29.08.2024
The Politics of Climate Action
with Max Aj, Rosemarie van Ham & Ken de Cooman
As the urgency of the climate crisis becomes more apparent, many have been advocating for policy alternatives to the business as usual approach. Using the ongoing planetary crisis as a moment for all out transformation, all over the world, variants of the Green New Deal have emerged – drawing together policy actions to combat the climate crisis in addition to tackling economic inequality.
On Thursday 29 August, we welcome agrarian sociologist Max Ajl, author of A People’s Green New Deal to discuss how the various green transition movements can not only tell us about where we are, but what we need to do in order to bring about actionable policy change. Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he argues, requires nothing less than an infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South.
‘Hands-down the best book yet on the Green New Deal’
– Jason Hickel
Ajl will be joined by Rosemarie van Ham, who is working for the municipality of Rotterdam and founder of the Inclusive Climate Action Rotterdam (ICAR), with a mission to advocate climate justice and equality, and Ken de Cooman, co-founder of BC Architects, a hybrid practice thats is designing and undertaking „acts of building“ towards systemic change in the construction sector.
This event is a collaboration with the 11th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) Nature of Hope.
Visitors of this years’ International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) – Nature of Hope can access this event for the reduced price of €6,- (choose Reduction Ticket in our ticketshop).
Participants
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Max Ajl
Max Ajl is a fellow at the Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb at the University of Tunis, a senior fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, University of Ghent, and an associated researcher at the Observatory of Food Sovereignty and the Environment, Tunis. He has authored A People’s Green New Deal and works on themes of political ecology. He is also an associate editor of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy and on the editorial board of Middle East Critique.
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Rosemarie van Ham
Rosemarie van Ham is a civil servant currently working for the municipality of Rotterdam. She founded Inclusive Climate Action Rotterdam (ICAR) with a mission to advocate climate justice and equality. ICAR works on a sustainable and climate-just future for all Rotterdammers based on equality and inclusion by giving marginalised groups a stage and bringing the social and physical domain together. Rosemarie is a strong defender of the right to a healthy life for all and her work seeks to challenge the typical way we think about climate change and contribute to (climate) justice.
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Ken De Cooman
Ken De Cooman is co-founder of BC Architects, BC Studies and BC Materials, and Research Associate at the act of building junior professorship at RWTH Aachen. He holds a Masters in Philosophy and Architecture, and a Candidate in Psychology. Starting a trajectory as an architect, Ken De Cooman focused on earth construction, with several projects on the European and African continent. Today, Ken De Cooman is directing BC materials with a focus on R&D of geo-, bio- and urban-sourced materials.
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Hani Salih
Hani Salih is a researcher, writer, editor and curator sitting at the edge of a long list of disciplines and practices; Starting with architecture all the way over to systems and policy. Hani is interested in understanding wider contexts to social and cultural phenomena and is currently doing this through his teaching work in architecture and design education.