IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

285

Collapse or Transformation? Change Agents in a Perilous Century

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC24 Environment and Society (host committee)

Language: Spanish and English

Session Type: Oral

The ever-increasing probability of a global ecological collapse in the near future has hitherto not made a dent in the continued expansive drive of global development. Environmental governance, as well as individual and collective practices at both the global and local levels, seem to remain trapped in a fundamental dilemma: managing the ecological crisis while simultaneously guaranteeing the continuity of the capitalist consumer society and pursuing the universalization of unsustainable ways of life. Alongside this pessimistic balance sheet, however, the vitality of initiatives of resistance and innovation that are more or less radically disruptive (undoing unsustainability) or transformative (doing sustainability) and enabling learning processes at different scales might be opening windows of opportunity for a far-reaching societal transformation. From international organizations calling out for a roll-back of industrial agriculture to heterogeneous academic networks outspokenly pleading for a post-growth transition; from the massive global mobilization of students for climate action (Fridays for Future) to the Pope’s critical „green encyclical“ Laudato Si', old and new forms of agency emerge and intertwine to deliver a broad array of approaches to advancing a social-ecological transformation. In this session, we invite contributions exploring the structural and contingent opportunities and constraints of diverse initiatives that seek to transform dominant ways of thinking, feeling and acting in the face of overwhelming cultural, technological, and political changes developing on top of stubbornly resilient structures such as the Wesphalian state and the capitalist-industrialist economy, whose fitness for purpose can no longer be taken for granted.