Workshop for graduate students and early career researchers

Slowing down global warming requires far reaching transitions of various forms of both societal and technological structures and infrastructures. While these are often perceived as governmental implementations, they also concern crucial cultural conditions. Currently, in the early 21st century, we are aiming at an energy transition. In the Netherlands the question is how to get rid of gas and change to more sustainable low-carbon or no-carbon forms of energy. Such a transition demands overcoming all sorts of resistance, including emotional, psychological, cultural, social-economic, and political resistance.

In this workshop (1 November 2019) we discuss the question, how transitions become effective concerning the development of food-water-energy infrastructures. How long and under what conditions can a society be resilient to certain changes like weather patterns and accept the negative aspects of the current system, like filthy water in dry years, and when and under what conditions does society undergo a transition towards a totally new system, involving new types of structures and infrastructures, accompanied by all the changes in emotional, psychological, cultural, social-economic, technological and political technological realms. The workshop is a collaboration between the Faculty of Humanities/Environmental Humanities Center, the Faculty of Social Science/Institute for Societal Resilience and the Faculty of Sciences/Institute for Environmental Studies and is funded by the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute.

Organizers:
Prof. dr. Petra van Dam, Dr. Sjoerd Kluiving and Joëlle Koorneef, MSc (Environmental Humanities Center); Dr. Kees Boersma (FSW/Institute for Societal Resilience) and Dr. Ted Veldkamp (Institute for Environmental Studies).