Presentation short abstract

The Catalan coast, particularly Cap de Creus, is a contested socio-ecological frontier where capitalist dynamics and local resistances converge. Using socio-ecological network analysis and the IPBES valuation framework, this study examines conflicts, values, and governance toward equitable futures

Presentation long abstract

The sea and coastline of Catalonia constitute contested socio-ecological frontiers where multiple forms of territorialization converge. These coastal zones have become arenas in which capitalist dynamics seek to consolidate control through urban expansion, mass tourism, and the commodification of marine and coastal resources. Such processes, however, encounter resistance from local communities, artisanal fishers, environmental organizations, and grassroots movements that mobilize to defend the territory, recover traditional ecological knowledge, and promote more just and sustainable relationships with the sea. This paper conceptualizes the Catalan coast, and specifically the Natural Park of Cap de Creus, as a space of conflict and negotiation, where competing socio-ecological models and ontologies of nature and territory intersect. Methodologically, the study applies socio-ecological network analysis (SEN) to map and characterize the relationships among actors, institutions, and ecological components shaping coastal governance in Catalonia. This approach allows for the identification of key nodes, power relations, and patterns of cooperation or conflict within the coastal socio-ecological system. Building on this structural analysis, we incorporate an IPBES-informed valuation framework to capture the diversity of values, disvalues, and worldviews that underpin actors’ interactions with the marine and coastal environment. This integrative design enables a multidimensional understanding of conflicts—not only as struggles over resources or decision-making power, but also as expressions of differing value systems and ontological assumptions. By linking network metrics with qualitative valuation insights, the analysis seeks to inform governance pathways that are more equitable, plural, and ecologically grounded.

Presentation short abstract

A reflection on the limits of Mediterranean “variety thinking” and its postmodern drift, proposing instead the figure of “Noman” as a lens to reconnect Adriatic demodernisation, symbolic absence, and China’s algorithmic natural development.

Presentation long abstract

The Mediterranean “culture of variety” associated with Franco Cassano, i.e. coexistence of symbolic universes, ultimately leads to a postmodern neutralism that forecloses any search for alternative forms of life. By revisiting Cassano’s late writings, the talk identifies the unresolved rupture generated by the crisis of Marxism: once the normative horizon collapses, variety replaces transformation, and the intellectual is tasked merely with administering boundaries between cultural worlds.

Against this background, the paper proposes another Mediterranean figure: not Ulysses of the nostos, but Ulysses as “Noman”. This mask resonates with the centuries-long formation of a “low-Adriatic anthropology of absence”, shaped by marginality, mimicry, and a metaphysical anti-colonialism that refuses the imperative to “be” and to “produce” typical of modern subjectivity. This anthropology offers conceptual resources for understanding contemporary processes of demodernisation theorised in mid-20th-century sociology.

The argument is then extended toward the “Middle Kingdom” (China), where emerging debates on algorithmic governance and the erosion of entrepreneurial risk—whether fully real or still speculative—echo Adam Smith’s old intuition of China as a civilisation of “natural development”. When risk is absorbed by planning, the sovereign dimension of life becomes thinkable again beyond capitalist servility.

Thinking the Mediterranean today thus means thinking globally: using the sea not as a regional frame but as a conceptual device to explore alternative qualities of life and new political imaginations. The figure of “Noman” becomes a bridge between Mediterranean margins, demodernising impulses, and China’s experimental post-growth trajectories.

Presentation short abstract

This paper explores the case of the Oil Processing Center of Viaggiano (located in Val D’Agri, Basilicata - Southern Italy) to analyse the effects of almost 30 years of oil extraction, showcasing how the impacts of enduring non-lethal “banal” violence are closely intertwined with more acute violence

Presentation long abstract

In this paper, I explore the case of the Oil Processing Center of Viaggiano (Val D’Agri, Basilicata in Southern Italy) to analyse the effects of almost 30 years of oil extraction. Building on Craig Jones’ works of unpacking violence binaries, I investigate the invisible, long-lasting effects of enduring non-lethal slow violence – a kind of “violence of persisting harm”.

Departing from the ethnographic work of scholars investigating the impact of the Center on the population, this paper highlights how self-fulfilling petro-prophecies and impotence together contribute to maiming people’s agency and ability to resist, which can be considered an ongoing and long-lasting effect of enduring invisible violence. Exposed to an longlasting process of petrolification of its land and livelihood, the Lucanian psyche has been injured and its imagination, mutilated of alternatives to oil. As studies show, the inhabitants are unable to imagine a Basilicata without oil, proving that extractivism has managed to occupy not only its institutions, but also collective imaginaries. Moreover, witnessing their socio-ecological environment deteriorate without their consent or involvement, the frustrated population has fallen into a state of hopelessness and powerlessness, an efficient strategy for multinationals to keep the status quo.

