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Contribution short abstract

Human and more-than-human relations in the Ñuble Basin reveal how extractivism reshapes hydrosocial worlds. River-care practices and community resistance movements defend flowing waters as living beings, opening space for just and multispecies river futures.

Contribution long abstract

Water scarcity in Chile reveals deep inequalities in access, control, and governance of water, intensified by extractive regimes that degrade ecosystems and transform territories. Rather than a natural shortage, it constitutes a political and socioecological problem in which water and rivers become spaces of dispute, intervention, and resistance.

Drawing on political ecology of water and hydrosocial studies, this research examines how hydrosocial governmentality and extractivism reconfigure fluvial territories in south-central Chile through the long-standing Embalse Punilla project on the Ñuble River, designed to support export-oriented agribusiness and integrated with the HidroÑuble hydropower plant.

These reconfigurations alter hydrological regimes, expand control mechanisms, and reshape local livelihoods, driving mobility and rural out-migration that extend the boundaries of the hydrosocial territory and generate new rural–urban interdependencies. The Ñuble River—understood as a socionatural entity—is intervened in and re-signified, shaping subjectivities and experiences of (in)justice.

The Punilla case provides a situated lens to observe these dynamics alongside the resistance of riverine and mountain communities organized in movements such as Ñuble Libre, which advocate alternative ontologies, defend the river’s right to flow freely, and demand protection of the Nevados de Chillán–Laguna del Laja Biological Corridor, designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

This research adopts an ethnographic approach with relational methodologies to understand how humans and rivers co-produce territories and how processes of conflict, accommodation, and resistance take shape. By articulating hydrosocial governmentality, more-than-human subjectivities, and frameworks of water and multispecies justice, this project contributes to reimagining rivers as territories of life in the Global South.

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Contribution short abstract

The poster lays out a multi-disciplinary methodological toolkit to advance research on European conservation frontiers, while also featuring a range of interactive elements aimed at fostering further analytical cross-fertilization to explore unequal ecological exchange in marginal mountain areas.

Contribution long abstract

Mountain areas across Europe are caught between green extractivism and visions of green growth by conservation, often associated with EU’s push for the green transition. While the two policies appear as polar opposites, they are both green capitalism’s attempts to solve the joint climate-biodiversity crisis without addressing its root causes. Emerging from the GreenFrontier project, the current intervention proposes the conservation frontier as portable analytic to make sense of these transformations and lays out a multi-disciplinary toolkit by bringing together methodological approaches from anthropology, environmental history and environmental politics.

Conservation frontiers are ongoing and mutating processes through which the expansion of conservation initiatives foster the incorporation of new natures into capitalist dynamics. Through interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation, the GreenFrontier project researches these frontiers as political spaces shaped by governance and power struggles and changing land-use regimes, showing how these frictions lead to various environmental injustices which result from deepening existing vulnerabilities and historical underdevelopment and marginalization.

The poster is aimed at fostering academic collaboration and novel ways of thinking together about current processes of unequal ecological exchange in Europe’s peripheries.

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This PhD project investigates how modelling practices legitimise industrial salmon farming in Lutruwita/Tasmania by tracing discourses and logics that objectify oceans, dismiss counter-movements, and reproduce inequalities in decision-making.

Contribution long abstract

This PhD research project investigates how power relations are embedded in modelling practices that shape decision support tools (DSTs) used for an expanding industrial salmon industry in Lutruwita/Tasmania. The very concept of 'decision support tool', deployed predominantly by the professional-managerial class, reflects an instrumentalist logic that reduces complex webs of life to manageable objects. Models with such world-making power then legitimise the exploitation of non-human life - salmon and the ocean alike - as resources for profit-making opportunities.

Through a case study of multiple ocean models created in southeast Lutruwita/Tasmania between the years 2000-2024, I aim to challenge the dominant belief that modelling practices are apolitical. The study combines critical discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis of documents with semi-structured interviews involving modellers and government officials.

Now entering my third year, I trace an assemblage of salmon, scientific organisations, colonial administrations, discourses, and modelling practices shaped by an ongoing struggle over histories, values, authority, and identity. I discuss how neoliberal discourse and managerial logics, intertwined with these models, reduce a complex ocean into manageable objects, and how counter-movements are framed as obstructive and dismissed.

By showing how modelling practices reproduce epistemic violence and inequalities in decision-making, this research contributes to political ecology by exposing the ideological work of technocratic tools. Ultimately, it opens up conversations in Lutruwita/Tasmania on how knowledge practices can be disentangled and re-entangled with values that nurture justice and care.

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This research explores meanings of urban rewilding and examines how practices are shaped by socio-ecological-technological systems, through a review of recent literature and walking interviews with individuals managing sites for nature recovery across London boroughs.

Contribution long abstract

‘Urban rewilding’ is attracting the attention of interdisciplinary researchers, environmental organisations and the public, as ecosystem-focused approaches to nature recovery are being recommended in response to environmental and biodiversity change. Despite this growing interest, there are few resources synthesising insights on meanings of the concept provided by recently published sources, and there is limited case study research exploring how it is being approached in practice. This poster presents findings from a hybrid systematic-narrative review of recent academic and grey literature focused on urban rewilding, using reflexive thematic analysis to highlight its current conceptions. I find that they include those focused on reintroducing native species, promoting human-nature coexistence and its consideration as a nature-based solution to improve degraded ecosystems. Building on these findings, I also present initial findings from a second stage of research involving walking interviews with individuals managing local nature sites across London boroughs. This explores how urban rewilding approaches and associated meanings are shaped by the unique socio-ecological-technological systems in which they are implemented. These studies broadly aim to improve knowledge exchange on urban rewilding to inform future best practices.

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I propose to mobilize hydraulic infrastructure as a conceptual lens to productively explore re/configuration dynamics within hydrosocial spaces. This I exemplify by tracing the Turkey-Northern Cyprus Water Pipeline, attending to the infrastructuring of northern Cyprus and the island's division.

Contribution long abstract

Aside from facilitating flows of H₂O, hydraulic infrastructure as reflective of power structures emerges as a shaping force and central node within hydrosocial spaces. The intricate means of how hydraulic infrastructures re/configures hydrosocial relations throughout its lifecycle remain, however, conceptually blurry and in demand of closer examination.

I propose to explore this matter from within, by examining occurring dynamics through the infrastructure in mobilizing hydraulic infrastructure as a perspective. Attending to its hybrid nature – its material, relational and imaginative forms – directs the gaze through the mosaic of different infrastructural de/stabilizations while pointing to epistemological entry points for closer empirical examination. In mapping those, I disentangle how hydraulic infrastructure acts to transform relations between space, people, and materiality throughout its biography, thereby also highlighting the importance of explicitly considering different temporalities in the study of hydraulic infrastructure.

Empirically tracing the Turkey-Northern Cyprus Water Pipeline in its multisitedness while being attentive to its un/settling momentum, I exemplify what insights can be generated when seeing through a pipeline. Anchoring each infrastructure vignette at a different stage within the pipeline’s lifecycle, I show how the undersea freshwater flows rework relations across scales, actors, and temporal spans. Relating these dynamics to the island’s division while positioning the water transfer project within its geohistorical context, I bring to the fore the intersecting temporalities of the water pipeline with those of northern Cyprus as a de facto state, thereby illuminating the intricate ways of the pipeline’s infrastructuring of the Cyprus conflict.

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The project juxtaposes landscapes facing climate uncertainty—specifically those experiencing extremes of water scarcity or abundance. Fieldwork has been conducted across both the Global South and Global North, including the Darién rainforest of Panama, the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Contribution long abstract

This poster presents practice-based PhD research that investigates the relationship between contemporary perceptions of landscape and the visual arts, positioning art as a critical tool for engaging audiences and communities in dialogue around pressing environmental and cultural questions. Field work in Latin America took place and then work in the Southwest and East of the UK. These locations serve as comparative reference points—through which environmental, cultural, and geopolitical dynamics are explored. By studying regions that have already adapted to hydrological extremes—flood and drought—UK sites can be recontextualized in terms of resilience and adaptive potential. While the physical scale of comparison differs (e.g., the distances between Chile and Panama vs. UK East and West), the global implications of climate change justify these parallels. The research also acknowledges that the Global South faces a disproportionate impact, despite the Global North being largely responsible for historic emissions and environmental degradation.

