[News] Extended Call- Letzte Runde diese Woche: "Entanglements of Change"

[Jan Stanislaw Winkler]

Liebe Kolleg:innen,
 
vielen Dank für die bisherigen abstracts zum Call "Entanglements of
Change" für eine Session auf der RGS 2026 in London, die auch
bereits spannende internationale Perspektiven eröffnen (u.a. Estland,
Luxemburg, Deutschland). Gleichzeitig erinnern wir nun
letztmals an den Call und freuen uns über weitere Impulse, einzureichen 
in der Form kurzer abstracts (200 Wörter) bis zum Ende
der Woche, 28.02.26! Die abstracts gehen an:
hermine.baehr at geo.uni-hall.de [hermine.baehr at geo.uni-hall.de],
cheyenne.wolf at strukturwandel.uni-halle.de
[cheyenne.wolf at strukturwandel.uni-halle.de] und
jan.winkler at geo.uni-halle.de 
 
Die Session "Entanglements of Change" fragt nach den Potentialen
mehr-als-repräsentationaler und praktikentheoretischer Ansätze
für Analysen sozial-ökologischer Transformationsprozesse - und
diskutiert aus dieser Perspektive auch die Bedeutung raumsensibler
Blickwinkel auf Transformation. Für den kompletten Call siehe unten in
der Mail
 
Liebe Grüße
Hermine Bähr, Cheyenne Wolf, Jan Winkler 
 
Entanglements of Change: More-Than-Representational and Practice-Based
Approaches to the Spatialities of Socio-Ecological
Transformation
 
Transformation toward a more sustainable, post-fossil, and just society
is not a master plan. In the context of the climate crisis
and post-fossil ruptures, socio-ecological transformations unfold – and
happen – in everyday life, in concrete spaces, through
bodies, objects, emotions, and relations. Transformations are neither
linear nor purely technological; rather, they are
contradictory, contested, situational, and spatially differentiated
processes. They emerge within historically sedimented power
relations, producing disturbances, detours, and losses (Storm 2020),
while simultaneously opening up new spaces of possibility,
hope, and alliance. Transformation thus becomes a lived practice (Walker
2020) that is locally embedded, emotionally experienced
(Emery 2020), and relationally negotiated (Görmar & Kinossian 2022),
giving rise to diverse modes of subjectivation and agency.
Building on this conceptualization, the session approaches
socio-ecological transformation as a more-than-representational
practice and seeks to sharpen a spatially sensitive perspective that
understands change as a situated relational entanglement. By
foregrounding the political characteristics of space – friction and
renegotiation, diversity and encounter, situatedness and
relationality – together with the analytical potentials of
practice-theoretical approaches (Hui et al. 2017; Schäfer & Everts
2019; Schmid & Smith 2020), the session aims to make visible both the
conflictive and differentiated nature of transformations as
well as their creative dimensions.
 
Central to such an approach, then, is a focus on the everyday dimensions
of transformation (e.g., Schurr & Strüver 2016;
Domínguez-Guzmán et al. 2023) – routines, improvised practices, and
modes of engaging with change that unfold “under the radar” of
dominant regimes of attention. Equally important is the exploration of
the emotional dimensions of transformation (Martiskainen &
Sovacool 2021), including unevenly distributed phenomena such as
transformation fatigue, transition pain (Bogner et al. 2024),
climate emotions (Neckel & Hasenfratz 2021), as well as hope,
confidence, and utopian imaginaries (Feola et al. 2023). Finally, a
spatially sensitive and practice-oriented approach enables an analysis
of diversity and difference in transformation processes.
How do categories such as gender, class, or migration background
structure local negotiations of transformational movements,
within which differently positioned subjects embody differently lived
relationships to change (Meier & Aytekin 2018; Braunger &
Walk 2022)? From this perspective, transformation is an ongoing
re-negotiation of relationships (Haraway 2016) – between diverse
subjects and groups, between individuals and environments, between self
and other (Zhang 2024).
 
