Unlearning in order to relearn for Sustainability Transformations

The Chair of Environmental Planning and Transformation organizes the lecture series "Planning for socio-ecological transformations" in the summer term 2024. 

Next Tuesday, Prof. Dr. Antje Bruns (University of Trier) will give the second talk in the series, entitled "Unlearning in order to relearn for Sustainability Transformations".

In her lecture, Bruns will talk about knowledge for sustainability transformations. Drawing on research on the current climate and resource crises, she calls for a reflexive approach to knowledge that is critical of power and domination: Systems knowledge does not adequately capture the social and socio-spatial inequalities, and the transformation knowledge derived from it is often apolitical, techno-fixated and not transformative in the narrow sense. It is therefore not a question of more knowledge, but of a different kind of knowledge. Hence, the acquisition / learning of this other knowledge must be preceded by a research practice of unlearning.

After working at Kiel University, the University of Flensburg and the Humboldt University of Berlin, Antje Bruns has held the Chair of Sustainable Spatial Development and Governance in the Department of Geography at the University of Trier since 2015. There, she researches and teaches spatial transformation processes from the perspectives of Political Ecology and Science & Technology Studies in the Governance & Sustainability Lab, which she founded.

Homepage of the lecture series "Planning for socio-ecological transformations"