Foto: Neil Palmer (CIAT) CIAT, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.Aerial view of the Amazon Rainforest, near Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

Climate change is fundamentally affecting life on the planet. Deforestation and water-related issues cause biodiversity loss and breakages in ecosystems balance, forcing inhabitants of affected areas to migrate. As these existential dangers increasingly impact more people and ecosystems worldwide, there is urgency to discuss questions regarding human and nature rights, ethics, accountability, legislation, policies, and short- and long-term strategies to mitigate, cope with, but also shift systems away from unsustainable modes of living together with nonhumans and the environment. Cooperation and exchange of experiences and knowledge are key tools in facing these challenges.

With a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean region, this two-day interdisciplinary workshop invites Nordic and Latin American scholars at different career stages to discuss climate change, its anthropogenic sources and its multiple impacts, through the lens of three specific topics: deforestation, water and migration. These topics can be developed individually or in relation to each other.

The workshop will be based on three main lines of inquiry:

• Deforestation - environmental regulations, fires, indigenous land management, land grabbing, desertification.
• Water - water management (drinking water, sanitation, hydroelectric plants), flooding, droughts, land-use change.
• Migration - displacements connected to climate disaster and other extreme environmental conditions, unlivable areas.

Funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences, this workshop is organized as a series of keynote addresses followed by questions and comments. It will have a hybrid format (campus Stockholms University and online) in order to increase its outreach. A selection of the workshop presentations will be published as a special issue of Iberoamericana –Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (open access).

Confirmed Speakers 

Session 1 (17 November, 14.00 – 15.15) | Chair: Georg Wink

Ana Paula Aguiar (National Institute for Space Research, Brazil, and Stockholm Resilience Center): “Alternative pathways to sustainable futures: Linking narratives across scales”

Larissa Basso (Researcher affiliated to the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), Brazil): " The Politics of Climate Change Mitigation in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Argentina, Brazil and Peru” (online)

Gianfranco Selgas (University College London): “Orinoco Mining Arc: Energy Culture and the New Political Geography of Extractivism”

Session 2 (17 November, 15.45 – 17.00) | Chair: Susann Baez Ullberg

Solveig Aamodt (CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Norway): “Brazil – Norway forest cooperation: A case of cross-border policy entrepreneurship” (online) (Co-authored with Erlend A. T. Hermansen)

Benedicte Bull (University of Oslo): ” A Social compromise for the Anthropocene? Elite reactions to the Escazú Agreement and the prospects for a Latin American transformative green state”

Elise Christensen (Norwegian Embassy in Colombia): “Peace, climate and forest protection in Latin America: the Norwegian experience in Colombia and beyond” (online)

Session 3 (17 November, 17.15 – 19.00) | Chair: María Clara Medina

Karsten Paerregaard (University of Gothenburg): “The World Turned Upside Down. Climate, Water and Culture in the Peruvian Andes”

Susann Baez Ullberg (Uppsala University): ” Unearthing the Underground: The Social and Political Life of an Argentinean Aquifer”

Maria-Therese Gustafsson (Stockholm University): “Extractivist Development, Climate Change, and Water Conflicts in Latin America” (online)

Session 4 (18 November, 13.00 – 15.00) | Chair: Benedicte Bull

Kristina Marquardt (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences): “Struggling to Build Smallholder Futures in The Amazon. Contentions and Combinations of Secondary Forests, Subsistence and Cash Crops. The Case of San Martín in Peru”

Julie Wetterslev (European University Institute, Florence, and University of Copenhagen): “Countering the Suppositions of Indigenous Title to Land: Experiences from North Eastern Nicaragua”

Minella Martins (National Institute for Space Research, Brazil): “Linking indicators to core sustainability challenges: A multi-scale participatory approach for the Brazilian Cerrado and Caatinga biomes”

Stine Krøijer (University of Copenhagen): “Fire and Alterity in Amazonia” (online)

Organizers: Thaïs Machado Borges and Ariel Sribman Mittelman (NILAS, Stockholm University).