Appel à contribution – International ESEE – Degrowth Conference 2024

Conference website here

We warmly invite contributions to our Special Session “Visions of a Just Transition: On Social-Ecological Inequalities and Transformations” at the forthcoming ESEE/Degrowth Conference in Pontevedra, 2024. The session’s organizing team includes Aurore Fransolet, Tom Bauler, and myself from the Free University of Brussels (ULB), and Pascale Vielle and Brendan Coolsaet from UCLouvain.

This session aims to deepen our understanding of the visions of a Just Transition, which, despite its increasing prominence in global discourse, remains ambiguously defined and variably implemented. The debates surrounding the notions of justice and concrete pathways for realizing a just transition present fertile ground for discussion. This topic is pertinent not only for researchers already engaged with Just Transition but also for a broader audience interested in socio-ecological justice. 

We seek to explore a variety of perspectives and issues, which may include but are not limited to:

• Conceptualizations of just transition and justice in socio-ecological transformations.
• Interrogating assumptions and gaps within established visions of just transition.
• Envisioning scenarios for a just transition across multiple scales and contexts.
• Transforming existing institutions and systems, such as social welfare, to facilitate a just transition.
• Identifying and addressing socio-ecological inequalities in ongoing societal transformations.
• Developing innovative governance models for a just transition.
• Examining the compatibility and tensions between just transition, degrowth, and ecological economics.
• Methodological approaches to envisioning pathways for just transition.
• Comparing visions of just transition across policy, activism, industry, academia, and communities.
• Analyzing power dynamics influencing just transition narratives.

You can find a full description of the session here.

We welcome scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to submit abstracts that align with the theme (deadline: 26/12/2023). We are also open to non-paper presentation formats, such as round-table discussions, to foster a more dynamic exchange of ideas. It will potentially lead to a special issue or a collective working document post-conference.