Share Sydney Ideas
Culture, trust and systems
Local and democratic politics for the Anthropocene
Join Sydney Environment Institute for a conversation that examines a variety of ways of rethinking local politics for more sustainable and democratic ends.
Event details
Date and time: Thursday 21 February, 6 – 7.30pm
Venue: ABS Lecture Theatre 1130
The University of Sydney (Camperdown/Darlington Campus)
Entry: free and open to all with online registrations required.
The idea of ecological democracy is a promising one, a combination of two sets of appealing core normative values – environmental concern and engagement on the one hand, and democratic legitimacy and procedure on the other. Yet these two sets of values are quite different, and not so easily reconciled.
Ecological democratic thought has been consistently mindful of the very real tension, and is focused on finding, developing or promoting synergies between democracy and sustainability.
This discussion examines a variety of ways of rethinking local politics for more sustainable and democratic ends. Speakers will address the potential of coalitions forming to prevent the increased enclosure of public lands, grassroots efforts to create new food systems, and new forms of cultural intervention and shifts – value-guided ecological democracy.
The goal is to put innovative thinkers and actors into conversation to examine the role of the local in living practices of ecological democracy.
The speakers
Lisa Disch is Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, where she teaches a large introductory course on political ideas and ideologies, as well as upper-division courses on population and the environment, contemporary political theory, political representation, and Anglo-American and French Feminism, among other things.
She has published books on the political thought of Hannah Arendt (Cornell) and the discursive production of two-party democracy in the US (Columbia), and is most recently co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory with Mary Hawkesworth (Cxford), and co-editor with Nadia Urbinati and Mathijs van de Sande of The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation (Edinburgh). She is finishing a book-length monograph on political representation for the University of Chicago Press.
Marit Hammond is Lecturer in Environmental Politics at Keele University, UK, and a Co-Investigator of the ESRC Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). Her research interests include environmental political theory, sustainability governance and democratic theory, especially deliberative democracy.
His recent and forthcoming work includes the book (with Nicole Curato and John B. Min), Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems (Palgrave) and numerous articles in journals such as Environmental Politics, Environmental Values, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, Contemporary Political Theory, Policy Sciences, and Democratization.
David Schlosberg is Professor of Environmental Politics in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, and Director of the Sydney Environment Institute. His work focuses on contemporary environmental and environmental justice movements, environment and everyday life, and climate adaptation planning and policy.
He is the author of Defining Environmental Justice (Oxford, 2007); co-author of Climate-Challenged Society (Oxford, 2013); and co-editor of both The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society (Oxford 2011) and The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory (Oxford 2016). His latest book, Sustainable Materialism: Environmental Movements and the Politics of Everyday Life, will be published by Oxford this year.
Alana Mann is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at the University of Sydney, and a key researcher in the University’s Sydney Environment Institute. Her research focuses on the communicative dimensions of citizen engagement, participation, and collective action in food systems planning and governance.
She is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project FoodLab Sydney (2018–20), with partners including the City of Sydney and FoodLab Detroit, and is collaborating with Macquarie University and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) on the project Growing Food and Density Together: Enabling Sustainable Place-making through Local Foodscapes in the Inner City, funded by Urban Growth NSW. In 2018 Alana was a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic and the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University.
Event information
This event is free and open to all but online registration is essential.
Simply click the 'Register now' button or follow this link.
Entry to ticket holders will be prioritised and given on a first in, best dressed basis until the room reaches capacity. If an event is full, this may result in standing room or delayed admittance until an appropriate time.
We recommend early arrival to allow time for finding the venue and securing a seat to the event. Doors open 30 minutes before the advertised start time.
If you could not register but would like to attend, you are welcome to join a stand-by queue on the night as seats may become available due to late cancellations. Please note, this is not guaranteed so you come at risk of non-admittance.
This venue provides wheelchair access, hearing loop and infrared hearing system.
Access requirements
If you have other access requirements or want more information, get in touch with us on 9351 2943 or email sydney.ideas@sydney.edu.au with 'Access | Feb 21 – Culture, Trust & Systems' in the subject line at the earliest opportunity to allow us time to organise any additional services in time for the event.
This event takes place at ABS Lecture Theatre 1130, which is on the first floor of Abercrombie Building (cnr Abercrombie Street and Codrington Street, Darlington).
There will be directional signage on the day leading to the theatre. You may also refer to the map on this page.
By train
Redfern Station is the closest train station. It is a 10-minute walk to the venue, enter via Abercrombie St. Please check Transport NSW for train updates and schedules.
By bus
The closest stop is at City Rd (before Butlin Ave). It is a five-minute walk to the venue. Use the campus map to locate the bus stop.
While there is some street parking available on Abercrombie Street, Codrington Street, Butlin Avenue and Wilson Street (near Carriageworks), there is no dedicated parking at this venue and spaces are limited, so we suggest using public transport whenever possible.
Use the University Campus Maps tool to find out more details about parking and access areas: search using "Abercrombie" to locate the building.