Dear Critical Geographers,

I just want to draw the attention of local list serv members to a series of events we have going on at RISD this week that continue to draw together environmental social scientists with critical and eco-designers with a view to opening up broader discussions of reconstructive political ecologies. 

We have a symposium on Saturday 7th at the RISD Museum entitled BIG +SMALL, TOP DOWN + BOTTOM UP RETHINKING SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FUTURING. On Friday 6th we have an exhibition of student work emerging out of a Architecture/Political Ecology studio Rethinking Green Urbanism and on Thursday we have a lecture discussion which should be of interest to colleagues interested in the broad areas of reconstructive environmental labor studies.

Thanks,

Damian White

With design thinking successful entrepreneurs in hubris claim to design, innovate and make a prosperous and even democratic ”future” for us all. But what if this is only a dominant ideology and hegemonic power in disguise, disciplining and eventually threatening our lives? This conversation, with a dash of melancholia, explores less successful still hopeful situated counter examples of co-designed "marginal futures made in the small and by the many". The examples range from creative communities in less favorable neighborhoods, to maker spaces as genuine collaborative forms of production, to democracy revitalized through imaginative public engagements