Project description
Social and cultural life in a decarbonised Swedish county
The EU aims to be climate-neutral by 2050. EU Member State Sweden is leading the transition to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The transformation is underway. For instance, companies are phasing out fossil fuels, and models for accessibility and efficient use of vehicles are underway. The EU-funded RoughGuide project will take a close look at the social and cultural aspects of daily life in a climate-changed and decarbonised society. With a focus on Skåne, it will develop a speculative travel guide to this decarbonised county in the southernmost part of Sweden. The project will implement a novel methodology for social engagement with climate policy. The findings will be useful to both scientists and policymakers.
Objective
The Swedish government has committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But while climate models can suggest future environmental conditions, and while sustainability transitions research can suggest pathways of sociotechnical reconfiguration, little research has yet engaged with the social and cultural meanings of lives to be lived in the climate-changed and decarbonised society described in the policy.
In addressing this research gap, this action will pioneer a new paradigm in environmental politics, while breaking down the barriers between research and science communications. By drawing on the worldbuilding techniques of science fiction, it will disseminate cutting-edge futures from climate modelling and sustainability transitions research in an accessible, engaging format. By deploying the practices of creative participatory placemaking, it will enrol citizens from locations around southern Sweden into a process of co-designing and narrating visions of life in a decarbonised sociotechnical regime. And by taking up rhetorical strategies from design fiction and transitions design, it will combine the science-based worldbuilding with the citizen narratives of futurity in order to create an artefact from a co-created future: a speculative travel guide to a decarbonised Skåne.
With communication at its core, this action will demonstrate a novel methodology for social engagement with climate policy which can be replicated in other contexts, through an innovative and interdisciplinary combination of theories and methods. Impact is promised through its intervention in the theory and practice of environmental politics, and through an ambitious strategy for communicating and publicising the project both within the academy and without. It also provides a comprehensive package of training and development for the fellow, resulting in a position of maturity, independence and visibility in an emerging field of urgent relevance to science and policymaking alike.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
22100 Lund
Sweden