- Tuija Veintie (University of Helsinki) – tuija.veintie@helsinki.fi
- Nathaly Pinto (Aalto University)
- Marinka Räsänen (University of Helsinki)
- Eleonora Lundell (University of Helsinki & University of Neuchatêl)
- Monica Lemos (University of Helsinki)
Numerous discussions on sustainability and possible futures are taking place in national and international arenas. The urgency of climate change and biodiversity loss and other complex sustainability problems threatening the future of the planet calls for rapid action and international cooperation. However, global sustainability goals fail to integrate plurality of sustainabilities. Green transitions, for instance, also pose threats to local ecological practices and may take on forms of green colonialism. Building a just and sustainable future requires co-production and enactment of visions developed through diverse voices and knowledges. What are the possibilities for sustainable futures beyond mainstream Eurocentric discourses?How do people in Global South and in the edges of society imagine sustainable futures from and in the crossroads of diverse epistemologies?
This working group addresses diverse knowledges and future imaginaries that provide resistance to ‘development’ framed within colonialist and capitalist world-system. The working group aims at co-producing new ways of conceptualizing sustainable futures from diverse perspectives, including but not limited to youth, immigrant, Indigenous and minoritized peoples. Thus, the focus is on knowledges and practices that are rarely present in academic, political and economic discussions concerning desirable futures or goals and methods for achieving sustainability.
The session will be held in hybrid format, accepting both onsite and online presentations. We support multilingual communication (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French). Submission of full papers will not be required. However, to facilitate AI-based translation in support of multilingualism, we will ask the presenters to send their presentation visuals in power point format prior to the conference.
The working group is co-organized by researchers from two on-going research projects: Education in times of multiple crises (EDUCRI) and Ecologies of learning for climate transformations in the lives of Finnish, Senegalese, and Brazilian young people (ECO-YOUNG). Both projects are funded by KONE.
Format: Three hybrid sessions
Accepted presentations
- Hidden in the kitchens. Methodological interventions for an indigenous feminist inquiry of kitchens in rural India as critical epistemic spaces of sustainability (Singhal Pragati)
- Participatory scenario-building for the Lower Rio Negro, Brazilian Amazonia, 2040 (Marianna Birmoser Ferreira-Aulu, Gabriela de Paula Souza Zuquim, Toni Ahlqvist)
- Re-imagining Futures from the Rubble: Teacher Education in Wartime Gaza (Marianna Vivitsou, Montaser Al-Halabi, Saila Poulter)
- Minoritized youth as epistemic agents in sustainability transitions (Tuija Veintie, Nathaly Pinto, Marinka Räsänen)
- Diverse images of sustainable futures – practicing futures thinking and visualizing desirable futures for Finland and Somalia (Habiba Ali, Jenna Soikkeli)
- Kómé African Indigenous Philosophy of Regenerative Capital: from Corporate Commodification of Relationality to Decommodification for Sustainability (Christian Barika Igbeghe)
- Still no Space for Marginalized Farmers? Power and Interests in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania’s Strategic Partnerships (Judith S Kahamba, Xiuli Xu)
- Learning Ecologies for climate transformations in the lives of Brazilian young people (Monica Lemos)
- Rethinking Climate Transformations at the Epistemic Crossroads of Youth Learning Ecologies: Insights from Ngor Fishing Village in Urban Senegal (Eleonora Lundell)
- Recognizing Labor, Knowledge(s) and Affects in Bamboo Landscapes: Toward Plural and Just Futures (Violeta Gutiérrez Zamora)
- Rewriting technological progress: Critical futuring against eurocentric sustainability imaginaries (Johanna Ahola-Launonen, Valeria Nova Cázares)
- Transition and tradition in the Arctic (Anudini Wijayarathna)
Registration is now open from 12 January to 15 February 2026.
The detailed timetable will be published later.