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Chair Group of Sustainability Governance

phyton-bridge-landscape.jpgWe are an interdisciplinary group of scholars working at the nexus of sustainability, science, and society. In our research and teaching, we combine approaches from Political Science, Sociology, Critical Geography, and Science & Technology Studies.

Our research is theory-driven and empirically grounded, often based on case studies with a reach from local to transnational and global levels. We have conducted research in various European, Latin American and African contexts.

 

 

 

In our work we, inter alia, focus on ...
 
  • environmental conflicts in geopolitical contexts;
  • dynamics of socio-technical transformations;
  • environmental injustice and just sustainabilities;
  • environmental knowledge politics;
  • professional epistemologies and cultures of expertise;
  • collective action – mobilization and resistance,
 

... in a broad spectrum of policy fields including biodiversity, climate change, energy, water, land-use, conservation, mining, and food.

 

In terms of scholarly strands, we build on various approaches including Political Ecology, Governmentality, Post-structuralist Policy Studies, Transition Studies, Science & Technology Studies (STS), Critical Peace and Conflict Studies, and Decolonial Theory.

Methodologically, our research largely draws on qualitative methods anchored in the critical interpretivist tradition of the social sciences and mixed methods. Inter- and transdisciplinarity are integral features of all our work as we seek to illuminate the possibilities and limits of these new principles of scientific problem-solving.

In our teaching, we emphasize principles of problem-based learning, intercultural competencies, and critical reflexivity based on perspective pluralism. With that, we strive to educate a new generation of reflexive sustainability governance practitioners and scholars.

 

News

Start of ReSET project (August 2020)
August 2020 saw the kick-off of ‘Reconfiguring Energy for Social Equity’ (ReSET), a 4-year research project funded by the Volkswagenstiftung. Philipp Späth (as Principal Investigator) and Bleta Arifi (as PostDoc researcher) are part of a consortium of four research institutions, including the Urban Futures Studio at Utrecht University (consortium leader, The Netherlands), the Institute for Human Settlements (India), and the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). ReSET compares case studies in Germany, India, the Netherlands and South Africa to understand how the global energy transition can be made more equitable. It focuses on how ‘software’, in form of policy regimes, determines the flow of investments in the hardware of energy infrastructures. Together with diverse stakeholders, the project aims to develop a generic framework and gain concrete insights that can inform future policies.
Organization of Panel at the POLLEN Conference (September 2020)
On September 22, 2020, Zabrina Welter co-organized and presented at the panel titled ‘New National Power Structures and Shifted Governance Agendas Disrupting Resource Access’ at the third biennial conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). The goal of this panel was to explore both theoretically and empirically national and subnational policies and policy processes for resource access from both the theoretical angle of Political Ecology and governance processes.
Virtual Final Conference ‘Critical Perspectives on Energy Transitions in Africa’ (December 2020)
From September to December 2020, a group of ten international scholars – including Michael Pregernig and Philipp Späth (as Principal Investigator and Convenor) – worked on the broad theme of ‘The Governance of Energy Transitions in the Global South’ as part of an Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG) at the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana. On December 14 and 15, 2020, the IFG showcased its research work in a virtual final conference.