BU Research Blog

On March 16^th we hosted the first seminar of the cycle “Socio-ecological transitions seminars” (SETS). SETS are a joint initiative between the Centre for Sustainable and Socially Responsible Consumption at BU and the Research Group on Collective Action, Change and Transition at the University of Trento (Italy).

In this seminar, Stefania Barca (Universidade Santiago de Compostela) presented her book “Forces of reproduction. Struggles and practices of ecosocial justice”. Her presentation revolved around the theme of ‘hegemonic narrative of the Anthropocene’, namely a narrative that pursues violent growth at the expense of workers and the environment. Drawing from ecofeminist approaches, she presented several ways to “undo” the Anthropocene, questioning current dominant colonial relations, gender relations, class relations, and species relations.

She called for academics and social movements to cooperate to give visibility to counter-narratives able to move towards an ‘ecological revolution’. Building on the insights of the first seminar, our next seminar will explore one of these possible counter-narratives, namely Fairtrade economies cooperating with decolonizing forces and movements.

The next seminar will explore ‘Fair Trade Consumption in India: A netnographic study of market creation’ and will be on April 13th at 4pm. Presenters are Dr Matthew Anderson (University of Portsmouth) and Dr Indro Dasgupta (Word Fair Trade Organisation).

The seminar can be accessed at this Zoom link (password: coact). More information on speakers and discussants’ bios to follow.