The primary research objective(s) are to explore how sculptural practice can engage with and illuminate critical questions about experiences of landscape within the urgent context of the global climate crisis. To assess how the production/dissemination of artworks can unearth locally distinctive knowledge, highlighting places that have adapted to water extremes as models for visualizing hopeful futures.

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Contribution short abstract

Through the life trajectories of three women in small-scale fisheries and scallop aquaculture, we analyze women’s agency and involvement in the Peruvian blue economy, constrained by gender norms, male dominance, and the insecurity of (in)formal labor.

Contribution long abstract

Peru’s maritime waters and their natural resources have long been appropriated as part of the country’s economic development. While several historical analyses have covered the management and use of marine resources, few have focused on gender relations in these processes. In order to help fill this gap, we use an ethnographic approach, through the qualitative analysis of interviews carried out between 2021 and 2022 with three women involved in Peru’s artisanal small‐scale fisheries and scallop aquaculture industry. Through their life trajectories, we discuss how these women became key actors within the Peruvian blue economy and the role that concrete and situated gender relations played in that process. We present a critical analysis of women’s agency and involvement in the blue economy and how the economic opportunities offered are constrained by gender norms, male dominance, and the precarious nature of (in)formal labor. We suggest a need to shift from a focus on blue growth to a more inclusive concept of blue justice that deals with structural inequalities ingrained in current modes of extractivism and aims to secure fair opportunities for all genders in marine‐related activities.

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The study analyzes policymakers’ perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the Wellbeing Economy. It reveals a complex transition, yet one driven by public demand, innovative leadership, social investments, and welfare systems independent of economic growth.

Contribution long abstract

Is it theoretically “possible” to design alternative economic systems that meet everyone's needs within planetary limits? The choice to implement new economic systems with post-growth characteristics is primarily political. Among these, the one approach that has managed to gain traction among policy makers is the Wellbeing economy (WE). To date, the perception of the WE by different stakeholders, including policy makers, has not been systematically explored in the existing literature. The aim of this study is to fill this gap and understand the perception of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of WE among policy makers through a qualitative content analysis.

What emerges from the research, visually represented in the SWOT diagram, is that on the one hand, there is the perceived complexity for the transition to WE, due to various necessary transformations including: the role of the citizen, who from being a mere consumer must become an active player in the decision-making process; the adoption of holistic frameworks by policy makers that enable integrated and cross-sectoral policy-making; and, the shift of focus to long-term objectives independent of GDP trends.

By contrast, some potential factors that have emerged that could accelerate the implementation of WE are: the present demand by citizens for WE policies and the potential understanding of the associated economic benefits; the presence of new leaders able to promote alternative visions through social investments for economic security independent of GDP trends; and the revalorisation of aspects such as collaboration, both locally between different stakeholders and globally across countries.

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Contribution short abstract

This poster presents insights from an ongoing survey exploring how rising far-right and authoritarian dynamics affect sustainability scientists - their work, well-being, and capacity to engage in transformative research.

Contribution long abstract

This poster presents the results of an international questionnaire conducted within the Pathways Deep Dive: Ecological Crises and Political Tensions project. This in-depth exploration seeks to understand how socio- and geopolitical tensions - including the rise of ‘far-right’ and ‘authoritarian’ movements, disinformation, and institutional weakening - are shaping the practices, priorities, and problems of researchers in sustainability science across diverse research communities and geographic contexts. Indeed, before imagining new alternatives, we must first understand the lived experiences of researchers working within these contested environments. Beyond impacts, the survey explores researchers’ understanding of the connections between authoritarian, populist, and far-right discourses and ecological issues, as well as the coping strategies they employ and the forms of support they would find most helpful. Such spaces for introspection are critical in a setting where the contribution of research to a desirable future risks being undermined by political dynamics.

To contribute to a critical understanding of these dynamics, we aim to identify both shared challenges and emerging strategies of resilience and resistance. Preliminary responses suggest that while many scientists report growing hostility toward environmental agendas and knowledge, they also highlight the growth of solidarity networks, interdisciplinary collaboration, and critical reflexivity as counterforces. The poster invites discussion on how aligned researchers can navigate and respond to these political pressures without compromising their ethical and transformative commitments. The poster reflects on what political ecology and related critical fields can contribute to this task and defend spaces for pluralism, democracy, and ecological justice amid intensifying far-right ecologies.

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Contribution short abstract

This poster reconceptualises displacement as a multiscalar socioecological regime governing mobility, emplacement, and precarity. Drawing on political ecology and affective governance, fieldwork shows how queer, migrantised, and racialised people are rendered perpetually displaceable.

Contribution long abstract

This poster reframes displacement through an interdisciplinary lens, arguing that it is not a discrete event but a multiscalar regime of governance that hinders place-making and just transitions. Rather than labelling individuals as “displaced”, I conceptualize people as displaceable within intersecting social, political, and ecological power relations. Drawing on power-geometry, biopolitics, debility, and affective governmentality, displacement is theorised as a productive force that spatially and affectively governs bodies, shaping how people inhabit and move through urban spaces. I examine technologies of displacement as socioecological practices that manufacture precarity and produce zones of erasure within the city. This approach highlights how structural conditions, such as infrastructural neglect and urban undervaluation produce ongoing precarities rather than singular events of displacement. The analysis centres on queer, migrantised, and racialised people whose performances of heteronormativity, citizenship, or ethnonational belonging fall outside dominant expectations, rendering them persistently at risk of disemplacement.

Grounded in nearly a year of fieldwork in Athens, Greece, this poster presents empirical examples of neighborhoods and communities experiencing continuous displaceability without crossing into the formal categories of “displaced persons”. By combining theoretical frameworks with fieldwork data, the project illustrates how displacement operates as a diffuse and productive apparatus of power.

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Contribution short abstract

This poster examines how the environmental injustice faced by non-speaking neurodivergent young people cna be addressed, highlighting sensory-regulatory benefits, communication access, and wellbeing gains. We argue for recognising outdoor spaces are essential components of SEND provision.

Contribution long abstract

Non-speaking neurodivergent young people often face substantial barriers to environmental justice and equitable participation in educational and social environments, particularly when these spaces are communication-restrictive, or inflexibly structured. This poster examines how this environmental injustice can be addressed through “outdoor relief” when communication tools are adapted to the environment. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature and emerging empirical findings, we argue that outdoor spaces and activities such as climbing offer a unique combination of sensory regulation, embodied communication possibilities, autonomy, and reduced social-communicative pressure that are especially valuable for non-speaking young people. We consider how natural and structured outdoor settings, including climbing, enable alternative modes of expression, including multimodal communication, AAC use, and movement-based interaction. We also explore the regulatory functions of nature-rich spaces, including opportunities for sensory seeking, sensory withdrawal, and self-paced engagement. These environmental features can reduce distress, enhance emotional safety, and support meaningful participation. The poster situates itself within broader critiques of environmental injustice and deficit-oriented approaches to disability, proposing “Special Environmental Needs and Differences” as a lens that foregrounds ecological fit rather than individual impairment. We highlight the implications of this framing for policy, practice, and inclusive design, emphasising the importance of recognising outdoor access as a core component of provision for non-speaking neurodivergent young people. Overall, we argue that outdoor environments are not an optional enrichment but an essential, evidence-informed element of equitable, responsible, and supportive practice.

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Contribution short abstract

Climate change increases food insecurity in Kenya’s arid regions. Maasai women face climate impacts and land access struggles. Study explored how indigenous /contemporary knowledge, including fire management, supports adaptation, resilience and food security to recommend policies and intervention.

