SASE Mini Conference “Green transitions in the Anthropocene” (submissions until February 10th)

Du 2 au 5 juillet 2021 se tiendra la conférence annuelle de la Society for the Advancements of Socio-Economics – SASE. Parmi de nombreux panels, une mini-conference intitulée “Green transitions in the Anthropocene”

Deadline : 10 février 2021

Plus d’information : sase.org

Green Transitions in the Anthropocene

Organizers: Stéphanie Barral (INRAE), Patrick Bigger (Lancaster Environment Centre), Ritwick Ghosh (New York University), Ian Gray (UCLA), Hanna Lierse (University of Bremen), Mi Ah Schøyen (Oslo Metropolitan University)

Before the global COVID-19 outbreak, climate change was emerging on the political agenda as perhaps the greatest contemporary global policy challenge. Addressing climate change and other environmental challenges will require restructuring economic systems, and the pandemic has demonstrated such opportunities – from restrictions on economic activities to massive economic rescue packages. Potentially, these may be designed in a way to address the twin eco-social challenges of the Anthropocene: Accelerate the shift away from environmentally destructive modes of production and consumption while simultaneously reducing human vulnerability from an increasingly hostile environment. This transition is known broadly under the heading of the “green economy”, a reference to the various ways economic and financial tools are used to advance environmental ends. Policy examples include carbon trading, payments for ecosystem services, financial products like green bonds, and public spending on infrastructure, resilience, and risk reduction. As green economic ideas gain momentum, it is worth pausing and taking note of what goes on under the name of green transitions, particularly implications for inequality and capitalism.

This mini-conference aims to advance an interdisciplinary dialogue to grapple with green economic transitions. While the environmental risks of climate change are well understood, there is still very little knowledge about the structural and institutional factors that shape governance trajectories towards net zero carbon and environmentally resilient economies. Conversely, it is little researched how green transitions affect societies at large as well as the social challenges and inequalities they might produce. In this mini-conference we welcome theoretical as well as empirical contributions from micro or macro level perspectives that study the green transition from four analytically distinct, but empirically overlapping angles:

First, we welcome comparative or single-case contributions that discuss the theoretical-normative dimension of green transitions. How do green economic solutions relate to ideas of justice, fairness as well as well-being and inequality? Are there limits or incompatibilities between environmental and equity goals? And how is the green transition legitimized?

Second, we encourage papers that examine the varieties of expert knowledge, such as accounting, metrification and modelling that have emerged as influential brokers in the effort to achieve “greener” economic outcomes. How do we situate the role these different forms of expertise play within these processes of transition?

Third, we invite papers analysing empirical patterns of the various theories of change. Questions include but are not limited to: Which policies are at the forefront of the transformation?  How can we explain institutional arrangements and practices of greening? Possible approaches might look into the role of various actors including partnerships between multilateral institutions, states and NGOs as well as different institutional configurations and pressures as triggers or obstacles of change.

Fourth, we invite contributions that shed light on patterns of societal perceptions and attitudes towards different aspects of climate change and policies of mitigation and adaptation. How can we, for instance, explain variation in preferences towards sustainable consumption patterns across cohorts or societal groups? From this perspective we are also interested in which societal groups are benefitting from the eco-social transformation and which ones

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