Category: Conferências & Palestras EN

O Outro Dia do ICS (June 7 2023) was an event organised by the Presidency of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Minho as a review of the initiatives carried out within the theme of the 46th anniversary celebrations of ICS, “Climate Change.” In addition to sharing research conducted at ICS, there was a display of educational activities and student work.

Anabela Carvalho gave a general presentation on JustFutures and highlighted some of the research already conducted. Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented the communication titled “Political Imaginaries of the Youth Climate Movement in Portugal,” which explored the imaginaries of four groups of young climate activists through the analysis of their texts.

On June 6th, researcher Tânia R. Santos participated virtually, with an oral presentation co-authored by Mehmet Ali Üzelgün and Anabela Carvalho, at the 17th Biennial Conference on Communication and the Environment in Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA.

The presentation titled “The multivoiced field of protest: creating and hindering political opportunities for young climate activists in the media” analyses the representation of young climate activists on Portuguese television. It examines the ways in which media presentation either opens up or closes off spaces for recognition of the demands made by young activists, particularly following the occupation of universities and schools in November 2022.

The presentation was part of the “Youth and Visuals” session, which explored the visual dimension in relation to young people in their representation, understanding of, and involvement with climate issues.

Ana Garcia and Daniela Ferreira da Silva attended the XII Portuguese Congress of Sociology, which took place from 4 to 6 April 2023 at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. Both researchers of the project were included in Panel 7 of “Environment and Society” on “Environmental imaginaries, discourses and activism”. The speakers were grateful for audience input that fuelled the debate after their presentations.

Ana Garcia presented “Political agency and youth climate activism: perspectives and political imaginaries of young people on climate futures” showing preliminary results of task 4 of the project, particularly, on the analysis of focus groups with young climate activists in Lisbon, Porto and Braga and the how they understand their political agency.

Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented “What social transformations and visions for the future? Discourses and narratives of young climate activists in Portugal” on the analysis within the scope of task 2 of the project, analysing the online contents produced by various collectives of the youth climate movement in Portugal, in order to understand their prospects for the future and how to achieve them.

Dora Rebelo participated as an oral speaker at the 73^rd Political Studies Association Annual Conference on “Political Futures” that was held in the University of Liverpool from 3-5 April 2023. She presented during the panel “Environmental Activism in Britain and Beyond” that was chaired by Dr. Ozge Zihnioglu. Dora’s presentation entitled “Young people’s Political Imaginaries: Discussing Climate Futures and Just Transformations”, with the collaboration of the co-PI Maria Fernandes-Jesus, discussed preliminary analysis from task 4 of the project. This analysis explores political imaginaries as articulated by young people with different degrees of involvement with the climate movement during focus group discussions.

Anabela Carvalho participated, as a guest speaker, in the curricular unit Social and Environmental Psychology of the Master’s programme in Social and Organizational Psychology, at ISCTE-IUL on February 15, 2023. The presentation focused on the planned tasks and the work carried out by JustFutures project.

The researchers of the JustFutures project, Daniela Ferreira da Silva and Tânia R. Santos, presented their work at the VIII International Congress on Cultures that took place in Braga, at the ICS-Universidade do Minho from 5 to 7 December. Tânia R. Santos was part of the working group “Journalism, (in)visibilities and activism” where she presented an analysis of the television representation of youth climate activism. Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented an analysis on the uses of science in the communication of young climate activists on digital platforms as part of the working group on “Media literacy, activism and new technologies”.

Anabela Carvalho presented “Youth activism on climate change: analysing visions on politics and social transformation” during the 9^th European Communication Conference that took place in Aarhus, Denmark on 19-22 October. Anabela Carvalho discussed the socio-environmental visions of young climate activist groups, and the visions of democracy that are being constructed, specifically by Climáximo, Greve Climática Estudantil and LIDERA a Década do Clima.

On October 13 Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented at the IX Doctoral Conferences of CECS at the University of Minho in Braga. The work presented is part of her PhD doctoral studies exploring the “Evocation of science by climate activists: a gap in knowledge”. The researcher discussed the process that has led to identifying a gap in scientific literature and how she will address it by critically looking at the ways in which young climate activists evoke the field of science in their communication.

On October 11 Daniela Ferreira da Silva presented at the Digital Activisms in Dialogue Seminar, which took place at CICSNOVA in Lisbon, the work explored the “Uses of digital platforms in communication on climate change – a look at the youth climate movement in Portugal”. At this meeting, the researcher had the opportunity to discuss the diversity of uses and communication strategies on digital platforms by Portuguese youth activists, in particular by the Student Climate Strike and Extinction Rebellion (which appeared between 2018/2019), as well as by two national initiatives, Climaximo (the oldest group, 2015) and Lidera a Década do Clima (2020).

On 23 September, Maria Fernandes-Jesus, with the collaboration of Carla Malafaia, gave a presentation on “Youth voices for climate justice: activists articulating and envisioning futures” during the International Conference of Community Psychology in Naples, which took place from 21 to 24 September 2022. This presentation was integrated in the symposium “Promoting social justice engagement between powers and privileges”.

Dora Rebelo also helped to facilitate a collaborative workshop during this conference entitled “Community Psychology and Migrant Justice” where scholars discussed the social complexity associated with migratory injustices.