Contribution long abstract

Climate change is intensifying hazards worldwide, increasing the risk of food insecurity. In Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions, rising temperatures, recurrent droughts, shifting rainfall patterns, and growing land pressure have heightened vulnerabilities among pastoral communities. Maasai women are disproportionately affected, experiencing not only climate impacts but also historical and contemporary struggles over land access, resource rights, and governance systems that determine who controls land, how it is used, and who benefits.

Fire governance the rules and practices guiding fire use in rangeland management has emerged as a key area of contestation. Traditionally, Maasai communities employed controlled burning to regenerate pasture, prevent bush encroachment, protect livestock, and support food systems. Colonial and post-colonial policies, however, often criminalized these practices, undermining indigenous land management, reducing pasture availability, and intensifying the burden on women, who manage household food, water, and livestock.

This study investigates how Maasai women’s indigenous and contemporary knowledge informs climate adaptation within the context of fire governance and contested land access. Drawing on systematic literature review and case studies from pastoral counties, it examines the evolution of fire policies, their interaction with customary land tenure, and their implications for women’s agency, livelihood resilience, and food security.

Findings indicate that excluding traditional knowledge and community participation exacerbates land degradation, conflict, and food insecurity, particularly for women. The study recommends incorporating indigenous fire knowledge into policy, enhancing women’s decision-making roles, and aligning contemporary land-use systems with traditional pastoral practices to promote resilience, equitable land access, and sustainable livelihoods for Maasai women.

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The People’s Health Movement mobilize activists to address the recovery of the natural environment and ecosystem and its contribution to health.

Contribution long abstract

Introduction

Communities experience growing displacement, the loss of social services, land, water and livelihood, and health problems resulting from exposure to toxics. These issues result from a global extractivist project driven by global financial capital promoting an unsustainable and inequitable development model that threatens people’s health and the health of the planet.

Method

To deal with these challenges, the People’s Health Movement mobilize activists to address the recovery of the natural environment and ecosystem and its contribution to health. PHM’s thematic circle supports programmes such as the International People's Health University, a short course for health activists focussing on the political economy of health. It also supports the WHO Watch programme through which PHM follows the WHO and other UN agencies, through their Assemblies and Executive Boards. Watchers call upon country delegates to protect the right to health in the context of environmental degradation and to take action to end imperialist control of the earth’s natural resources.

Results

PHM enabled a greater voice and activism among the younger generations, women, and indigenous peoples who learn on environment ecosystem and share experiences to defend and protect people’s health.

More than 1000 activists from more than 80 countries attended the IPHU and the WHO Watch.

There are policy dialogues with PHM participation in several Latin America and Asia countries on environmental justice.

Future directions

Despite these achievements, PHM has yet to improve its in-country engagement for policy dialogues especially in African and European countries.

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Contribution short abstract

Fisheries crisis in El Ñuro, Peru impacts not only fishers’ labour but also household livelihoods. As access to marine resources declines, reproductive work is reorganised, transforming gender roles, mobility patterns and food practices in fishing families.

Contribution long abstract

In recent decades, overexploitation of marine resources, climate change and inefficient fishing policy regulations have affected artisanal fishing. In El Ñuro (Talara, Piura), these changes in access to marine resources have made fishing labour increasingly precarious while generating profound reorganisations in the domestic lives of fishing families.

Drawing on political ecology and social reproduction theory, I understand labour as practices through which humans relate with each other and their environment. Focusing on reproductive labour, this approach reveals how fishing households interact with different timeframes and scales of market dynamics, marine seasons, and daily routines. Based on this, my doctoral research asks: how do changes in access to marine resources impact the organisation of reproductive labour in fishing households? I argue that fishing labour precarity cannot be understood by examining conditions at sea alone, but must be analysed related to reproductive labour.

Using ethnographic methods with fishers’ families, I examine how reproductive labour is changing with a focus on food provisioning, shifting gender roles as women become breadwinners while managing care, and fishers migrate seasonally due to mobility patterns. For example, fish scarcity and reduced income from fishing work push women to seek alternative protein sources and raise animals for self-consumption. These strategies reveal how ecological crises reshape labour conditions, household sustainability, and livelihoods.

By examining tensions between productive and reproductive labour, this research contributes to understanding how fishing crises affect not only labour at sea, but also the organisation of care, gender relations, and intergenerational dynamics within fishing households.

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Contribution short abstract

Darién holds high biodiversity, and rich social and cultural richness. It experiences a progressing land-use frontier and institutional abandonment, affecting both human and ecological systems. I conducted interviews and participant observation near its capital to characterize land-use regimes.

Contribution long abstract

The Panamanian Darién holds high biological and ecosystemic value, as well as rich social and cultural diversity deriving from Emberá, Wounaan and Guna indigenous groups, Afro-Darienitas, and colonial settlers who arrived through different migration waves. Despite its relevance, Darién remains understudied and misunderstood. Historically, it has been associated with harmful colonial imaginaries of wilderness and uninhabitability, reinforced by recent narratives surrounding the migration crisis through the Darién Gap. Although the region has reemerged as a diversity hotspot, it continues to experience deforestation due to the progressing land-use frontier and institutional abandonment, affecting both human and ecological systems.

To improve our understanding of recent changes and dynamics in land-use frontiers, I conducted 2.5 month of fieldwork in the hinterland region of its capital, La Palma. To characterize these systems, I used the notion of land-use regimes because of its potential to add nuance and reveal patterns within comparable dimensions in an area marked by high actor heterogeneity. I conducted interviews and participant observation and subsequently implemented iterative and integrated data analysis. Six distinct land-use regimes were identified, being extensive commercial colonial-settler/Afro-Darienita cattle ranching the predominant regime, evolving from the convergence of extensive subsistence colonial-settler agriculture and subsistence Afro-Darienita swidden agriculture. Future regime shifts are possible as intensive land-use trends emerge in the region as land-decision makers anticipate increased connectivity to the commercial centers through either the completion of the highway, the promises of the bridge or the community-led construction of a ramp intended to reduce dependence on tidal cycles.

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Contribution short abstract

This study examines Richard Powers’ novel "The Overstory" through a Black geographies lens to examine how the book fails to attend to dynamics of race and Blackness in the EJ movement and ignores the importance of Black environmental labor and landlessness in the conversations about land justice.

Contribution long abstract

Richard Powers’ "The Overstory" follows nine characters through their intersecting journeys with environmental justice; they forge connections to trees and dedicate their lives to fighting deforestation in the context of their unique lived histories. Considered by some a modern Anthropocene novel of environmental justice, "The Overstory" has attracted some critical analysis of its contribution to the EJ movement. Papers have examined the book from an Ecocritical perspective (Safina, 2021; Shakir, 2024; Thomas, 2024), reading material by addressing the impactful and connected interactions between human and natural worlds. However, the literature has not conflated race and Blackness with environmental justice movements in "The Overstory". The book has no Black characters and fails to acknowledge Black communities’ role in the origin of the EJ movement (McGurty, 2007). Given this exclusion, I ask how Powers represents the racial dynamics of the EJ movement, how the white characters navigate their EJ worlds in the absence of Blackness, and how "The Overstory" may have changed if Blackness was part of the story. To fill this gap, I conduct a literary analysis of "The Overstory" centering a Black geographies lens (McKittrick & Woods, 2007), attending to how Black senses of place have always influenced EJ yet are continually excluded from its narrative. I argue that Powers fails to attend to notions of Black environmental labor, plantation logics, and landlessness in his portrayal of twentieth-century EJ, and that the inclusion of Blackness would alter the way characters in the novel relate to land, environment, and community justice.

