributions that examine how the aspiration of “resilient futures” can be re-imagined through the lens of transformative environmental justice—emphasising power redistribution, decolonial practices, and multi-scale deliberation.
We encourage submissions that explore questions such as: how do local and Indigenous epistemologies challenge the predominant techno-managerial framing of the green transition? In what ways can regional policy frameworks move beyond typical stakeholder consultation to genuine co-governance? How can cross-border (e.g., Baltic-Nordic) solidarities deepen the capacities of historically marginalized communities to shape trajectories of change? We invite contributions that aim to surface the systemic injustices embedded in energy transitions and to rethink STS approaches to “resilient futures” through an explicitly justice-oriented prism.
This session seeks to bridge empirical case studies, theoretical reflection, and methodological innovation: we invite proposals that deploy novel participatory methods, comparative perspectives across the Nordic-Baltic area and beyond, or conceptual critique of resilience, transition and justice narratives. Ultimately, we hope to stimulate a richer STS conversation: no transition is just unless democratic engagement, epistemic plurality and historic inequalities are placed at its core.
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This article analyzes the layered meanings and impacts of two REE mining projects in southern Kalaallit Nunaat through the notion of sacrifice zones, understood as areas damaged for a (purported) greater good.
Paper long abstract
The residents of Kalaallit Nunaat are facing a confluence of interests around rare earth elements (REE)—vital for military hardware and green technology—and global power. The notion of “sacrifice zones” has been variously deployed US nuclear policy, geography, and to describe environmental harm (Reinert, 2018). While mining may eventually contribute to Kalaallit Nunaat’s economic independence, their impacts are experienced unevenly. European and Nordic approaches to the green transition require REEs for green technologies, which risks shifting the onus of extraction from choice to an obligation for those living near these resources. The battle over the Kvanefjeld REE mining project reflects Sokolova’s (2025) question: “Who gets to imagine a fossil-free future?” Most local and national political opposition concentrated on potential uranium exposure and environmental destruction, but the mine’s other impacts were clearly documented. The project’s Environmental Impact Assessment found that it would increase Greenland’s greenhouse gas emissions 45% (2020, EIA, p. 21). This paper analyzes local resilience and organizing in the face of potential environmental harm through an STS lens based on ethnographic interviews, mining company documents, and court records to interrogate the tension between a projected marketed as “green,” yet clearly documented as causing significant environmental harm.
References:
Greenland Minerals A/S, “Kvanefjeld Project: Environmental Impact Assessment,” 13 December 2020. https://etransmin.com/wp-content/uploads/20201213-EIA_GML-2020-_EN__Final30068214064.1.pdf
Reinert, Hugo. 2018. “Notes from a Projected Sacrifice Zone.” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 17(2):597–617.
Paper short abstract
Degrowth is often framed as a just sustainability strategy, yet it remains anthropocentric. Without posthuman and decolonial justice it risks reproducing socio-ecological exploitation. Integrating Indigenous knowledges and more-than-human perspectives is essential for resilient degrowth transitions.
Paper long abstract
Amid accelerating ecological breakdown and deepening socio-economic inequalities, degrowth has gained traction as a framework for rethinking well-being within planetary boundaries. Yet dominant degrowth debates remain largely anthropocentric, centering human welfare and, to some extent, obscuring the exploitation of more-than-human actors. We argue that this “weak” form of degrowth reproduces structural injustices embedded in contemporary green transition regimes and risks a cyclical “yo-yo effect” – returning to extractive relations.
This paper advances a justice-oriented reconceptualization of degrowth informed by posthuman and decolonial STS perspectives. We develop a framework of “strong degrowth” that foregrounds more-than-human agency, epistemic plurality, and power redistribution as constitutive – rather than supplementary – elements of socio-ecological transformations.
To operationalize this approach, we outline three interrelated strategies: (1) a stepwise expansion of more-than-human inclusion and emancipation within co-governance and inclusive organizational practices; (2) decolonial value-flows that enable reciprocal engagement between Indigenous and local epistemologies and Western posthumanist theory, resisting extractive forms of knowledge translation; and (3) the socialization of posthumanism, rendering its conceptual commitments actionable within participatory and deliberative arenas.
