Call for Papers: Green Transitions Workshop at the Greenhouse, University of
Stavanger, Norway
November 11-12 2022
Terraforming Terra
Organisers: Charlotte Wrigley (University of Stavanger); Adam Searle
(Universit de Lige); Jonathon Turnbull (University of Cambridge)
Terraforming has traditionally been understood to refer to planets beyond
Earth, and the processes necessary to make them habitable for human life. But
as the climate crisis renders life on Earth increasingly precarious -
desertifying agricultural lands, drying up water supplies and destroying
ecosystems - what we understand to be a habitable planet needs rethinking.
Some of the proposed solutions to the crisis can be defined as geoengineering:
the practice of altering Earth processes to create a greener, more
comfortable, and survivable planet for humanity; in other words, terraforming.
Examples of terraforming might range from planetary wide - and irreversible -
schemes such as solar radiation management, to smaller, gentler actions such
as gardening.
Debate in the Environmental Humanities has largely - and correctly - pointed
towards the ethical and political issues with geoengineering, and the hubris
that so often accompanies the Anthropocenes designation of humans as top
geologic agents (Buck, 2019; Hamilton, 2013). Who gets to decide which
geoengineering technologies are implemented, and whose perspectives are
incorporated (or not) into world building projects and technofix solutionism
are of key concern, particularly to Indigenous Peoples whose terraformable
lands have been colonised (Powys Whyte, 2018). Nevertheless, it is necessary
to grapple with the uncomfortable reality that soon it will be too late to
maintain a stable climate. Our future survival will likely (and, indeed,
already does) depend on terraforming in some capacity; through this workshop,
we wish to interrogate the potential tensions - or ways forward - of this
future. What technologies could be sanctioned for Earthly terraforming, and
how can we ensure they are implemented fairly and safely? How do we resist
these technologies merely maintaining the status quo of unfettered capitalism,
colonialism, and fossil fuel reliance?
We invite participants with a range of perspectives addressing the changing
and contested nature of terraforming. By bringing together scientists and
practitioners involved in its implementation, designers and artists
speculating on future worlds, and humanities scholars revealing planetary
heterogeneity, this workshop will facilitate critical and creative discussions
on terraforming technologies. What can we learn from each other? What does it
mean to make a planet habitable to terraform it? By holding these
conversations through the workshop, we will foster connections and
collaborations across disciplines, and find common ground for our common
world.
We welcome papers that engage with the following non-exhaustive themes:
-
The ethics and politics of terraforming
-
Indigenous knowledges and perspectives on terraforming
-
Other-than-humans as terraformers
-
Terraforming of under and outer worlds
-
Geoengineering and technological fixes
-
Agriculture and food systems, including water, irrigation, and
gardening
-
Rewilding and conservation
-
Terraforming experiments (biospheres, terrariums etc)
-
Blue terraforming and oceanic perspectives
-
Architecture and design - imagining the terraforming of the future
- Creative approaches to terraforming - sci fi, speculative futures, art
This workshop will be fully funded (travel, accommodation, food) by the Green
Transitions project at the University of Stavanger. Spaces are therefore
limited, but we will be offering a hybrid format to improve accessibility.
Please indicate if you would like to attend in-person or online, or would be
willing to participate online if your abstract is not chosen for in-person
attendance.
Send abstracts of no more than 250 words to
charlotte.a.wrigley@uis.no by the 2nd
September 2022.
Dr Charlotte Wrigley
Postdoctoral research fellow in environmental history
The Greenhouse, University of Stavanger, Norway
Email: charlotte.a.wrigley@uis.no
Twitter: @Wrigley_CA
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