Full program
Conservation Basic Income: A non-market mechanism to support convivial conservation
Robert Fletcher - Professor of Political Ecology, Sociology of Development and Change, WUR
This presentation introduces and outlines a proposal for conservation basic income (CBI) as a novel strategy for funding biodiversity conservation that moves beyond widely promoted market-based instruments (MBIs). This CBI proposal responds to two important empirical developments. The first concerns growing discussions around cash transfer programs (CTPs) and universal basic income (UBI). These are increasingly implemented or piloted yet do not usually take into account environmental issues including biodiversity conservation. The second relates to MBIs like payments for ecosystem services (PES) and REDD+ (reduced emissions through avoided deforestation and forest degradation). In practice, these programs have not only commonly failed to halt biodiversity loss and alleviate poverty but have also largely abandoned their market-based origins, leading to calls for moving beyond market-based conservation entirely. The CBI proposal aims to integrate and transcend these existing mechanisms as part of a broader paradigm shift towards convivial conservation that foregrounds concerns for social justice and equity.
Workshop 1. What is in our clothes? making sense of textile materials
Jane Tynan - Assistant Professor Design History & Theory, Faculty of Humanities (VU)
The fashion industry makes various commitments to environmental sustainability but what does this mean in practice? Can we continue to consume non-renewable textile materials? A system locked into environmental unsustainability is reflected in the lack of transparency about links between fossil fuels and textile materials. Given that the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles aims to ensure that by 2030 all textile products use recycled fibres free of hazardous substances (European Commission, 2022), this session explores the environmental cost of textiles used in everyday clothing. Decarbonising clothing cultures involves corporate and consumer responsibility; by inviting participants to engage in direct sensory engagement with textiles the session offers an engaging and interactive approach to climate learning. Collective sense-making is explored as a route to carbon literacy. A short panel discussion on clothing technologies and environmental sustainability is followed by a workshop for participants to engage with and learn from textile materials. The session brings together designers, product developers, academics and activists who have a stake in the future of clothing cultures.
Workshop 2. From Past to Future: Long-term patterns of connectivity and fragmentation in network societies
Dries Daems - Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Art and Culture, History, Antiquity/ Network Institute
Humans are inherently social beings that build societies based on the exchange of information. We often consider connectivity and information exchange as inherently desirable. Social interactions save us from isolation, trade connections provide exciting new goods, and diplomatic relations overcome political tensions. In recent years, however, the pendulum has started to swing the other way with increasing geopolitical divides and growing multipolarity, economic protectionism, and the return of war at our doorstep. Human societies are continuously shifting across spectrum between connectivity and fragmentation in political, economic, cultural, and social networks.
It is impossible to consider the implications of such shifts based on the timescales typical for most studies of modern society. Castells argued that the technological revolution at the end of the 20th century constituted a profound change in contemporary society, giving rise to ‘network societies’ within a globally connected world. Yet, the lack of historical perspectives addressing long-term shifts in connectivity and isolation seriously hampers our ability to understand and contextualise the major transformations we have witnessed during the rise of modern societies and their potential futures. This session aims to provide an outline for an interdisciplinary research agenda that integrates long-term perspectives in our reflections on the ramifications of connectivity and fragmentation in human societies from the past to the future.
