Sustainability Transformations – Unpacking Implicit Visions on Just Futures

Welcome to a seminar with guest speaker Dr. Maria Kaufmann, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. The talk will dicuss the concept of sustainability transformations, focusing on the future and the justice issues they raise.

Sustainability transformations inherently concern the future: they ask which futures are desired, which are expected, and how they might be achieved. However, they also raise pressing justice questions—how should future burdens and benefits be distributed, and whose rights should be protected? Although these issues center on the future, the debates and conflicts around them occur in the present –often implicitly. In this presentation, I draw on insights from future studies and environmental justice literature to (1) examine mismatches in actors’ discourses on just and sustainable futures, and (2) analyze how futures and anticipation are (strategically) used to legitimize specific justice claims and transformation pathways. This research is based on qualitative methods, including discourse analysis and immersive walking interviews with citizens.

About the speaker: 

Maria Kaufmann is Assistant Professor at Radboud University Nijmegen and conducts international comparative research in the fields of climate change adaptation, energy transition/climate mitigation, alternative economic systems (e.g. degrowth).

Directions to the the room: Mazemap

This seminar is arranged by Umeå Transformation Research Initiative in collaboration with the Department of Geography.