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Contribution short abstract

Energy production (30%), mineral extraction (18.4%), and biomass-land loss (17.9%) are the primary drivers of conflicts affecting Indigenous Peoples (IP) in coastal zones. Constitutional recognition of IP rights correlates with more energy-related conflicts but a slightly higher rate of resolution

Contribution long abstract

Socioenvironmental conflicts are increasing in coastal areas across the world, with significant impacts on coastal environments and people. Owing to their location at the meeting of the land and the sea, coastal regions are experiencing growing population, development, tourism pressure, and industrial pressures, including ports, roads and wind farms. There is also growing evidence that Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately impacted due to their historical and structural marginalization, leaving enduring legacies of cultural loss, social inequity, and ecological degradation. Yet, the specific impacts of extractive and industrial activities on coastal Indigenous communities and their livelihoods, remain understudied. We present an analysis of 401 socio-environmental conflicts involving at least 275 Indigenous ethnic groups, extracted from the EJAtlas. Our findings reveal that the prevalence and intensity of conflicts are geographically uneven and primarily driven by impact sectors such as energy production, mining, biomass extraction, and commodity agriculture. The environmental consequences include biodiversity loss, degradation of landscapes and seascapes, and adverse social outcomes include effects on Indigenous Peoples’ wellbeing and mental health. Notably, 83 cases involved the destruction of or displacement from ancestral lands or sacred sites. Our analysis also highlights how the impacts of conflicts differed substantially by sector and the level of rights recognition in countries where conflicts occurred. In conclusion, we highlight the need to address coastal conflicts and mitigate their impacts on Indigenous Peoples. Recognizing, respecting and protecting Indigenous rights and values is critical to chart pathways toward more just and sustainable development in coastal areas worldwide

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Contribution short abstract

Los desastres nunca han sido puramente naturales. La cultura, material e inmaterial, es un pilar fundamental para establecer dicha categoría. Los desastres socioambientales, entonces, se presentan como una situación perfecta para analizar las bases sociales y culturales de las sociedades afectadas.

Contribution long abstract

Los seres humanos somos producto de innumerables procesos migratorios que se han visto propulsados por diferentes motivaciones tales como guerras, territorialidad, crimen organizado, violencia, escasez o inviabilidad del territorio, entre otras múltiples causas. Con este trabajo se pretende recoger una de esas motivaciones para los procesos migratorios desplazada en sí misma por otras más interesantes desde el punto de vista económico, geopolítico o mediático. Estas son las propias condiciones atmosféricas y terrestres que caracterizan el planeta que habitamos, es decir, el clima.

Dentro del contexto actual, donde las migraciones climáticas son un fenómeno a la alza, es fundamental adquirir una perspectiva interdisciplinar e interseccional. Esto quiere decir que, en el momento actual, observar, estudiar y analizar las migraciones desde la academia como un fenómeno único y aislado en sí mismo no es ni eficiente ni fiel a la realidad.

Se realizará un recorrido por la literatura antropológica relativa a las migraciones climáticas y el género para conocer cómo se está investigando la relación entre estos dos factores dentro de la disciplina. Podemos preguntarnos cuestiones como ¿Qué se entiende dentro de la literatura antropológica como “migración climática”? ¿Cómo se está investigando la relación entre el género y las migraciones climáticas dentro de la disciplina? ¿Qué enfoques predominan? ¿Cuál es el rol que puede jugar la comunidad antropológica en la cuestión climática? ¿Podemos estudiar estos fenómenos desde la antropología de los desastres naturales o el riesgo? Y si es así, ¿nos daría un enfoque oportuno o válido para abordar la cuestión?

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This study reconstructs the environmental history of the caldenal woodlands in central Argentina by analyzing the historical, socioeconomic, technological, and legal factors driving land-use change, revealing the dynamics behind landscape transformation and guiding conservation efforts.

Contribution long abstract

The woodlands dominated by Neltuma caldenia (caldén) in the province of San Luis, central Argentina, have witnessed ongoing tension between productive expansion and environmental preservation. As a result, these remaining woodlands are now immersed in an agricultural matrix, forming a landscape that reflects a long-standing but under-documented territorial process. This study analyzes the historical, socioeconomic, technological, and legal factors associated with the transformation of the caldenal woodlands from historical and subjectivity-based perspectives. To address this aim, we conducted an exhaustive literature review, interviewed local actors, and analyzed historical and current cartography. For earlier periods, no satellite records exist; however, narratives from 19th-century explorers indicate that woodlands were already being used for railway construction following the arrival of the railroad to San Luis in 1875, providing wood for tracks and fuel for locomotives. Later, over the 20th century, our cartographic analysis shows that agricultural land increased by about 83%, replacing natural vegetation. This phenomenon could be associated with transformations in the agrarian structure (where interviewees mentioned that deforestation was considered an improvement) and the adoption of no-till technologies. Although woodland protection laws were implemented during the same period, their effectiveness was limited. Thus, the environmental history of the caldenal spans from the traditional use of woodlands by Indigenous peoples to the consolidation of a production model that links global logics with local dynamics, now increasingly shaped by “green” economies. Historicizing socio-environmental processes and actor–nature relations provide insights for territorial planning that values the caldenal’s ecological, cultural, and historical significance.

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How does radical imagination take shape in the practices of activist groups? How do past radical imaginaries shape contemporary collective action of activist movements? Taking the 2024 student occupation at Ghent University as a starting point, this presentation delves into these questions.

Contribution long abstract

In the spring of 2024, universities around the world witnessed the largest wave of student mobilization in generations. Students organized in opposition to their universities’ complicity in sustaining ties with settler-colonial and Zionist institutions amid accelerating genocidal violence in Palestine. In Ghent, students occupied their campus for 40 days, calling not only for an academic boycott in solidarity with Palestine but also for stronger climate-justice measures at their university. Although this encampment is frequently depicted as a “successful” or exemplary case, largely because the university became the first to formally commit to cutting ties, an equally important dimension is exactly the cross-struggle solidarity coalition building between anti-colonial and climate justice movements. Which political imaginaries underpinned the emergence of this coalition? What frictions or ambiguities surfaced as these imaginaries interacted? And what stories to more abundant futures were transmitted through them?

In this poster-presentation, my central aim is to reflect on the (im)possibilities to keep the radical imagination and practices of activists alive through the lens of counter-archives. Archives play a crucial role in this regard as they are not passive repositories of memory but active spaces that construct future imagined realities of past events. The empirical data draws on participant observation in combination with semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with the different actors involved in the 2024 UGent encampment and its archiving process. As a researcher, my positionality is shaped by both my involvement in the UGent occupation and my current research work examining the archiving of activist movements.

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Contribution short abstract

This poster explores Brown’s original concept of the ‘chimynthropic assemblage’, which traces the posthuman political ecologies emerging from the entanglements of fungicides, resistant fungi, and England’s agro-industrial systems.

Contribution long abstract

Antifungal-resistant fungi are a window into the complexities of the chemical anthropocene. Resistant fungi are strange, beautiful and disquieting – at once creating and resisting an agricultural system built on agrochemical reliance. This poster explores Brown’s original concept of the ‘chimynthropic assemblage’, which traces the posthuman political ecologies emerging from the entanglements of fungicides, resistant fungi, and England’s agro-industrial systems. Alongside analysing how fungicide resistance is conceptualised by agricultural stakeholders across industry dynamics and values, the chimynthropic assemblage foregrounds fungi as agents whose responses to chemical saturation reveal the limits of anthropocentrism. Attending to fungi’s adaptive strategies makes visible the more-than-human dynamics shaping agricultural futures, while illuminating the ethical, ecological and political stakes of ignoring them. Indeed, responding to POLLEN 2026’s call, this poster argues that listening to fungal resistance opens a space for counter-hegemonic agricultural narratives, with possibilities for reorienting agriculture toward resilience and care. This poster represents part of a PhD thesis in progress, and draws from interviews with English farmers, agronomists, policy-makers, regulatory advisors, agrochemical employees, and mycologists, alongside multispecies ethnographic fieldwork undertaken on a biodynamic farm. The images included on this poster are sketches taken at the fieldwork site, as part of a multispecies methodological approach that uses illustration to think through more-than-human encounters.

