Contemporary Scandinavian discourses on green transitions predominantly center around techno-scientific solutions and the regulation of pollutive industries. Although absent of sociocultural perspectives, green transitions raise questions of social justice and equal distribution which essentially also are concerns of environmental justice (EJ) as part of environmental history research. As a vastly expanding field, EJ has traditionally gravitated around questions of inequality, privilege, race and power structures in the Global South and the US. However, EJ is also a regional concern that traverses scales and connects local struggles with global structures. Focusing on the societal and environmental challenges contemporary green transitions entail, this workshop seeks to perspectives of justice with green transitions in and of Scandinavia in the past and present to explore its spatial, temporal, and socio-political dimensions.

The aim of the workshop is to (1) facilitate the creation of a new research community across Scandinavia, (2) provide an engaging environment for the discussion of EJ research within and on Scandinavia, both theoretically as well as practically, and (3) engage with the conundrum of the absence of socio-economical perspectives in past and present Scandinavian struggles of green transitions. Favorably, this workshop shall also result in an exploratory co-authored paper discussing the possibilities, perspectives, and challenges of EJ research in and of Scandinavia.

This workshop will combine a digital meeting and an in-person meeting.
The digital meeting on 18 October 2022 will combine lectures and exploratory collaboration for the in-person meeting will take place in Stavanger on 17–18 November 2022.

We direct this workshop in particular towards PhD candidates and early-career scholars working on environmental justice-related topics in the Scandinavian countries. We invite proposals from environmental history and the environmental humanities more broadly, including disciplines such as political sciences, anthropology, sociology, geography, etc.

Applications should be sent by 2 September 2022 and should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief biographical note of the author(s). Please send your application to sebastian.lundsteen@uis.no.

The workshop will take place online (in October) and at the University of Stavanger, Norway (in November). Travel and accommodation costs will be covered. Should restrictions on travel and events make it impossible to meet physically, the second part of the workshop may be moved to a digital platform.

The workshop is funded by The Greenhouse and part of the Greenhouse Green Transitions Workshops.

The call can also be found here: https://www.uis.no/en/research/perspectives-on-environmental-justice-in-scandinavian-green-transitions.