Climate Change in Changing Times
Hosted by the Habitable Air Project at the University of Bergen (UiB), led by Dr. Kerry Ryan Chance and funded by the European Commission and the Research Council of Norway, this conference and Ph.D. workshop focuses on climate change in times of rapid transformation in politics, economies, and everyday life in many parts of the globe. Recent conflicts over energy and resources have collided with emerging forms of sovereignty and inequality, as well as new ways of being human through AI, prompting a reevaluation of non-human or more-than-human relations. A key lens through which scholars at this conference have analyzed some of these planetary transformations is toxicity. That is, they have examined chemicals, infrastructures, and modes of social organization that are harmful to local communities and the environment across multiple temporal and spatial scales. At the same time, these scholars offer analyses of belonging and being-in-the-world through lived practices that imagine or provide alternatives to these harms, both of which we seek to explore in our discussions over three days.
Main content
This conference will draw on climate theory and ethnography, as well as STS and historical approaches. We therefore examine climate change at once as a lived atmosphere, grounded in embodied and day-to-day realities of ordinary people, and as a scientific and policy formation that is part of broader and changing political and economic climates. Questions for discussion include: (1) In what ways does the management of elemental forces – air, land, fire, and water – shape, and become shaped by, differentiated bodies and boundaries between life worlds? (2) How do processes of urbanization and inequality mediate differential vulnerabilities and responses to climate change, including its impacts on health, illness, and well-being? (3) In what ways are struggles over energy and resources impacting climate affect, political mobilization, and forms of violence across borders and political divides? (4) In light of changing conceptions of climate and the many ways ordinary people are already living with climate change, what concrete public work is possible—whether through policy, art, or activism—to tell new stories, shape new realities, or change material conditions in our world?
Confirmed Speakers include:
Drs. Laurence Ralph (Princeton University), Christine Walley (MIT), Courtney Morris (UC-Berkeley), Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (UiB), Mareike Winchell (LSE), Anand Pandian (Johns Hopkins University), Timothy Choy (UC-Davis), Sarah Vaughn (UC-Berkeley), Vanassa Agard Jones (Columbia University), and with special lectures delivered Drs. Adriana Petryna (UPenn) and Kim Fortun (UC-Irvine).
If you are a Ph.D. student or postdoctoral fellow interested in participating, please send a one-paragraph description of your research to habitableair@uib.no no later than August 15, 2026. In some cases, we will consider advanced MA students. Those selected will present 10-minutes on their research for collective discussion. Please note that participation in the Ph.D. workshop, as well as all scheduled activities and meals, is covered by the program.
Participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. If you require financial assistance, please indicate this in your application, as limited funding may be available to help cover part of these costs.