Portraying Ecological Justice

Impacting Our Understandings of Justice

Through our work on portraying ecological justice we interrogate the representation of ecological justice in society and across all disciplines from the arts to the natural sciences. In so doing, our work highlights the way in which the representations of ecological justice impact on understandings of justice and on its delivery. We show how current representations of ecological justice marginalise the interests of some sectors of society and species while prioritising others. We explore the potential for alternative portrayals of ecological justice, for new partnerships and for new methods of creating representations of ecological justice to provide new insights into the delivery of ecological justice.

Within the scope of the portraying ecological justice we investigate two main areas:

  • Story telling, including visual story telling in ecological justice
  • Research Communication of ecological justice, including outreach and education

Key Projects

The Mobile Arts for Peace

A project led by Professor Ananda Breed which, while focused on using the arts to help transition countries to peace, also draws out the relationship of communities and the ecosystems of which they are part.

Find out more about The Mobile Arts for Peace.

Conservation of Cultural Heritage

Prevents the loss of culture, identity, community, and sense of place. This work includes vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning which spans intangibles as well as objects and buildings and landscapes – the loss of culture is a loss of identity, community, sense of place.

Find out more about Conservation of Cultural Heritage.

UKRI/Research England/ QR Strategic Priorities Fund: ‘Engagement tools for the Lincoln Climate Commission’

This funding enabled the research team to produce a complete set of community engagement tools and materials for improved communication, information dissemination, and collaboration with the public with the Lincoln Climate Commission.

The project led to extensive public consultation over Summer of 2022 where the Commission started to design a consensus-based framework of actions in the form of a climate assembly process that enabled and delivered a range of climate conversations with members of the community, public policies, research, and investment to deliver a net zero carbon and resilient transition for Greater Lincolnshire.

Find out more about Engagement tools for the Lincoln Climate Commission.

Lincoln Policy Hub/UKRI/Research England/QR Strategic Priorities Fund: ‘#ClimateHopeLincoln: Lincoln’s Climate Assembly Process’

This research has established and is currently delivering an assembly process for Lincoln. It is building and enhancing new and existing relations to kickstart a community policy engagement network related to climate action across the city of Lincoln, by building a Lincoln-wide policy engagement stakeholder network through a number of mini events as part of Lincoln’s climate assembly process.

The process was initially designed to build on the aims of the 2030 Lincoln Climate Action Plan which was published in 2022. Through multi-governance facilitation of the assembly process through the Lincoln Climate Commission, LocalMotion UK, and Lincoln City Council, the aim was to facilitate community ownership in driving the assembly agenda by having a range of mini events related to climate action across the city to align and reconnect disparate climate networks that could feed into more effective and holistic climate policymaking for the city.

Find out more about Lincoln’s Climate Assembly Process.

British Academy: ‘UK Climate Commissions and Place-based Climate Action: Evaluating Policies, Governance, Networks and Scales’

This Policy insight case study gathered evidence on the governance, policy, networked, and scalar relationships between climate commissions and local, national, and international climate agendas through three research questions:

  1. What are UK climate commissions doing to address local climate mitigation/adaptation through the lens of ‘place-shaping’? (Place/ Governance/Policy) 
  2. How are commissions adopting an inclusive/pluralistic approach when engaging different sectors through place-based governance innovations? (Place/Networks) 
  3. How are these innovations shaping (or being shaped by) local, national, and international climate policy agendas (Place/Scale)

The final report for this project will be published by the British Academy in August 2024.