COORDINATION: Gustavo García López, Jonas Van Vossole and Flora Pereira da Silva

Although the ecological crisis is one of the major concerns of our time, there is no consensus about its social implications. The environment is a field of symbolic and material dispute, largely dominated by simplistic approaches (techno and/or economic fix) that often dismiss the social dimension of ecological issues. On the other hand, the majority of recent social movements, as well as an increasing number of ‘experts’, claim that the environmental crisis results from a social crisis at a planetary dimension. Environmentalism is not restricted to its ‘urgency’ or technical solutions; today there are grassroots environmentalisms and movements for environmental justice that are active in both the North and the South. These have made it clear that there is a link between environmental and social inequalities . This idea, as well as the scientific consensus on global climate change, is one of the main novelties of our time.

The Ecology and Society Lab is a CES working group (formed in 2011) that brings together PhD students and researchers with the dual objective of deepening the analysis of the connections between the social and the ecological, and of creating spaces for collective action face to the ecological crisis.