Author: Viktor Pal

1st of November, 14:00-16:00 in HKL, 13:00-15:00 in Paris

Building Communities of Academics and Stakeholders to Address Climate Change

With Prof. Em. Carole Crumley, Executive Director of the History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE), University of North Carolina/ Uppsala University

ZOOM LINK & INFO

https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/67183786167?pwd=ZFFJNGFQd3ZPQjN0Y3lyTEdQdzBzZz09

See further information on our series in the DbW blog: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/downbythewater/

DbW Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/4DownByTheWater

 

ABSTRACT

Marine archaeologists and historical ecologists can find much common ground in the race to mitigate climate change and catastrophic disruptions in both the Earth system and for humanity.  The talk will examine shared professional origins and an expanding common toolbox.  In dialogue, we can explore the means by which our mutual understandings can be transmitted to stakeholders, managers, and policy makers. 

Carole Crumley is a founding scientist in the area of historical ecology and has written the first text book in this subject, Historical Ecology: Cultural Knowledge and Changing Landscapes (1994). Carole Crumley’s special areas of interest are epistemology of complex adaptive systems, especially as regards human societies; “Two Cultures”  (science/humanities) problems in inter- and transdisciplinary research; integrated global- to local-scale historical ecology; historical climate change; evolution of landscapes; social inequality; social memory; geomatics (e.g., GIS, RS) applications in anthropology, ecology, and planning. Her research interests focus on Western Europe, where she directs a long-running research project (1975-present), and pursued with her students, in Burgundy, France.  The research traces the history of agriculture and industry in a key European region over a three thousand year period, using archaeology, historical documents and maps, ethnography, and environmental data in a GIS database.  The project’s ethnographic component is large, and is focused on the practice of contemporary agro-pastoralism in the contexts of a rapidly changing global market and a complex regulatory environment (e.g., the EU Common Agricultural Policy, French regulations).

Carole is also Executive Director of the international project Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE), which uses a complex systems framework and the tools of historical ecology to integrate knowledge of past human societies with knowledge of past biophysical conditions.  This integrated analysis enables modeling old-and-new possibilities for a sustainable planetary and human future. IHOPE is a global network of researchers and research projects; its International Program Office (IPO) is based at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Images: courtesy of Carole Crumley

 

• Host: Veronica Walker Vadillo

Reconceptualizing China’s Environmental Challenges Online Seminar 

For ZOOM Link please register HERE by Nov 15. You will receive the ZOOM link an hour before the event.

Date: Tuesday 16 November, 13:00-14:30 Helsinki Time (12:00-13:30 Prague Time; 11:00-12:30 London Time)

ABSTRACT

In this seminar, we seek to examine China’s environmental challenges from new perspectives. Alicia Ng will delve into China’s soil pollution regulations and circular economy efforts through the bioremediation of electronic waste pollution. Bioremediation is a depollution method that uses plants and microbes and has been employed at chemically polluted sites in China. This investigation will explore the limits of mainstream sustainability thinking and introduce contemporary concepts that aim to recognize sustainability within ontologies of ecological entanglement.

Eero Suoranta will explore how Han Song’s short story Submarines (2014) uses science fictional estrangement to ask questions related to the Anthropocene and alienation from nature in a contemporary Chinese context. He will argue that rather than calling for a simple “return to nature,” the story treats the very categories of “natural” and “human” as ambiguous, raising complex and pertinent questions about our relationships with the natural environment and with other human beings.

Lastly, Dušica Ristivojević will turn to China’s presence in Serbia, a country in Europe’s periphery, looking at Chinese investments in dirty industries and the numerous local responses to them. Questions to be addressed are as follows: What happens when Chinese investors receive a warm welcome from a government on the fringes of Europe? How are Chinese companies introduced to the local inhabitants? What are the local responses to this “ironclad” friendship and the presence of Chinese investors celebrated by the party elites?

 

Moderator: Julie Yu-Wen Chen, Professor of Chinese Studies

Speakers:

Alicia Ng is a PhD candidate in the interdisciplinary environmental sciences program (DENVI) at the University of Helsinki. Her research is concentrated on electronic waste (e-waste) in China, specifically bioremediation techniques to investigate non-human interactions amongst media and soil ecologies. 

Eero Suoranta is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Programme in Philosophy, Arts, and Society at the University of Helsinki, focusing on alienation in contemporary Chinese science fiction (SF) literature.

Dušica Ristivojević is Kone Foundation Bold Initiatives Senior Researcher at the University of Helsinki. Dušica works in the areas of interdisciplinary Chinese studies, media studies, and international relations. 

Discussants:

Anna Lora-Wainwright is Professor of the Human Geography of China at School of Geography and the Environment, jointly appointed by the School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) at Oxford University.  

Erik Mo Welin is PhD candidate at Department of Linguistics and Philology at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Richard Q. Turcsanyi is a program director at Central European Institute of Asian Studies, Palacky University Olomouc, and assistant professor at Mendel University in Brno. 

Per invitation by the University of Tyumen (Russia) I have given a public online talk “Socialist Environmentalism in Cold War Hungary”, at 16:10-17:20 (GMT +3) on 30 July 2020 via Zoom.

The talk was featured as one of the three talks provided for participants of the  «Transcending Nature: the Anthropocene and environmental history of Northern Eurasia»: summer school at the University of Tyumen, Tyumen (Russia), 27 July – 2 August 2020.

The summer school was organized by Russia’s newest environmental humanities hub – Center ′′Human, Nature, Technologies′′ of Tyumen State University – led by Andrei Vinogradov.

The talk now may be accessed via the YouTube link below:

https://youtu.be/bVSJ9NQkqFE

I was invited to give a ZOOM talk at the «Transcending Nature: the Anthropocene and environmental history of Northern Eurasia»: summer school at the University of Tyumen, Tyumen (Russia), 27 July – 2 August 2020. Here is the short teaser of my lecture. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_CSX7aS2BH0

• 

This video was recorded at the Russian Academy of Science in St Petersburg in which I explain my current project “Pour me a Cold One. A Cold War History of Beverage Containers” in a nutshell.

Link to YouTube