The conference will take place from the 13th to 15th of November 2024 at the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte) in Lisbon, Portugal. The key submission guidelines are listed here and the full call is available here.
This year’s theme is “Beyond the “Decarbonization Consensus”: The Ethics and Practices of Sympoiesis”. The full Call for Contribution description is here.
Simpoetic systems are introduced by Donna Haraway (2016) and proposes ‘making-with’, a way of conceiving ‘sym’ [together/connected] and ‘poesis’ [making/doing]. The concept refers to collective, collaborative and symbiotic forms of world-making that involve both human and non-human entities. Simpoetic systems are complex networks of relationships and interactions between different organisms, technologies, environments and more, all co-creating and co-evolving within dynamic assemblages.
The shortcomings of mainstream environmental politics are contributing to a growing interest in the relational ethics and practices underlying the sympoietic processes (Haraway, 2016) by which humans and non-humans collectively produce autopoietic social-ecological systems. This includes the performance, by community-led initiatives (CLIs), as well as the translocal/transnational networks they create, of the role of “social learning spaces” where new and old modes of thought and tangible practices beyond extractivism and mastery of nature are experimented with, enacted, and coordinated (Egmose, Hauggaard-Nielsen and Jacobsen 2022).
Such interest is driven by the goal of shifting the metabolic profiles of societies towards regenerative and democracy-enhancing goals. This implies going beyond the “decarbonization consensus” (Bringel and Svampa 2023) by conceiving post-carbon transitions as social-ecological processes in which modes of thought, political ecologies, institutional processes, and experience-based social learning play equally relevant and interconnected parts.
We invite researchers, activists, community organisers, project managers, and policy administrators to submit proposals for contributions to this conference. We aim to promote interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives at theoretical, conceptual, and methodological levels. Submissions might be based on formal research or on concrete activist, economic or public policy initiatives.
The conference is structured around two interconnected topics:
- Ethics: The role of modes of thought that question instrumental approaches to social exchanges and relating to nature. This includes cosmologies, epistemologies, spiritualities/wisdom traditions, and cultural positions providing post-human, post-patriarchal, post-developmentalist and decolonial counterpoints to modernity, by re-signifying relationships with the non-rational dimensions of human existence, as well as the other-than-human dimensions of nature.
- Practices: The contribution of non-mainstream pedagogies, action research methodologies, and other engaged and participatory approaches to knowledge production and diffusion to democratic deepening by promoting, among social movements, policymakers and community-led initiatives, the enactment of emancipatory, participatory, and commoning-oriented practices in everyday life.
Keynote Speakers of 2024
The confirmed keynote speakers for the 4th edition are:
Lara Monticelli – Professor at the Department of Arts and Sciences at University College London (bio | profile |publications)
Rebeca Roysen – Research associate and Lecturer, Ph.D. at the Centre for Religion, Economics and Politics (ZRWP) at University of Basel, Switzerland (profile |publications)
Sigrid Stagl – Professor of Environmental Economics & Policy at WU, the Vienna University of Economics and Business, founder of the Institute for Ecological Economics, Ph.D. (bio | profile | publications)
Jonas Egmose – Associate Professor, Ph.D. and Head of the Ph.D. Program in Society, Space and Technology at the Department of People and Technology at Roskilde University (profile |publications)
Breno Bringel – Professor of Political Sociology at the ISPS University of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ) and Senior Fellow at University Complutense de Madrid, Ph.D. (profile |publications)
Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen – Ph.D., historian of religion, focused on developments in contemporary anthropology and cultural knowledge for environmental activism & sustainability awareness; author of the Nordic Animism project (bio |Nordic Animism project |publications)
Chiara Baldini – Independent researcher and freelance curator; investigates the evolution of the ecstatic cult in the West, Minoan Crete, ancient Greece & Rome, contributing to books, psychedelic conferences & festivals (bio |publications)
Tom Henfrey – Ph.D., action-researcher focused on sacred political ecology, community resilience and climate change, environmental anthropology, indigenous knowledge systems, permaculture and resilience theory (bio |books |publications)
Beatriz Arruda – Research group leader of CASA Brasil Network, which is part of the Council for Sustainable Settlements in Latin America (CASA Latina) and the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). Board Member of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA) (bio |publications)
Álvaro Fonseca – Co-founder and representative member of Degrowth Network Portugal, activist, writer, Ph.D. (Degrowth Portugal |writing blog)
The call is open to researchers, activists, public officials and social entrepreneurs involved in community-led-initiatives (CLIs), social and solidarity economy, governance of the commons, Permaculture especially in its social and ethical dimension, and new social movements (e.g. NGOs, non-profit organisations, networks, activist movements) in different parts of the world. For this edition, SSE is accepting paper abstracts (research papers or experience reports by practitioners or activists), session panels and/or book proposals on topics relevant to the two conference themes.
Please feel free to share this Call within your academic and non-academic networks, organizations and activists. We appreciate your support.
Grants and Bursaries requests: Due to lack of funding SSE Organization is not able to offer any grants, travel support, or registration fee waivers.
Face-to-face event: This event is fully presential. It is not possible to present or attend online.