In order to further develop a spatially sensitive and
more-than-representational perspective on the situated practices of
transformation, we invite empirical, theoretical, and methodological
contributions that address one or several of the following
interrelated perspectives (or other, related ones):
 
§ Transformation in everyday relations: How are transformation processes
made visible, tangible, and understandable in everyday
life? What do differently situated subjects point to, and where do they
lead us when they aim to show transformation(s) and its
conflicts? With which local objects and materialities are transformation
processes entangled? What material elements or
environments have the capacity to affect (whom) as transformation (as a
promise, as a threat, as an uncertainty, as an
opportunity)?
 
§ Relations between transformation imaginaries and lived experiences of
everyday change: How do subjects relate the circulating
imaginaries of sustainable, post-fossil transformations – promoted or
demanded in dominant discourses – to the multiplicity of
diverse forms of (emotional, embodied) everyday change? Under what local
conditions do subjects connect or disconnect imaginaries
of sustainable transformation with what forms of everyday
transformation? What ‘language(s) of change’ do situated actors develop?
And how do these processes generate conflicts or open up potentials for
collective action? We argue that a spatial and
practice-oriented perspective is particularly fruitful for addressing
these questions, as it allows us to explore situated
experiences of complex, overlapping changes and the ways these are taken
up, negotiated, and enacted in local everyday practices.
 
§ The manifestation of transformation (conflicts) in local assemblages:
Transformation processes – and their imaginaries,
subjectivities, and capacities – are shaped in and through a
“thrown-togetherness” of heterogeneous elements (Massey
2005; Dihlmann & Helbrecht 2024). Transformation must be conceived as
emerging from the messiness of everyday life. If we
understand transformation through local assemblages, we can analyse the
interplay of diverse trajectories of change that
constitute a spatial simultaneity of diverse temporalities and
contrasting stories – stories of loss for some and development for
others.
 
§ Simultaneities, temporalities, and visibilities: These entanglements
shape the visibilities of transformation. For instance, the
closure of a community centre due to financial pressures or population
decline in disadvantaged parts of a city may spatially
coincide with the installation of new electric vehicle charging stations
or urban PV systems just next to it. While these
processes are not directly or causally linked, they localizeconflicting
simultaneities, potentially creating the impression of a
hierarchical prioritization of certain developments over others, and
thereby complicating the societal mediation of transformation
goals. A spatial perspective captures such constellations of
(in)visibility and (dis)attachment (Anderson 2022), viewing
transformations as contentious assemblages.
 
§ Dealing with uncertainty: Not least, we consider it productive to
think of transformation as a process that generates multiple
uncertainties and insecurities – including various epistemological
disruptions (Altstaedt, Fladvad & Hasenfratz 2022). What is
needed, then, are analyses of the situated ways in which subjects engage
with the “geographies of uncertainty” (Senanayake & King
2021).
 
We welcome contributions in the form of short abstracts (200 words) to
be submitted by 15 February 2026. Please send abstracts
to hermine.baehr at geo.uni-halle.de [hermine.baehr at geo.uni-halle.de],
cheyenne.wolf at strukturwandel.uni-halle.de
[cheyenne.wolf at strukturwandel.uni-halle.de], and
jan.winkler at geo.uni-halle.de [jan.winkler at geo.uni-halle.de]. We look
forward to
the exchange!
 
