2015-04-15

CfP: International conference Re-Do on culture and sustainability

On 28-31 October 2015, Aarhus University is hosting a conference on sustainability and culture's role in sustainable futures. The conference aims at facilitating new dialogues between academics and practitioners in which knowledge-sharing, learning and development is at the center. As much as presenting answers and worked-through solutions, the conference aims at asking questions and stimulating discussion and reflection.

Sustainability is already put to practice in every-day life. Moreover, cultural sustainability may also serve as a productive focal point for rethinking policies and practices in traditional public sectors. The conference aims to investigate critically the concept of cultural sustainability. Has it never undergone a cultural turn as it seems to be reserved for special interest green scholars or criticized for being a new master narrative above the realm of politics fortifying Western Hegemony? Or is it rather that sustainability has triumphed by playing a predominant role in post-constructivist and post-anthropocentric research agendas in the humanities and social sciences since the mid 90ies? Sustainability is on the agenda in Science and Technology Studies conceptualization of nature-culture intersections, in Actor-Network-Theorys focus on environmental entanglements and relationalities between human and non-human actors, in New Materialisms focus on ecologies and beings with the world. It is also central in digital culture and media studies new focus on media as geologies, in groundbreaking thinking around alternative or circular economies and new posthuman or neo-human emerging empowered subjectivities.

Presenters are invited to address questions related to cultural sustainability and the role of culture in sustainable futures, including, but not limited to the following questions:

What role does culture play in the three-legged eco-centric model with environmental, economic and politico-social dimensions of sustainability? What understandings of culture are relevant or perhaps even necessary for us to work towards cultural sustainability?
Is it preferable to challenge the three-legged consensual model of sustainability, disputed by critics to be post-political, by a four-legged (environment, economy, social and cultural sustainability) differential model? What would such a widening of categories translate to on the practical (i.e. doing) level?
How could culture worldviews, every-day practices and living togetherness, pasts, costumes, food, identity-constructions and understandings, aesthetic and ethical values, artistic representations and performances become an important and measurable part of a sustainability agenda of its own? Is that desirable?
In what ways does a focus on cultural sustainability change well-known agenda-setting power geometries between North and South, East and West for example due to climate change adaption and mitigation necessities?
How to conceptualize culture in the new forms of connectivity between humans and non-humans that we see in post-human-oriented theories and what new connections are to be made between deep ecology and ecological indigenous livelihoods and post-human paradigms?
What do the temporal and spatial expansions implied in the concept of sustainability mean for culture? What role do future generations and non-human actors play in forging materiality?

Papers:
Abstract proposals for paper of no more than 200 words and a short bio (max 50 words). Submissions of papers from all stages of the writing process are encouraged from an early stage in which a potential article is being considered and the associated ideas are in a more conceptual phase all the way through a more final stage in which an associated full article is nearing readiness for submission for journal consideration.

Panels:
Proposals for a panel with 3-5 presenters, a chair and a discussant. These sessions provide a moderated dialogue between the contributors. In particular, transdisciplinary debate on a specific theme between scientists, academics, policymakers, and different practitioners are encouraged. To organize a panel you should invite 3-4 presenters and a discussant. The proposals for panels including the confirmed contributions and abstracts (the abstract of the panel: 250-300 words, abstracts of the presentations: 150-200 words)

Roundtable Discussions:
Individual or groups of authors have an assigned table during a session to review and discuss the ideas, frameworks, and perspectives underlying their work with interested delegates who gather at the table. Suggesting a roundtable discussion include proposal of the topic discussed in 50-200 words.

Workshops:
Interactive sessions in which skills or concepts are taught, demonstrated, or explored. Proposing a workshop includes a presentation of the aim of the workshop and the questions or tasks being address.
Proposals should be submitted by mail to impact2017@au.dk before June 1.

Submission deadline is June 1st, 2015. Authors will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance before July 1. Registration is due on October 1.

Please see the website for further information

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