Geography of Sustainability Transitions
Webinars
The GeoST thematic group hosts an ongoing webinar series that brings together leading scholars from geography and sustainability transitions research. These webinars serve as a dynamic platform for critical dialogue on how spatial perspectives can deepen our understanding of socio-technical change, fostering interdisciplinary exchange and advancing the integration of geographical thinking into transition studies. Open to researchers, practitioners, and students alike, the series aims to cultivate a vibrant community around emerging GeoST themes.
Webinar Series III: Nature-Society Interactions
Mar/Apr/May 2025
22 May 2025 │What insights can we gain from a political ecology perspective?
Presenters: Prof. Dr. Mary Lawhon (University of Edinburgh) on What imaginaries underpin sustainability transitions? Modern, arcadian and modest futures, and Prof. Dr. Gavin Bridge (Durham University) on What is political ecology good for?
Moderator: Dr. Markus Steen (SINTEF)
RELATED LITERATURE
Lawhon, Mary and Tyler McCreary. 2023. Enough! A Modest Political Ecology for an Uncertain Future. Agenda Publishing.
Lawhon, Mary, Alexander Follmann, Boris Braun, Natasha Cornea, Clemens Greiner, Prince Guma, Timos Karpouzoglou, Javier Revilla Diez, Seth Schindler, Sophie Schramm, Franziska Sielker, Gideon Tups, Sumit Vij and Peter Dannenberg. (2024). Making Heterogeneous Infrastructure Futures in and Beyond the Global South. Futures. 154, 103270.
Lawhon, Mary, Gloria Nsangi Nakyagaba and Timos Karpouzoglou. (2023). Towards a modest imaginary? Sanitation in Kampala beyond the modern infrastructure ideal. Urban Studies. 60(1): 146–165.
Lawhon, Mary, Maya Henderson and Tyler McCreary. (2021). Neither more nor less, but enough: towards a modest political ecology of the future. Political Geography. (Brief articulation of modest imaginary as a response to Paul Robbins article “Is less more… or is more less? Scaling the political ecologies of the future.”
Lawhon, Mary and James T. Murphy. (2012) Socio-technical regimes and sustainability transitions: Insights from political ecology. Progress in Human Geography 36(3): 354-378.
Perreault, T.A., Bridge, G. and McCarthy, J. eds., 2015. The Routledge handbook of political ecology. London: Routledge.
Bustos-Gallardo, B., Bridge, G. and Prieto, M., 2021. Harvesting Lithium: water, brine and the industrial dynamics of production in the Salar de Atacama. Geoforum, 119, pp.177-189.
Bridge, G., 2011. Resource geographies 1: Making carbon economies, old and new. Progress in Human Geography 35(6), pp.820-834.
Bakker, K. and Bridge, G., 2021. Material worlds redux: Mobilizing materiality within critical resource geography. In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography, pp.43-56. Eds. Himley, Havice and Valdivia.
24 April 2025 │Governance of land use and bioeconomies
Presenters: Prof. Dr. Anna Davies (Trinity College Dublin) on Plus ça change? Interrogating urban natura as solution for sustainable urban bioeconomies and Prof. Dr. Teis Hansen (University of Copenhagen) & Dr. Stine Madsen (University of Copenhagen) on Policy implementation for sustainable agri-food and land use systems
Moderator: Dr. Camilla Chlebna (Centre for Social Innovation)
RELATED LITERATURE
A Davies (2001) What silence knows–planning, public participation and environmental values Environmental Values 10 (1), 77-102
Fitzgerald, L. M., & Davies, A. R. (2024). Engaging futures: Scenario visualisation for sustainable urban food sharing. Futures, 164, 103462.
Pascual, U., Levy, P. B., Christie, M., & Baptiste, B. (2022). Summary for policymakers of the methodological assessment of the diverse values and valuation of nature of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
10 April 2025 │The natural environment and regional industrial development
Presenters: Dr. Rune Njøs (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences) on Bridging the social and saterial: Rethinking regional industrial path development in the context of sustainability transitions and Dr. Huiwen Gong (University of Stavanger) on The role of material resources for rapid technology diffusion in net-zero transitions: Insights from the electric vehicle lithium-ion battery technological innovation system in China.
Moderator: Dr. Markus Steen (SINTEF)
27 March 2025 │Setting the scene: understanding nature and society interactions and the implications for the geography of sustainability transitions
Presenters: Dr. Camilla Chlebna (Centre for Social Innovation) Reflections on the implications of Nature-Society interactions for the field of Economic Geography and Dr. Allan Dahl Andersen (University of Copenhagen) on Integrating the natural environment in innovation and transition studies. Introduction by Dr. Markus Steen (SINTEF)
Moderator: Dr. Christian Binz (Eawag)
RELATED LITERATURE
Chlebna, C., Evenhuis, E., Morales, D., 2024. Economic geography and planetary boundaries: Embracing the planet’s uncompromising call to action. Prog. Econ. Geogr. 2, 100021.
Andersen, A.D. and O. Wicken. 2020. Making sense of how the natural environment shapes innovation and industry dynamics: Implications for policy, sustainability challenges, and research. Innovation and Development.
Archive
Webinar Series I: Foundations of a Geographical Lens on Sustainability Transitions
04 Nov 2020 │Webinar Introduction + Developing a multi-scalar perspective on sustainability transitions
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11 Nov 2020 │Towards an institutional conceptualization of regional transition dynamics
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25 Nov 2020 │Reframing urban and place-based transitions: a GeoST perspective
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02 Dec 2020 │Roundtable discussion: what is next for GeoST
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Webinar Series II: Spatial Inequalities and Global Linkages in Transition Processes
28 April 2021 │Just energy transitions: a spatial perspective
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05 May 2021 │Geographies of green industrial path development
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12 May 2021 │Unpacking transnational linkages, global-local encounters and relations in sustainable energy transition (solar PV) in East Africa
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19 May 2021│ Geographical perspectives on grassroots innovations: diffusion and place-making
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26 May 2021 │Roundtable: A geographical perspective on mission-oriented innovation policies
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