To conclude, this paper aims to emphasise the importance of making visible the hidden psychological impacts of enduring non-lethal violence, as closely intertwined with the long-term deadly features of acute yet slow violence. To strengthen this point, I enriched my research with a design artefact visualising Lucanians’ petrolised imaginaries via a tarot deck of ten symbolic cards.

Presentation short abstract

This paper reflects on the uses of MPAs in the European waters through the lenses of power management (De Santo 2019) in a comparison between two wind farm projects in the North Sea and the Mediterranean that are built and projected to sit next to MPAs and in highly sensitive biodiversity areas.

Presentation long abstract

This paper reflects on the uses of MPAs in the European continent and waters through the lenses of power management (De Santo 2019) in a comparative analysis of a North Sea and Mediterranean case studies. In particular, the paper observes two wind farm cases that are built and projected to sit next to MPAs and in highly sensitive biodiversity areas. The first case is the Dogger Bank area where the largest windfarm in the world is being built and is already operative; the second case is the projected GREGAL and TRAMUNTANA wind farms, located in the North East of Menorca (Illes Balears, Spain) and off the Golf de Roses (Spain). The Mediterranean Gregal and Tramuntana windfarm projects base their discourses of legitimation on the Northern European wind farms like the Dogger Bank’s. However, there is much discussion for the Mediterranean projects about the environmental harm that these would inflict. The paper uses Ben Smith’s fictional novel "Doggerland" as a starting discussion point and relates it to contemporary policy and economic discourses.

While those who back the windfarm projects in the Mediterranean use the Northern Europe already implemented wind farms as reference points, the most skeptical and entangled perspectives doubt about these capitalist practices and offer resistance in their belated decisions. As they arrive late and face a multiperspective more critical with the mostly economic benefits of the projects, the Mediterranean offshore wind farms might be stopped on time to prevent major environmental harm, discrediting the Northern European discourses and practices.

Presentation short abstract

This paper analyzes the production and sales of farmed Turkish sea bass and sea bream and contributes to discussions on political ecology, agrarian change and seafood production, as well as the expansion of marine extractivism and commodity frontiers by placing the Mediterranean at the center.

Presentation long abstract

Production of seafood, especially with a specific focus on the Mediterranean, has received relatively little attention both in agri-food debates and political ecology studies, despite the fact that since the 1960s, it has shown a significant transformation through the industrialization of fisheries and globalization of seafood commodity chains. In this process, intensive aquaculture emerged as a new industry in response to declining fish catches and stagnating profits. Global commodity chains of seafood and capital accumulation processes thus changed tremendously, leading to complex international trade dynamics and rising inequalities. In this paper, we scrutinize the transformation of the Turkish aquaculture sector by focusing on farmed sea bass and sea bream (SBSB) in Turkish waters and their operations both upstream (processing of fish feed in Africa) and downstream (sales and distribution in Europe) in the global SBSB value chain. We adopt a single-commodity approach to uncover how the commodity frontiers of capital-intensive SBSB production have expanded by focusing on the strategies of Turkish aquaculture enterprises, trade dynamics, and socio-ecological implications of SBSB production via in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a review of legislative documents and trade data. Our analysis offers critical insights into the fish feed production and certification dynamics around SBSB production, and establishes the spatial links of the Mediterranean with Western African waters and European retailers. Thus, it aims to contribute to discussions on political ecology, agrarian change and seafood production, as well as the expansion of marine extractivism and commodity frontiers by placing the Mediterranean at the center.

Presentation short abstract

This research examines water-based musha' -communal use-rights- in Palestine. Challenging the view of musha' as collective land ownership, we argue that water musha' was an institution for social reproduction and social organization, which was only partially enclosed by zionist settler colonialism.

Presentation long abstract

Conventional scholarship has framed the musha' system primarily as a form of collective landed property, its history ending with its legal parcellation under British rule. This research challenges this narrow and temporal framing by examining musha' as a dynamic practice of communal use-rights central to social reproduction, with a specific focus on water resources. Moving beyond the grain fields, it investigates water-based musha' - encompassing wells and watersheds - as a critical, yet understudied, form of commoning.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and historical analysis, the study centers on the village of Shyoukh in the southern West Bank highlands, where water musha' persisted well beyond the British Mandate. It argues that water-based musha' was not merely a property relation but a core institution that shaped the hydro-social territory of peasant society, organizing access, maintenance, and inter-community relations. The research traces how these communal use-rights were ultimately "enclosed" not through legal titling alone, but through violent, colonial forces, including direct military intervention post-1967.

By foregrounding water, this demonstrates that musha' was a resilient and adaptable idiom of cooperation, one that challenges high-modernist assumptions about sedentariness and property and offers critical insights into historical practices of sustainable resource management and communal resistance.