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This research examines how socio-economic and political dynamics, often obscured in conservation debates, shape conservation in Chilean Patagonia. Findings show livelihood changes, strong hierarchical governance, and limited community influence in protected-area decision-making.

Contribution long abstract

In the face of biodiversity loss, the creation of protected areas has been considered the primary tool to address this challenge. International agreements, like the 30x30 Agenda, have encouraged countries to commit to their goals, promoting the creation of protected areas worldwide.

Initial conservation approaches have perpetuated dichotomous ways of understanding the human-nature relationship, such as fortress conservation, which considers that the ecological preservation of an area is most successful without the presence of humans and their threats, which increases tensions with local communities. Even though new conservation paradigms have emerged that consider that conservation goals should be achieved by including local communities’ voices and their rights to participate in decision-making processes, the socio-economic and political aspects, and the power dynamics that converge in these contexts of territorial reconfiguration, are often overlooked.

This doctoral research explores, through the lens of political ecology, how socio-economic and political forces shape protected-areas conservation in Patagonia, Chile. Preliminary results from 21 semi-structured interviews and document reviews revealed that the model of protected areas in Chilean Patagonia has reconfigured traditional livelihoods toward local training in tourism, and that the predominance of hierarchical governance structures, compounded by the influential presence of foreign conservation organizations, hampers genuine local participation and decision-making, thereby exposing the shortcomings of participatory frameworks. This study addresses a gap in conservation research in Chile by focusing on the structural factors that shape the outcomes of protected areas, moving beyond the narrative that protected areas themselves are a “golden solution” to address biodiversity loss.

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Land-use patterns between the Indian and Bangladeshi Sundarbans show significant differences: India’s Kumirmari area maintains paddy fields behind functioning polder systems, whereas Bangladesh’s Protapnagar shows rampant expansion of shrimp aquaculture due to weak water-control infrastructure.

Contribution long abstract

Satellite image analysis reveals a significant contrast in land-use patterns between the Indian and Bangladeshi Sundarbans. While the Indian side is dominated by paddy fields, the Bangladeshi side shows a much more extensive expansion of shrimp aquaculture. This observation raises an important research question: How has the land been exploited, and what political and local decision-making processes have driven the rapid expansion of shrimp farming in the Bangladeshi Sundarbans?

Our findings indicate that a well-functioning polder system exists in Kumirmari (India), whereas such infrastructure is largely absent in Protapnagar (Bangladesh). The lack of proper water control, combined with restricted land access, has facilitated widespread land grabbing for shrimp farming, contributing to the marginalisation of small-scale farmers. These farmers traditionally cultivated rice, but due to the low elevation of the land, post-disaster waterlogging makes it easy to convert rice fields into shrimp ponds—yet extremely difficult to revert them to rice cultivation.

This situation has been exploited by large shrimp business owners, worsening environmental degradation. Shrimp aquaculture has increased soil salinity, prolonged waterlogging, and significantly reduced the arability of agricultural land. Furthermore, shrimp farming is labour-extensive, requiring minimal manpower, which has reduced employment opportunities for surrounding communities. While landowners benefit from higher revenues, local farming households face growing inequities and are often forced to abandon their traditional livelihoods.

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The study investigates how the grand narratives of EU-funded programs influence and shape the positioning of climate scientists’ self-narratives in bridging the gap between knowledge and action to inform adaptive decision-making.

Contribution long abstract

Grand narratives are overarching stories that best explain the past, motivate the present and imagine the future. Under the assumption that individual scientific actions are situated within a larger socio-political context that continuously interacts with grand narratives, convictions about what is deemed actionable are socially embedded and normatively charged. Committing to a research career path requires a consistent narrative identity shaped by personal experience and institutional context. Re-interpretating our role as part of grand narratives through time invokes not just the moral codes and value frameworks to appeal to, but what visions of the future spark commitment despite fundamental uncertainty.

In this study, we intended to demonstrate the (mis)alignment of self-narratives with grand narratives. The project calls for proposals are issued under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, both essential in driving innovative research and addressing societal challenges. We analysed the project calls for convictions towards technology, socio-politics, values, knowledge, and action. The self-narratives were interpreted from interview fragments with individual climate scientists participating in a research and innovation project. A large language model has been used to mark narrative segments, which are then categorised to compare personal with grand narratives. The preliminary results showed how such grand narratives interacted with climate scientist's constructions of past experiences and expectation-building to affect decision-making.

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The study examines a water conflict in Thuringia, Germany, where changes in dam management intensified droughts and triggered a multidimensional conflict. First insights reveal a trend toward depoliticization and limited policital deliveration.

Contribution long abstract

Although water in Germany has long been perceived as an abundant and free resource, reports of shortages and emerging conflicts are becoming increasingly significant. In contrast to the rich body of political-ecological research on water struggles in the Global South, the German case has received far less scholarly attention. The aim of the poster is to bring existing research in political ecology into dialogue with the conflicts now unfolding within highly bureaucratized contexts of the Global North in order to broaden and refine the conceptual tools of the field. This poster therefore presents insights into a water conflict in Thuringia, Germany, where recent changes in dam management have amplified river droughts and triggered disputes over distributive justice, water rights, and the legitimacy of administrative decisions.

The case demonstrates how normative debates over water allocation were strategically reframed as disputes over scientific and technical facts – an act of depoliticization that obscured underlying inequalities and limited democratic deliberation. By examining how bureaucratic procedures, and infrastructural path-dependencies shape socio-ecological conflicts, the study highlights dimensions of environmental governance.

The poster aims to place conflicts in Germany alongside those in the Global South, enabling mutual theoretical enrichment. The case illustrates how political ecology’s core questions travel and transform in different institutional settings. At the same time, studying conflicts in highly regulated contexts can sharpen political ecology’s understanding of administration, technocracy, and the subtle mechanisms through which inequality is (re)produced.

The poster thus invites a comparative conversation on resource governance across diverse socio-ecological contexts.

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Research with key stakeholders reveals how to overcome biomedical dominance, lack of green space, and a shortage of therapists to integrate Nature-Based Therapies (NBTs) into Peru's health system. The strategy: local evidence, multi-sector alliances and revisiting indigenous knowledge.

Contribution long abstract

What if forests and gardens could be part of the medical prescription in Peru? This study explores a radically simple idea: bringing nature into the healthcare system. By listening to doctors, policymakers, therapists, and indigenous leaders, we map the path for Nature-Based Therapies (NBTs) to move from the fringes to a real option for Peruvians. We found a fascinating tension between traditional biomedicine (focused on pills) and ancient indigenous knowledge that already understands nature's healing power.

The hurdles are significant: a lack of accessible green spaces, few trained therapists, and laws that don't recognize these practices. But the opportunities are greater: a culture deeply connected to the land, growing climate awareness, and policies starting to value intercultural approaches.

The solution isn't a single fix, but a collaborative revolution: generating local evidence, building alliances between universities and communities, and starting from the ground up—turning hospital gardens into the first laboratories of natural healing. This is more than a health project; it's a step towards a fairer system where the well-being of people and the planet go hand in hand.

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Based on my ongoing PhD project, this poster-presentation explores how people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden, conceptualize and experience climate (in)justice. It therein seeks to contribute to diversifying critical debates on urban climate justice.