Drawing on examples of posthumanistic management and organizational experimentation, we show how posthuman values can be materially embedded in decision-making arrangements that move beyond stakeholder consultation toward co-production and co-governance. We conclude that neither degrowth nor posthumanism alone can deliver just transitions. Their integration is necessary to reframe resilience as a justice-based project attentive to historic inequalities, marginalized voices, and more-than-human futures.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines a place-based eco-literacy practice that combines ecological observation and future imagination to explore how local and Indigenous knowledge systems can reshape imaginaries of the green transition.
Paper long abstract
The green transition is frequently framed through technocratic narratives that prioritise policy instruments and technological solutions. Such framings often marginalise local, experiential, and more-than-human knowledge systems that shape how communities understand and live within ecological change. This paper explores how place-based eco-literacy practices can contribute to rethinking resilient futures through the lens of transformative environmental justice.
The study draws on a participatory eco-literacy session conducted in Phoenix Park, Dublin. Participants begin by slowly observing their environment, attending to species, sounds, textures, and ecological relationships through sensory engagement with place. They then create relational maps that document interactions among plants, animals, landscapes, and human presence. In a subsequent step, participants imagine hopeful future versions of the same environment, mapping how ecological relationships and forms of coexistence might evolve over time.
By grounding futures imagination in direct engagement with ecosystems, the practice shifts attention from abstract transition narratives toward situated ecological knowledge. This relational approach resonates with principles found in many Indigenous and local knowledge systems, in which environmental understanding emerges through long-term observation, reciprocity, and care.
Positioned within Science and Technology Studies debates on environmental justice and sustainability transitions, the paper argues that such practices help pluralise the epistemologies shaping the green transition, opening space for more relational, inclusive, and regenerative visions of resilient futures.
Paper long abstract
Lithuania’s pursuit of energy independence and climate neutrality has accelerated the development of renewable energy infrastructure, particularly wind farms. This process has been strongly shaped by geopolitical pressures, international environmental commitments, and binding European Union climate legislation promoting the rapid expansion of renewable energy. As a result, wind power has been framed as a strategic national priority. Despite generally positive public attitudes toward the green transition, resistance to the local implementation of wind farm projects remains widespread. This opposition often emerges not from rejection of renewable energy itself, but from shortcomings in decision-making processes at the local level. Although Lithuanian law establishes minimum distance requirements between wind farms and residential buildings, communities frequently report limited consultation and inadequate opportunities to participate in planning. In many cases, residents learn about proposed projects through the media rather than through direct engagement, contributing to feelings of marginalisation and distrust. This presentation examines how Lithuanian local communities in Širvintos, Molėtai, and Pagėgiai articulate their concerns regarding wind farm development and attempt to influence policy outcomes – at some instances successfully.
Paper short abstract
International climate action requires shared responsibilities, yet countries disagree over costs allocations. Surveys in six countries (N=10852) examine public views on fair responsibility for burden-sharing, identifying three stable opinion groups with distinct ideological and attitudinal profiles.
Paper long abstract
Because greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts transcend national borders, meaningful efforts depend on countries agreeing on shared responsibilities, common goals, and long‑term commitments. However, national governments diverge on in their economic interests, historical responsibilities, and prioritization of climate action, leading to persistent disagreements over burden‑sharing, fairness, and the distribution of costs and benefits. Citizens’ beliefs about fairness, responsibility, and the acceptability of different climate strategies can shape domestic political incentives and ultimately influence states’ willingness to commit to international climate action. Despite this relevance, relatively few studies investigate public opinion of the global governance dimensions of climate policy, and even fewer have examined views on fairness, equity, and burden‑sharing specifically. Taking carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as a case of emerging climate interventions, through nationally representative surveys in six countries in the Global South and North (N=10,852 respondents across the UK, Italy, Norway, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia), we investigated public fairness perceptions of six among the most discussed burden-sharing principles. Respondents reported different fairness assessments across the principles and with Latent Class Analysis analysis we identified three distinctly populated attitudinal groups, stable across countries: two with clearly articulated fairness judgements and a third characterized by greater uncertainty. A post-hoc descriptive exploration of the characteristics of the individuals show distinct class-specific ideological and attitudinal orientations, stable across contexts. The results provide new evidence on how publics understand fair global responsibility for emerging climate technologies, with implications for the design and legitimacy of international climate governance.