References
· Altstaedt, Sören et al. (Ed.) (2023). Praxis und Ungewissheit. ZuAlltäglichkeit sozial-ökologischer Krisen. Frankfurt/Main:
Campus Verlag.
· Anderson, Ben. (2022). Forms and scenes of attachment: A cultural
geography of promises. Dialogues in Human Geography, 13(3),
392-409.
· Bogner, Kristina et al. (2024). Coping with transition pain: An
emotions perspective on phase-outs in sustainability
transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Volume
50, 100806.
· Braunger, Isabell & Walk, Paula. (2022). Power in transitions:
Gendered power asymmetries in the United Kingdom and the United
States coal transitions. Energy Research & Social Science, 87, 102474.
· Dihlmann, Carl-Jan & Helbrecht, Ilse. (2024). Ländliche Räume als
relationale Gefüge: Argumente für eine ontologische Wende in
der Ländlichkeitsforschung am Beispiel einer Wiese. Geographische
Zeitschrift 112, 2024/2, 96–120.
· Domínguez-Guzmán, Carolina et al. (2023). Transformation as Practice:
Learning from everyday dealings with groundwater. Water
Alternatives 16(1): 1-12.
· Emery, Jay. (2020). After Coal: Affective-Temporal Processes of
Belonging and Alienation in the Deindustrializing
Nottinghamshire Coalfield, UK, Frontiers in Sociology, 5, 1-16.
· Everts, Jonathan & Schäfer, Susann (Ed.). (2019). Handbuch Praktiken
und Raum: Humangeographie nach dem Practice
Turn. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
· Feola et al. (2023). Collective memories, place-framing and the
politics of imaginary futures in sustainability transitions and
transformation. Geoforum, 138, 1-12.
· Görmar, Franziska & Kinossian, Nadir. (2022). Industrial forever?
Narratives, Place Identity, and the Development Path of the
City of Zeitz, Germany. Moravian Geographical Reports, 30(4), 270-287.
· Haraway, Donna. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the
Chthulucene. Harrogate: MNG University Press.
· Hui, Allison et al. (2017). The Nexus of Practices: Connections,
constellations, practitioners. London: Routledge.
· Martiskainen, Mari & Sovacool, Benjamin. (2021). Mixed Feelings: A
Review and Research Agenda for Emotions in Sustainability
Transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 40,
609-624.
· Massey, Doreen. (2005). For Space. Sage.
· Meier, Lars & Aytekin E. Attila. (2019). Transformed landscapes and a
transnational identity of class: Narratives on
(post-)industrial landscapes in Europe. International Sociology, 34(1),
99-116.
· Neckel, Sighard & Hasenfratz, Martina. (2021). Climate Emotions and
Emotional Climates: The Emotional Map of Ecological Crises
and the Blind Spots on Our Sociological Landscapes. Social Science
Information 60 (2): 253–271.
· Schurr, Carolin & Strüver, Anke. (2016). „The Rest“: Geographien des
Alltäglichen zwischen Affekt, Emotion und
Repräsentation. Geographica Helvetica 71, 87-97.
· Senanayake, Nari & King, Brian. (2021). Geographies of uncertainty.
Geoforum 123, 129–135.
· Storm, Anna. (2020). A landscape of home and a landscape of viewing:
Simultaneous realities in the post-industrial situation.
in: Authentizität und industriekulturelles Erbe: Zugänge und Beispiele,
Michael Farrenkopf & Torsten Meyer (Ed.), Berlin, Boston:
De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 131-148.
· Walker, Amy. (2020). Everyday resonances of industrial pasts:
Considering lived and affective memories in ex-coal mining
landscapes in a South Wales valley. in: Geographies of Post-Industrial
Place, Memory and Heritage, Rhodes et al. (Ed.), London:
Routledge, 52-67.
· Zhang, Vickie. (2024). Embodying industrial transitions: Melancholy
loss, interrupted habit and transitional memory after the
end of a coal mine. Royal Geographical Society, Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers, 50(2), 1-15.
 
...

Dr. Jan Winkler
Research Group Leader
European Centre of Just Transition Research and Impact Driven Transfer
(JTC)
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
PI "Städtische Geographien des Verlusts/ Urban Geographies of Loss"
(funding by "Bundesverband Wohnen und Stadtentwicklung - vhw")

https://jtc.uni-halle.de/ [https://jtc.uni-halle.de/]

Raum H4 2.24
Von-Seckendorff-Platz 4
06120 Halle (Saale)
Jan.Winkler at Geo.Uni-Halle.de [Jan.Winkler at Geo.Uni-Halle.de]
Tel.: 0345/5526065

mobil: 0177/2488347



 
 




 



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