Ecology and Politics in Southeastern Europe: Political Ecology in Theory and Practice – Views from European Semi-Periphery

Departing from theoretical framework of political ecology we will dive deeper into recent developments in Southeastern Europe and explore avenues of academic, activist and political engagement that has led to social change. We will analyze current conflicts, disruptions and frictions and how they resonate with political ecology framework. While transformative and emancipatory potential of political ecology and its limits will be central theme of this conversation, we will also focus on new social movements that emerge along its theoretical axis (degrowth, municipalism, commons), their current and future trajectories.

Vedran Horvat is the managing director and head of the Institute for Political Ecology. From 2005 to 2015 he was the country director of the Zagreb office of Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German green political foundation. Since 2012 he’s been the national correspondent for Green European Journal, and from 2012 to 2017 he was the managing board member of the National Foundation for Civil Society Development. From 1998 to 2004 he worked as a journalist and web-editor in the daily political newspaper Vjesnik. He is a sociologist specialised in human rights, regularly publishing on European politics, civil society development, environmental issues, migration etc.Since 2019 Vedran is a member of the board of directors of the Green European Foundation.