Dear Urban Futures Studio Friends,
How do we make sense of what we are currently experiencing in society? How do we deal with the backlash the sustainability transition is now facing? What is our repertoire to restore hope for a better future? How do we contribute as academics?
In the Urban Futures Studio, we put our cards on the freedom to experiment. More importantly, our role might be to address how we make sense of the world. Man is a meaning-making animal. But how do we now make sense of the world? Are our frames, our ‘systems of signification’, standing in the way of seeing the future?
We open up. This newsletter contains exciting news about our new project on Ecology & Belonging. Perhaps, Tim Stacey thinks, we should step out of the Debate of the Deaf as endlessly rehearsed between the political leaders from the Right and the Left. Perhaps we should acknowledge that the Left is just weak when it comes to defining frames for the future that are creating a sense of belonging. Perhaps there are different ways of giving meaning to our future.
We are also happy to share the latest news from our big multi-year project, ReSET, to which Jesse Hoffman devoted so much of his time. If it is not for the message, then visit the website for its innovative layout! Then, there are all those meetings we can report on, including the fancy publications that came out.
Enjoy it all, and see you all in the next year! |
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Maarten Hajer
Urban Futures Studio
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New research on Ecology and Belonging
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| Those best able to tell us what the environmental future must look like are the least equipped to talk about Belonging. And those best able to conjure a sense of Belonging seem determined to ignore warnings of environmental catastrophe. In this context, our new Ecology and Belonging research project seeks an understanding of belonging that is deep enough to connect people to the environment, powerful enough to rival populism, and open to newcomers. Timothy Stacey leads the Ecology and Belonging project that draws together the ecological expertise of researchers at the Urban Futures Studio, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, and the belonging knowledge of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Stacey shares insights from the Ecology and Belonging project in the blog posts below. |
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| "In the summer of 2022, 100 Dutch farmers parked their tractors outside of the Asylum Seekers’ Centre in Ter Apel..." |
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| "From most people’s gut perspective, belonging is rooted in a kind of from-ness. Like a tree, you are rooted in a place..." |
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Learning across global contexts for just transitions |
| This December, the ReSET project is sharing a 3-part blog series on LinkedIn. ‘The hard but rewarding work of developing a shared language’ is the first in three articles in which researchers Jesse Hoffman, Stuti Haldar, and Megan Davies discuss what it takes to learn, think, and act across global contexts in a world in flux. The second article, ‘Shaping Just Transitions from an Indian Perspective’, examines what it takes to cultivate a truly global perspective on just energy transitions. Stay tuned for the final blog post. |
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| The hard but rewarding work of developing a shared language. |
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| Shaping just transitions from an Indian perspective. |
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Utopianism in state–society interaction: reflections on the transdisciplinary intervention ‘Places of Hope’ |
Peer reviewed paper reflecting on the Places of Hope exhibition and manifestation that the Urban Futures Studio co-hosted in 2018.
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Reimagining the university in the climate crisis
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A catalogue of transformative university practices in Northern Europe, created by Lisette van Beek for Pathways to Sustainability.
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Visions of Better Worlds zine
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| Zine created by students of the ‘Imagining the Future for Transformation’ master’s elective 2024. |
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Climate Confessions #11: We are all Donald Trump
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| "November 6. The morning after polls close in America: When I woke up this morning and read the news on my phone..." |
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| URBAN FUTURES STUDIO IN NOVEMBER |
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Workshop on re-imagining the university in the climate crisis |
On 26 and 27 November, Lisette van Beek, Maarten Hajer and Gemma O’Sullivan organised a workshop that brought together researchers from Utrecht University and other European universities. 21 participants reimagined the university’s role in the climate crisis by co-developing a pop-up exhibition showcasing ‘absurdities of the present’, ‘images of longing’ and ‘seeds of change’. The exhibition serves as input for an op-ed that participants are currently writing collectively, calling for transformative change across universities worldwide. Scholar-activist and professor of climate justice Jenny Stephens joined the workshop by providing a keynote on her new book 'Climate Justice and the University'.
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| The 2024 edition of the Warming Up Festival focused on the term ‘climate justice’. PhD researcher Darko Lagunas joined a panel moderated by Ama van Dantzig with colleague researchers Daphina Misiedjan and Shivant Jhagroe. All have been researching this topic for many years. This talk show-style panel, hosted by One World, addressed general questions about climate justice. What does this term mean? How can you really act climate justice? What are fair solutions to the climate crisis? |
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Understanding transformative hope
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| At the International Transdisciplinarity Conference (ITD) in November, the Academy of Hope team, led by Kelly Streekstra, hosted an interactive session with 30 participants, in which we wanted to pilot a way bring people together in an energising manner around the question: how might we be moved to change the university? To do so, we’ve translated our understanding of transformative hope into a workshop and dramaturgical design to create a critical and imaginative space in collaboration with Lisette van Beek, Gemma O’Sullivan, and Hilde Segond von Banchet. During the workshop, participants tapped into their everyday experiences at the university and explored their ‘absurdities of the present’ and their most attractive ‘images of longing’. |
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Taking emotions seriously in policymaking: dramatic and religious repertoires
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| This November, UFS researchers Christina Klubert and Timothy Stacey joined the State of Conflict Conference 2024 to facilitate the seminar “Taking emotions seriously in policymaking: dramatic and religious repertoires”. How might public engagement be reconfigured to reinvigorate democracy? Pushing through ‘rational’ choice approaches to conflict resolution, this session explored the role of emotions in undermining and enabling effective public engagement. |
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| Jeroen Oomen joins Utrecht University talkshow to address the question of how climate change affects the meaning and importance of human rights. |
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| Jeroen Oomen is a guest in this podcast episode of Design Museum Den Bosch exploring design on the very largest scale: geoengineering. |
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NRC article mentioning the Energetic Odussey project.
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