This talk focuses on the possibilities and challenges of a transformative eco-social transition out of the climate crisis, understood not only as an environmental crisis, but as a civilisational crisis of the capitalist system and its colonial, racist and patriarchal pillars. Based on this assumption, we will make a critique of the dominant proposals for a ‘green transition’ as corporate-state greenwashing strategies, and discuss proposals for real transformation emerging from action-research networks and social movements.

Among these, we will highlight the perspectives of eco-Marxism and Latin American political ecology, with examples from the global eco-socialist movement and the Eco-social and Intercultural Pact of the South. We will also discuss the role of communities organised in self-management and the working classes - broadly understood to include not only workers in the industrial sectors, but also ‘landworkers’ - in these transformations.

Link to participate > https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/92877588085


Bio notes

Gustavo Garcia Lopez is an engaged scholar, educator, and apprentice organiser from the islands of Puerto Rico. He has transdisciplinary social-environmental sciences training, combining political ecology and environmental policy and planning, with decolonial Latin American and Caribbean studies. His work centres on transformative eco-social initiatives and movements, bridging ideas of commons and commoning, autogestion, insurgent ecologies, environmental/climate justice movements, and just transitions. Garcia Lopez is a Permanent Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, where he co-coordinates the Ecology and Society Lab (ECOSOC), and lecturer of the Doctoral Programmes “Post-Colonialisms and Global Citizenship” and Human Rights in Contemporary Societies”.  He also co-founding member of Post-Extractive Futures and the Undisciplined Environments political ecology blog editorial collective.

Jonas Van Vossole is a Belgian political scientist, sociologist, economist and activist, with a PhD from the University of Coimbra. He is currently an FCT-CEEC researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra. His research interests focus on political economy, political ecology, eco-Marxism, social movements, international relations, ecological crisis and democracy studies. Van Vossole is co-coordinator of the CES Ecology and Society Lab (ECOSOC) and the Political Economy Association for Portugal’s Centro Region.