Contribution long abstract

As cities struggle with growing inequalities and implementing climate action locally, there is growing scholarly interest in urban climate justice. Researchers and activists have stressed that climate change impacts and related policy measures will hit certain groups in cities more than others and might reinforce existing inequities. Meanwhile, both planning and knowledge production have been dominated by scientific and technocratic ‘experts’, triggering calls to engage particularly with marginalized and vulnerable groups. Addressing this need from a critical feminist perspective, my ongoing PhD project aims to gain better understanding of how people living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden, conceptualize and experience climate (in)justice. Through narrative interviews with individuals, and group discussions, I collaboratively explore participants’ ‘senses of justice’ regarding climate change in the city. After initial inductive analysis, my presentation will inquire how these emic understandings relate to dominant Western-philosophical thought on climate justice, and local climate governance. Considering the sometimes-evasive meaning of ‘recognition’ justice and potential risks of paternalistic interpretations, it seems particularly relevant to examine what affected populations themselves demand concerning political and cultural recognition to address underlying structural inequalities. I will further discuss how disadvantaged groups relate to questions of representation both within and beyond participatory governance, possibly touching upon tensions between procedural justice and the ‘tyranny of participation’. By centering hitherto neglected voices in epistemic processes, my work contributes to diversifying critical debates on urban climate justice, as I embrace a political ecological praxis seeking to coproduce knowledge with disadvantaged groups, and for better policy-making.

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Tensiones territoriales, disputas y voces locales muestran cómo se configuran la comunidad para resistir a la privatización y urbanización en la faja costera del balneario.

Contribution long abstract

El departamento de Maldonado ha experimentado un crecimiento sostenido acompañado por la aprobación de excepciones a la normativa de Ordenamiento Territorial a favor de proyectos inmobiliarios. Estas prácticas, justificadas bajo discursos de desarrollo han generado impactos sobre el ecosistema costero. En este marco, Balneario Buenos Aires es un territorio cuya ocupación progresiva se consolidó sin planificación, tensionado por procesos de gentrificación, privatización de espacios públicos y problemas de tenencia de la tierra. Este escenario habilitó la propuesta del complejo residencial “La Orilla”, un fraccionamiento de 13 ha sobre el cordón dunar que desencadenó un conflicto ambiental.

El trabajo analiza las dinámicas del conflicto para comprender cómo las problemáticas ambientales ingresan en la esfera pública local desde un enfoque participativo, incorporando experiencias locales en la construcción de narrativas territoriales. La metodología incluyó revisión de fuentes, talleres en el territorio, entrevistas semiestructuradas, mapeo participativo de usos y valoraciones, y relevamiento normativo.

A través del análisis de los actores y sus ejes de controversia, del relato local del conflicto y del análisis de la productividad del mismo, se evidencia la coexistencia de visiones contrapuestas sobre el desarrollo de estos proyectos, las diferentes valoraciones y apropiaciones de la costa como bien común, y de poder en la toma de decisiones. El conflicto de La Orilla unió sectores de la sociedad demandando justicia ambiental, y resaltó el desafío de integrar la perspectiva ambiental en la planificación en un contexto marcado por presiones inmobiliarias, complejidades legales y una sostenida demanda de espacios públicos.

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The poster reflects on the political stance of researchers, particularly how frameworks, methods, and participant choices shape the stories we tell about people–nature relationships. It draws on work in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, to support more inclusive conservation.

Contribution long abstract

Amid accelerating biodiversity loss and declining human well-being, people relate to nature in highly diverse ways. Evidence-based narratives that guide conservation policy and practice depend on researchers recognizing how nature contributes to human well-being and the plural values people ascribe to it. Yet, the stories we as researchers tell about people–nature relationships are conditioned by the methodological choices that structure our work. Decisions about how we study these relationships—the dimensions and frameworks we select, the methods we use for data collection and analysis, and the participants we include or exclude—shape what becomes visible, whose perspectives are centred, and which forms of knowledge remain obscured.

Drawing on a study with four social actor groups in the social–ecological system of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, it reflects on how research design can broaden or narrow understandings of the spectrum of people–nature relationships. Through this reflection, the poster highlights risks such as the omission of important knowledge, the reproduction of stereotypes, and the unintentional reinforcement of dominant conservation narratives.

Methodological choices do not necessarily lead to “wrong” stories, but they risk generating incomplete ones. By foregrounding the political nature of research choices, the poster encourages conservation researchers to more deliberately consider how their frameworks, methods, and sampling decisions influence the narratives that inform policy and practice. In doing so, it aims to support more inclusive and place-based conservation approaches that better reflect the plurality of people–nature relationships both between and within social actor groups.

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El estudio analiza instrumentos chilenos de regeneración urbana barrial en su dimensión ambiental y cómo responden ante el calor extremo. Con metodología mixta, se evidencia que el componente ambiental es secundario y existiría disonancia entre las medidas ofrecidas y las respuestas comunitarias.

Contribution long abstract

El cambio climático está afectando cada vez más a las ciudades mediante fenómenos extremos que amenazan su bienestar. Entre ellos, altas temperaturas y olas de calor se han vuelto más frecuentes e intensas, amplificando la vulnerabilidad de los territorios. Frente a esto, la Agenda 2030 impulsa la resiliencia urbana y ha motivado adaptaciones en las políticas chilenas. No obstante, los programas de regeneración más consolidados no integran de forma decidida el componente ambiental ni acciones concretas frente a estos riesgos, generándose una posible disonancia entre las medidas institucionales y las iniciativas ciudadanas que emergen para enfrentar estas nuevas amenazas.

Este estudio analiza la evolución de las medidas ambientales incorporadas en dichos programas desde 2015 - aprobación de los ODS- mediante una revisión documental de textos normativos y programáticos, complementada con entrevistas a profesionales. El análisis se estructura a partir del modelo de políticas públicas de Ibarra et al. (2007) y Subirats y Gomà (1997), considerando tres dimensiones (simbólica, sustantiva y operativa) y cuatro categorías: identificación de amenazas ambientales, reconocimiento de vulnerabilidad territorial y social, incorporación del cambio climático en los objetivos y estrategias de adaptación (físicas, sociales y de salud). También se examina el rol participativo propuesto en estos instrumentos.

La investigación ofrece una mirada novedosa a nivel temático y metodológico, integrando la inseguridad ambiental en programas de regeneración urbana y destacando la relevancia de la participación ciudadana frente a los desafíos climáticos emergentes.

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Intact forests like the Amazon face threats from agricultural expansion. From 2014–2023, firms driving land-use change in Brazil received ~US$450 billion. This study links TNCs’ FDI, profit repatriation, and soy‑related deforestation, showing 60% of profits flow to Europe, mainly via the Netherlands

Contribution long abstract

Intact forests are vital for biodiversity, yet large ecosystems like the Amazon are increasingly threatened by agricultural expansion. Between 2014 and 2023, agriculture firms linked to land-use change in the Brazilian Amazon received about US $450 billion in financial flows. Concerns about systemic financial risk from biodiversity loss have spurred efforts to green the financial system. However, recent studies argue that achieving this goal requires addressing global economic imbalances, particularly those arising from profit repatriation. Such capital outflows pose systemic risks to emerging economies like Brazil and hinder sustainable financial transformation. Between 2005 and 2020, Transnational Corporations (TNCs) repatriated an annual average of US $1 trillion globally—equivalent to 4.2% of global FDI stock and 1.4% of world GDP. In many resource-exporting countries, repatriated profits exceed inbound FDI stocks, compounding financial vulnerabilities.

This study examines how TNCs’ profit repatriation and FDI holdings shape Brazil’s financial exposure and environmental outcomes. We analyze links between TNCs’ FDI in the soy sector, profit repatriations, and soy-driven land-use changes. Financial data from the Brazilian Central Bank and corporate balance sheets are integrated with subnational supply-use accounts and the FABIO model to quantify biodiversity impacts. Results reveal that nearly 60% of profits repatriated from Brazil flow to Europe, with the Netherlands and Luxembourg accounting for about half. By connecting financial and ecological data, this study highlights the structural feedback between global finance and deforestation, underscoring the need to move from risk management toward coordinated, multilateral risk governance for sustainability.

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The poster explores historical and contemporary dynamics of the Lobito Corridor, advancing world-ecology in Africa to reveal how socio-ecological relations and infrastructure shape extractive frontiers, unsettling dominant development imaginaries.

