CRESTING Early Stage Researcher (ESR) Santiago Perez participated on the AScUS (un)conference, organised by the Sustainable Urban Systems section of the International Society for Industrial Ecology , in partnership with Metabolism of Cities and the IE University in Segovia. Santiago, in partnership with Mercedes Quesada-Embid, associate professor at the Catawba College (North Carolina, US), directed a 3 hour session on the perceptions and actions towards transdisciplinarity for generating environmental and social justice. The conference was held, virtually, from the 3rd to the 5th of June, 2020.
The session, named « Integrations of Justice in Transdisciplinary Research: Towards New Sustainable Paradigms and Meaningful Advocacy », successfully delivered the opportunity to discuss how sustainability aligns with transdisciplinarity and how distinct fields of study have the capacity to be strongly connected to advocacy work for positive social change. The participatory session highlighted the importance of systems thinking and the layered realities found within the scales and spheres of the cultural, political, economic and ecological elements inherent to the environmental justice movement.
Non-conventional research approaches, although often considered peripheral to the mainstream, shed light on global exemplars that reach far beyond technicalities in order to augment multi-cultural and multi-generational research accessibility. Such examples were collectively discussed, and their advantages examined, in order to understand how one can retain credibilities, surpass disenfranchisements, and effectively link authentic justice across urban and rural geographic, climatic, and socio-political boundaries.
This opportunity allowed ESR Santiago to explore not only his capabilities organising a conference session but also using digital tools to deliver the session. A document is being co-created by all the participants of the session and will be published as the « deliverable » of the session. It will be initially available to the members of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, but you can contact Santiago (santiago.perez@utt.fr) if you are interested and want to have a look. The document will be available from the 13th of July, 2020.