Presentation short abstract

Across Aegean islands, from Makronisos to Lesvos, exile and migration create plural Mediterranean worlds through human–nonhuman entanglements. The paper connects these ecologies of displacement with Cassano, Black Mediterranean critiques and pluriversal ecology.

Presentation long abstract

This paper responds to calls for a Mediterranean political ecology by reading the Aegean Archipelago not only as a space of violence, but as a plural, more-than-human Mediterranean remade through ecologies of displacement. Focusing on Greek Civil War exile (mid-20th century) and contemporary migration on Aegean islands, I trace how human and non-human actors co-produce multiple “Mediterraneans” on islands such as Makronisos, Giaros, Lesvos and Chios. In both periods, the Aegean is a infrastructure of carceral power: winds, sea currents, vermin, livestock and companion species are mobilised as instruments of torture, abandonment and border control. Yet these same more-than-human assemblages are also reworked from below. Political prisoners and refugees cultivate comradely relations with dogs and cats, re-signify sun and daylight as allies against nocturnal terror, improvise fishing and foraging practices for survival, and transform shells and stones into objects of craft and beauty. These practices constitute “plural ecologies of displacement” that cannot be reduced to either Mediterranean conviviality or to purely necropolitical accounts of the sea. Theoretically, the paper places Franco Cassano’s thought into conversation with Black Mediterranean scholarship and pluriversal political ecology. I argue for a “more-than-human Southern Thought” that enriches Cassano’s inter-cultural Mediterranean by embedding it in the racialised and carceral histories of the Aegean, while foregrounding the plural ways humans and non-humans co-construct livable worlds in conditions of dispossession. The paper repositions the Mediterranean as a critical site for rethinking political ecology beyond Latin American paradigms, and for imagining environmental futures grounded in Mediterranean ecologies of displacement.

Presentation short abstract

The Eastern Mediterranean gas conflict reveals tensions between energy security and climate justice. This study examines how the EU and multinational corporations shape regional hydrocarbon politics, prioritizing energy interests while marginalizing environmental and justice concerns.

Presentation long abstract

Abstract

The Eastern Mediterranean has emerged as a strategic hotspot where energy geopolitics, corporate interests, and environmental vulnerability intersect. Recent offshore gas discoveries have not only redefined maritime boundaries and alliances but also intensified regional competition among states such as Turkey, Greece, Israel, and Cyprus. Within this complex landscape, the European Union and multinational energy corporations play pivotal yet distinct roles in shaping the trajectory of hydrocarbon development and its political implications. This presentation examines how the EU’s energy diversification strategy—particularly its pursuit of alternatives to Russian gas—has intersected with the commercial and strategic interests of multinational corporations. It argues that while the EU frames its engagement in the region through discourses of energy security, regional cooperation, and sustainability, its policies often reproduce existing geopolitical asymmetries and marginalize climate justice considerations. Similarly, corporate actors’ exploration activities have reinforced exclusive territorial claims and deepened environmental risks, particularly for small and vulnerable island polities like Cyprus. Drawing on official EU communications, corporate sustainability reports, and academic analyses, it shows how both actors reproduce a “energy security–development” logic that sidelines the distributive and intergenerational dimensions of climate justice. Ultimately, it highlights how the EU–corporate nexus in the Eastern Mediterranean exemplifies the broader tensions between green transition rhetoric and fossil-fuel dependency in the age of climate crisis, raising critical questions about power, legitimacy, and justice in regional energy governance.

Presentation short abstract

I mobilise decolonial theory to argue that the imperial mode of living expands through internal imperial difference in the white, non-racialised global North. I showcase the relevance of the approach for studying green sacrifice politics in rural Spain from a political ecology perspective.

Presentation long abstract

In this presentation, I argue that while it is imperative to keep in mind that decolonisation is not a metaphor, there are elements of decolonial theory that could help us understand the expansion of the imperial mode of living (IML) through green sacrifice in rural Southern Europe at the expense of white, non-racialised communities, as well as resistances to it. More specifically, I mobilise decolonial scholarship to argue that whereas IML outside the global North and racialised global North communities expands through colonial difference, within white, non-racialised North spaces it expands and deepens capitalist transitions and relations to nature through imperial difference. This allows seeing how certain resistances to extractivist ‘green’ mining and industrial-size renewable energy (wind and solar) projects surfacing in the context of the green transition, could be understood as resistances to IML from within. I advance this hypothesis through theoretical synthesis of literatures in political ecology, decolonial theory, green sacrifice, and green transition conflicts, as well as some selective evidence. I unpack the concept of green sacrifice beyond its geographical dimension showing how it can be studied as a political practice, specifically as what political ecologists have called ‘green governance’. I then present the concept of imperial difference, and showcase its relevance for understanding the expansion of IML through green sacrifice and resistances to it in the context of the green transition in rural Mediterranean territories that are ripe with green transition implementation conflicts (Spain). Finally, I reflect on the counter-hegemonic potential and limitations of the approach.