Contribution long abstract

Spanning Angola, Zambia and the DRC, the Lobito Corridor emerged in 1902 as the Benguela Line channelled resources from the central African interior to colonial centres. Despite its historical and contemporary significance to the region and wider globalised value chains, there is limited empirical research on how the corridor’s infrastructure and socio-ecological relations produce and are produced by frontier logics of extraction. It’s contemporary revitalisation as a strategic route for local and global development positions the corridor at the forefront of renewed interest in Africa’s critical minerals. As foreign actors such as China and the U.S. compete for access, the corridor is a key site to investigate how geopolitical power, development narratives and socio-ecological relations are reorganised by capital.

While world-ecology offers a lens for understanding these processes of Cheap Nature through capitals long-durée, it has not been extended to the simultaneous analysis of mineral-intensive green capitalism in Africa, presenting an opportunity to advance the framework. This approach shifts focus from individual actors or discrete events to the enduring socio-ecological relations that structure development over time (Moore, 2015, p.46). Building on this theoretical grounding, the methodology that the project follow shall trace these patterns empirically, through interviews in the field, enabling an analysis of the Benguela Railway and the Lobito Corridor as sites where historical and material processes of accumulation and dispossession continue to shape the web of life.

This poster presents new empirical insights from the Lobito Corridor, showing how infrastructures and socio-ecological relations shape extractive frontiers in Africa.

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Review of two conceptual frameworks, Integrated Water Resources Management and Political Ecology of Water, their trajectories, positions, and tensions, aiming to characterize the context, and seek to contribute to the dialogue between both approaches in Uruguayan water management.

Contribution long abstract

In the context of global socio-environmental crisis and accelerated environmental degradation, water management faces growing challenges. This poster aims to review, compare, and put into dialogue two relevant conceptual frameworks: Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and the Political Ecology of Water, in order to characterize their impact in Uruguay. The theoretical foundations, historical evolution of both frameworks are analyzed through a systematic mapping of literature and regulations. The analysis is then applied to observe a case in the Uruguayan context. Although both frameworks emerged in the 1970s, no studies were found that actively compare them. It is recognized that from their inception, they followed different paths. IWRM has a technical-regulatory profile and institutional imprint, linked mainly to international agreements. While Political Ecology of Water takes a critical view of power and justice, focusing on increasingly conflictive territorial realities. Looking at the context of Uruguay, the case of a constitutional reform promoted by organized civil society stands out. In the reform, water is recognized as a human right, resulting in a civil society driven implementation of Water Policy aligned with the principles of IWRM. However, tensions continue to arise throughout the implementation of the reform, with the dialogue between societal needs and policymakers frequently disrupted or constrained. This study contributes to the analysis of the dialogue between both approaches, understanding that their integration and coordinated work requires critical reading, greater participation, and the reclaiming of territorial knowledge for more democratic water management.

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In the wake of shellfish population collapse, landscapes and legal geographies shape approaches to restoration in two U.S. estuaries. I argue that their seemingly opposite approaches and outcomes break down binaries in resistance and power and share the result of resource enclosure.

Contribution long abstract

How do communities restore ecosystems in the aftermath of collapse? How do their landscapes and legal geographies shape restoration goal setting and approaches, and how does the act of restoration and its physical outcomes reciprocally shape legalities and landscapes? These questions are continuously playing out in estuaries across the United States. Wild oyster populations have declined between 85% to 99% worldwide (Beck et al. 2011), and have almost disappeared from both the Peconic estuary of New York state and Elkhorn Slough, California’s second largest estuary. In the U.S., marine property laws vary by state and shape how communities respond to collapse. I apply de Certeau’s framework of strategies and tactics in everyday life to interrogate who stakeholders are in oyster and ecosystem restoration and how they identify themselves to argue that binary conceptualizations of power break down in the aftermath of collapse. Similarly, I juxtapose the property and access frameworks in the Peconic estuary and Elkhorn Slough to argue that binary understandings of seemingly opposite restoration outcomes, such as a marine protected area in Elkhorn Slough, or transition to commercial marine farming on the Peconic, obscure a shared conceptualization of oysters as forms of natural infrastructure and animal laborers within their otherwise opposing marine property frameworks. Ultimately, I argue that ecosystem restoration may seem to take opposing forms, but that those seemingly contradictory legal structures are both forms of enclosure and resource dispossession, whether by privatizing marine space for mariculture, or through the establishment of marine protected areas.

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This study uses LC-MS to examine how intensive versus organic, diverse agroforestry practices in Puerto Rico shape the secondary metabolites of Coffea arabica, and how these chemical shifts affect agroecosystem resilience and economic sovereignty.

Contribution long abstract

Plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) provide a unique and underutilized lens for understanding agroecological systems and their socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. Hegemonic evaluation of agricultural systems normatively prioritizes metrics such as yield above all else; however, PSMs are fundamental to crop resilience and overall ecosystem function. This is particularly important in coffee production, where more than 70% of the global supply comes from smallholder farmers. Cultivation strategies that affect the complex chemistry underpinning healthy agroecosystems must therefore be assessed to identify practices that support economic sovereignty. In Puerto Rico, where land and labor are limited, and smallholders face strong pressure to industrialize, this issue is especially relevant. Although coffee has traditionally been cultivated in diverse, shaded agroforestry systems, growers are increasingly encouraged to adopt sun-grown monocultures with intensive synthetic agrochemical use to boost short-term yields. Yet canopy cover and agrochemical inputs have been shown to significantly affect PSM expression, with species-specific effects that cascade across trophic levels, and carry important implications for ecosystem health and farm profitability. To investigate these dynamics, we collected leaf tissue samples from sun and shade plots on both conventional and organic coffee farms in Puerto Rico. Samples included undamaged leaves, leaves damaged by Coffee Leaf Miner (Leucoptera coffeella), and leaves subjected to artificial wounding. We analyzed the quantity and diversity of secondary metabolites using targeted and untargeted LC-MS. We also gathered semi-quantitative data on chewing herbivore damage, Coffee Leaf Miner incidence (mines), Coffee Rust disease (Hemileia vastatrix), and other fungal diseases to support our analysis.

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Disentangling U.S. Academic Environmental Research from Corporate and Colonial Interests and Opportunities for Graduate Labor Intervention

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Environmental science and engineering research (ESER) at academic institutions in the United States often claim to provide technological and scientific solutions to ongoing climate, water, and energy issues, both nationally and abroad. However, environmental research is limited in its ability to contribute to a just transition. The University is welded to and upholds colonial and capitalist structures, and therefore lacks the infrastructure to disrupt environmental injustice and oppose environmental degradation. To increase the utility of ESER in the movement for a just transition, we must disentangle the research from the University’s oppressive frameworks. One such example is disassociating research from the profits of war (ex: funding for the US Department of Defense for Drinking water research). I aim to analyze the current system of ESER, and propose reforms such as funding-schemes, research priorities, and research methods, to reorient ESER toward a collaborative and anti-colonial model.

Graduate labor movements have a long history of disrupting relationships of universities to war and fossil fuels through calls for divestment. Graduate labor powers environmental research, and there may be opportunities for graduate labor to push for further reconstruction (or deconstruction) of the University. I will evaluate graduate labor campaigns and identify the opportunities graduate labor may have to intervene in ESER through archival research, interviews with graduate labor organizers and environmental researchers, and critical reflections on my personal experience. Environmental graduate researchers at US universities are uniquely situated to transform ESER into a form useful for a just transition.

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Transboundary olive mill wastewater pollution persists in Wadi Zomer, Palestine, not due to technical limits but conflicting knowledge, power asymmetries and fragmented Hydro-Social Territories. The research shows that without a shared understanding of the problem, no lasting solutions occur.

Contribution long abstract

Decades of economic restrictions have marked the wastewater sector in the West Bank with insufficient treatment capacities and unsafe disposal practices. Transboundary pollution from illegally dumped, untreated olive mill wastewater (OMWW) in the Wadi Zomer area constitutes a persistent socio-ecological problem. High in acidic compounds, OMWW threatens groundwater and ecosystems – including downstream Alexander River, beyond Israel’s separation fence. Despite extensive donor-driven interventions, no long-term solution has been implemented, resulting in environmental degradation, financial penalties charged to the Palestinian Authority, and growing tensions among actors engaging with OMWW across a fragmented political landscape.

