The idea of sustainability, once a potent mobiliser for the global environmental movement, has lost its promise of vital socio-ecological change. Appropriated by and integrated into neoliberal, growth-oriented discourses and practices, it has become a hollow term for many. Decades of unsuccessful national and international efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, make it obvious that a politics as usual that reduces the environment to an economic resource to be exploited is and has never been sustainable.
Yet, instead of abandoning the idea of sustainability, could we reclaim it, and fill it with new meaning? What are the diverse kinds of relations that we want to and need to sustain and care for in the Anthropocene? What role does education play in helping us to conceptualise, imagine and act towards vital environmental futures for the generations to come? And, what responsibilities do public universities, increasingly undermined by neoliberal values and economic interests, hold in creating life sustaining societies?
‘Reclaiming sustainability’ invites five speakers from different disciplinary backgrounds and universities to engage with these pressing questions. By providing creative and critical examples for and visions of university teaching and learning as transformational processes, the event will generate conversation about the role of education in creating generative and liveable environmental futures.
Program
17:00 – 17:15 Welcome and introductions by Ursula Münster, Director Oslo School of Environmental Humanities (OSEH)
17:15 – 18:00 Keynote, ‘Reason and Response-Ability’, by Tim Ingold, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
18:15 – 19:45 Podium discussion & Q and A
Mette Halskov Hansen (China Studies and Co-rector of UiO), Britt Kramvig (Department of Tourism and Northern Studies, The Arctic University of Norway), Felix Riede (Archaeology, Aarhus University) and Heather Swanson (Anthropology, Aarhus University). Moderated by Gro Birgit Ween (Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo)
19:45 Drinks, music & informal discussions
Join us on this exciting event, and we look forward to seeing you there! (This event will be in English)
Convenors: Ursula Münster (UiO), Pierre du Plessis (UiO) and Sara Asu Schroer (UiO).
Environmental Humanities Week
This event is part of our Environmental Humanities Week. From 7 to 10 June, the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities cordially invites you to a series of events to celebrate the exciting work happening in the field here at UiO and beyond. Exciting keynote lectures, panel discussions, presentations on the OSEH Collaboratories, a pop-up exhibition, music, and more. The events are free and open to all! We look forward to seeing you!