BREAKING TIMES. Slow violences, resistance, prefigurative politics

Background

This International Conference is part of the research project Slow Violence and Human Rights project led by Prof. Fornalé at the University of Bern and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). The project among other objectives, aims to explore the role of the concept of slow violence in the specific legal domain – access to justice – by means of three successive steps: 1) investigating when to situate climate justice claims; 2) identifying who is affected by slow distress, and 3) asking how – by what methods and legal tools access to climate justice can be ensured. It aims to prepare the ground for a reform of existing legal practice. This conference falls also under the objectives of the Horizon Europe project HRJust (States’ Practice of Human Rights Justification: a study in civil society engagement and human rights through the lens of gender and intersectionality) led by prof. Fornalé at the University of Bern. The project aims to address significant and important gaps in human rights regulations and to develop a theory of human rights justifications. HRJust aims to develop a theory of HRJ and a process for Systematic Ongoing Civil Society Engagement as a tool for a gender and intersectional inclusive Civil Society engagement. The Conference falls under the PRIN Project JUSTAINABILITY which is based on the social innovations generated by a community in the first line affected by environmental impacts and to analyse their experiences in term of social mobility, co-production of knowledge, and alternative experiments. Its purpose is to present a new concept of sustainability that includes more profound questions about socio-ambient beauty. 

Overall Aim

The aim of this international conference and workshop is twofold: firstly, to explore the relationship between violence and environment across time and space; and secondly, to explore the human rights implications of the co-existence of diverse temporalities and how this could impact access to climate justice in terms of ‘toxic exposure’. To this end, by adopting the notion of slow violence, the Conference will unpack visible and less invisible human rights violations to build a new understanding of resistance. By zooming in on case studies, the Conference provides an opportunity to identify the tangible impacts of slow violence. The case studies will be turned into a distinctive process to map new trajectories for political developments and legal responses by adopting a long-term and bottom-up approach. The presentations are organized around the following themes: 1) forms and periodicities of environmental violence; 2) the intersection between time, space and toxic exposure; 3) time and temporalities of human mobilities; 4) Emerging strategies to resist to the denial of access to climate justice. The Conference is an interdisciplinary one that will bring together several disciplines: history, geography, law and sociology. This Conference aims to discuss also a book proposal/edited volume proposal provide comprehensive insight into the role and significance of time in access to climate justice through legal and political frameworks. This volume aims to provide comprehensive insight into the role and significance of time and temporalities in the regulation of international mobility and migration through legal frameworks. Papers presented at the international seminar will be included
in the edited volume.

Prof. M. Armiero and Prof. E. Fornalé

PROGRAMA