To understand why the problem endures, this research applies the framework of Hydro-Social Territories (HST) and socio-technical methodology. Through 42 qualitative interviews, field observations and critical mapping, the study analyses how key actors construct different imaginaries around OMWW. Disentangled into social, natural and technical spheres, these imaginaries define what actors perceive as problematic, what knowledge/truths they consider valid, and which boundaries (institutional, geopolitical, technical) shape their capacity to act.

Results show that OMWW management is less constrained by technology than by conflicting knowledge regimes, unclear responsibilities, asymmetrical power and dominant narratives that marginalize certain actors. These fragmented HSTs hinder local collaboration and obscure crucial elements of sustainable solutions.

Findings highlight that policy and scientific interventions must recognize competing territorial imaginaries and foster inclusive knowledge production. Without a shared understanding of the problem, long-term solutions cannot be found. Acknowledging actors’ diverse HST is therefore essential for socially legitimate and environmentally effective management of transboundary OMWW in Wadi Zomer.

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Garden Me Tender speculates on a legal institute as a performative act through which spontaneous plants could claim land. In a space co-constituted by plants, urban ruins, and environmental sensors, their “passive” persistence is documented through AI-generated images based on collected data.

Contribution long abstract

Garden Me Tender is a speculative investigation into how land ownership might be reimagined through the performative act of usucaption—a legal institute in which continuous possession over time constitutes the acquisition of property. The project focuses on marginal, residual terrains co-inhabited by spontaneous vegetation, post-industrial ruins, and environmental sensing technologies, exploring the forms of non-human agency present.

Environmental data—light, humidity, temperature—collected in specific locations are captured by sensors embedded in the landscape and translated into numerical scales derived from Ellenberg ecological indicators. These values are then used as prompts for an AI model (Stable Diffusion) retrained on the Czech floristic and vegetation database Pladias.cz. The resulting images depict fictional plant forms that could grow under specific conditions, thus documenting, through the performative act of the sensor, the “passive” act of persistence.

By intertwining legal frameworks, technological mediation, and artistic practice, Garden Me Tender reframes questions of property beyond anthropocentric constructs. In this poster version, the focus is on presenting the network of actors within this more-than-human ecosystem.

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Explores how rural youth in Maranhão navigate declining babaçu-based livelihoods. Using feminist, decolonial, and agrarian political ecology, it examines aspirations, constraints, and the future of agroecological transitions across Indigenous and Quilombola territories.

Contribution long abstract

Babaçu-based livelihoods in Maranhão embody long-standing agroecological practices grounded in women’s knowledge, care, and political praxis. Yet these practices face a profound continuity crisis: most young people do not engage in babaçu extraction, even in communities where it remains culturally significant. While existing studies acknowledge generational decline, little is known about how rural youth understand and navigate these transformations.

This research examines youth perspectives on the future of babaçu livelihoods across an Indigenous territory and adjacent Quilombola communities in a region marked by land conflict, agribusiness expansion, and everyday insecurity. Drawing on engaged ethnography, informal conversations, document analysis, and ongoing semi-structured interviews, the study investigates how aspirations, gendered expectations, mobility, and territorial identity shape youth decisions to stay, leave, or reconfigure their relationship with babaçu. A multi-sited, feminist, decolonial, and agrarian political ecology approach illuminates how structural pressures, intergenerational tensions, and historical inequalities intersect with young people’s lived experiences.

By centering youth voices, the study offers new insights into the socio-political conditions that enable or hinder agroecological transformations. The findings highlight not only the constraints youth face but also their visions for dignified, meaningful rural futures. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for designing policies and community initiatives that support intergenerational continuity and expand pathways for territorial agroecology in Maranhão.

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From Instrumental Rationality to Reflective Governance: Participatory Dilemmas in the Energy Transition

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The poster is based on several previous studies on the narratives about the energy transition in the Basque Country (Garcia et al, 2025) and the limitations of instrument proposed by the regional government for the spatial planning of renewable energies (Urkidi and Gurrutxaga, 2024), as well as on a new research project for the participatory design of a supra-municipal energy plan (Campos, 2025). The energy transition in the Basque Country is marked by conflicting narratives about the essence, scale, socio-economic framework, and governance of the transition. In this context and amid several conflicts over large-scale renewable energy installations, the Basque Government proposed a spatial planning instrument with serious participatory deficiencies, following an instrumental rationale that did not allow for the transformation of the proposal or for a reflective governance. Given these circumstances, local energy plans seem to offer an opportunity to deepen energy democracy. However, the different approaches to the design of the participatory process (citizen councils, future workshops, participatory integrated assessment, etc.) entail different decision-making capacities, exclusions, and deliberative depth. This poster seeks to reflect on the complexity of public participation in energy planning in conflict scenarios.

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This thesis explores energy poverty governance in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, through a feminist political ecology and commoning perspective. It argues that intersectional and commoning approaches hold the potential to move towards socio-ecologically just energy futures.

Contribution long abstract

Energy poverty has gained increasing attention across research and practice over the past decade but remains a persistent issue in countries of the global North. It is often addressed in depoliticised, individualised ways, which obscure the structural inequalities that underpin it. While numerous scholars have highlighted the power asymmetries embedded in energy systems and their transitions toward low-carbon futures, limited attention has been paid to the governance of energy poverty from a critical, intersectional perspective. This thesis aims to fill this gap by analysing at the governance of energy poverty in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, from a feminist political ecology and commoning perspective. The objectives of this research practice are twofold. First, I reveal how energy poverty is dominantly governed through the operation of gendered, classed and racialised relations of power that emerge in logics, infrastructural and institutional configurations and access to governance measures addressing energy poverty. I highlight the lived experiences of energy poverty unfolding under dominant governance arrangements. Second, I shed light on how activists of the campaign RWE & CO. enteignen approach energy poverty through commoning practices. I argue that commoning approaches to energy poverty hold the potential to move towards more socio-ecologically just energy futures. The research at hand shows that energy poverty governance must be politicised and energy poverty addressed collectively to avoid the reproduction of the very inequalities that governance measures ought to address.

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Contribution short abstract

This poster introduces the concept of the Peace-Positive Climate-Smart Village (CSV+), a model that embeds conflict sensitivity and peace-oriented social inclusion into Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) programming.

Contribution long abstract

Through a political ecology lens, this paper examines Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) interventions, and introduces the concept of the Peace-Positive Climate-Smart Village (CSV+). We argue that current CSA approaches reproduce power asymmetries by neglecting conflict sensitivity and peace-oriented social inclusion, which are essential for truly transformative climate adaptation. Drawing on a case study from Senegal, we interrogate how dominant, technically oriented CSA frameworks fail to address underlying power relations, and propose the CSV+ model to embed political ecology approaches into climate resilience.

Our mixed-methods study analyzes how CSA interventions reconfigure access to resources, participation in governance, and local power dynamics. Through focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and household surveys, we examine perceptions of trust, cooperation, inclusion, and institutional performance to show the contested nature of seemingly "neutral" climate adaptation interventions.

Findings demonstrate the deeply political nature of CSA programming: while interventions improved agricultural productivity and created economic opportunities for women, they simultaneously reproduced existing inequalities through exclusive institutional arrangements that privileged certain groups' access to resources and credit. This contradiction exposes how CSA interventions, when implemented without attention to power structures, can reinforce rather than transform colonial legacies in resource governance. We document how weak communication channels and limited transparency in leadership structures further entrenched inequitable power relations, creating sites of resistance and contestation among marginalized groups.

Through the CSV+ concept, we argue for CSA interventions that center centers transparent governance, inclusive participation, and structured grievance mechanisms, moving beyond technical solutions toward climate interventions that explicitly address power asymmetries.