Two more flumen student employees, Jan-Ole Deitmer and Sebastian Drue, have been accepted into the Honours Programme for research-oriented students at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. This is an initial one-year funding programme designed to provide particularly committed students with in-depth insights into research processes during their studies, give them a stake in the scientific community and prepare them for a scientific career.

Jan-Ole Deitmer, who was accepted into this year’s class, is investigating the socio-structural basis for a socio-ecological welfare state from the perspective of Bourdieu’s class analysis. To this end, data from the flumen repeat survey from 2023 will be used to investigate whether, in view of a possible shift in the structural principle of the German welfare state towards public infrastructures and services, a different class coalition can be recognised than the one that historically produced it. Jan-Ole’s research is being supervised by Prof Dr Silke van Dyk.

Sebastian Drue, who was accepted into the Honours Programme last year, is researching social relationships with nature in German bioenergy villages. He is investigating how people who work in local agriculture and forestry and produce biomass for the local energy supply relate to nature. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of local post-fossil change and its role in the (non-)transformation of societal nature relations. Sebastian’ will be’s work is being supervised by Prof Dr Stefanie Hiß.

Both are also actively supported by Dr Martin Fritz, the group leader of flumen, and Prof Dr Dennis Eversberg, the former leader, whose data and concepts are central to both projects.

The 2024 class:
https://www.uni-jena.de/en/257268/aufnahmejahrgang-2024

The 2025 cohort will be added here as soon as the participants’ profiles go online on the university’s website.

Further information on the programme can be found here:
https://www.uni-jena.de/en/115665/honours-programme-for-future-researchers

From June 24-27, the 18th conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics will take place in Oslo together with the 11th International Degrowth Conference. The motto is “Building socially just postgrowth futures – linking theory and action”. The flumen researchers Jana Holz, Philip Koch and Martin Fritz will present the approach of social relationships with nature developed in the project and organize a double session on “Social relationships with nature in post-fossil transformations”. Other events organized with flumen participation at the conference are “Land use, labor, and care: Navigating transformative degrowth policies in forestry, agriculture, and subsistence” (with Jana Holz) and “The world-café of sustainable welfare: Discussing the innovative potential of eco-social policies” (with Martin Fritz).

In diesem Bericht fasst Judith Kiss die Forschungsansätze von flumen zusammen und erklärt, was es mit der relationalen sozial-ökologischen Mentalitätsforschung auf sich hat, auf welchen theoretischen Grundbausteinen sie beruht, was genau wir unter “sozial-ökologischen Mentalitäten” verstehen und wie diese mit Sozial- und Naturverhältnissen sowie Lebensweisen zusammenhängen.

Der Bericht kann hier eingesehen und heruntergeladen werden: https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.66115

We are pleased to announce that the call for proposals for our special issue on ‘Care and Forests’ is now available. The deadline for the submission of proposals is 22 June 2025. All further information on the procedure can be found in the call.

The editorial team:

Anna Saave, University of Freiburg
Ronja Mikoleit, Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg
Austin Himes, Washington State University
Jodie Asselin, University of Lethbridge
Violeta Gutierrez Zamora, Tampere University
Jana Rebecca Holz, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Agata Konczal, Wageningen University

See the call here.

21 May 2025

Time (please note: due to the speaker being in Australia, the Coffee Talks takes place at a different time than usually!):

at 8pm in Hobart (AEST)
at 1pm in Helsinki (EEST)
at 12am Central Europe (CEST)
at 4am in Lethbridge, Canada (MDT)

Titel: „Ontological security and forest experiences: ‘Giving language’ to human-forest connections in Tasmania, Australia”

Input by: Dr. Rebecca Banham (University of Tasmania)

About:

Dr Rebecca Banham’s doctoral research explored the forest experiences of 27 people from Tasmania, Australia. She used Anthony Giddens’ concept of ‘ontological security’ – a sense of stability and predictability about our selves and the world – to understand how experiences with/in forests can help people to articulate their ethics, self-identity, sense of time, and connection to ‘something bigger’.

Drawing on several publications written since Rebecca completed her doctorate, this presentation will focus on the connection between ontological security and forests through concepts such as ritual, temporality, activism, and self-narrative. The common thread throughout these themes is that forests do important ‘ontological work’ for humans, which can help researchers to express the importance of the often abstract, ‘invisible’ elements of people’s connections to forests.

To join the event, please use the Zoom Link: https://uni-jena-de.zoom-x.de/j/65854920539

Meeting-ID: 658 5492 0539; Kenncode: 008070

Coffee Talks Human-Forest-Relationships

Let’s sit, have a coffee and talk in the scientific café! The “Coffee Talks HFR” give room for open and relaxed discussions on current research subjects related to human and society relations to forests. It warmly welcomes all interested in forest-related research to join the online sessions.

Each session lasts 1,5 hours. It starts with a 20-30 minute presentation of a guest speaker. After the presentation, with coffee or tea at hand, participants have plenty of room for an open discussion and exchange.

The “Coffee Talks HFR” take place three to four times per term on Wednesdays at 6 am MST / 2pm CET / 3pm EET.

Guest speakers wanted!

If you are interested in contributing to the “Coffee Talks HFR”, please contact either jana.holz(at)uni-jena.de, jodie.asselin(at)uleth.ca or tuulikki.halla(at)uef.fi with info on your subject (title and short abstract) and a preferred date.

The interdisciplinary and international scientific “Coffee Talks HFR” have a long tradition. In 2021, a cooperation between the Finnish research project Human-Forest Relationships in Societal Change and the German research group Mentalities im Flux (flumen) launched and hosted the “Scientific Coffee Sessions HFR”. Since then, they hosted more than twelve sessions with speakers form interdisciplinary social science background and international participants. In 2024, the network broadened and the event got a new name: “Coffee Talks HFR”.

The “Coffee Talks HFR” are hosted by:

• Human-Forest Relationship Research Club of the Finnish Society of Forest Science
• The research group “Mentalities in Flux” (flumen) Research Project
• Forest Anthropology Working Group on Europe and Beyond (FORAGE) FORAGE – WUR
• Soz-Wald, a newly-established German speaking network of sociological research on forest relations. Info on the network’s first event: https://www.flumen.uni-jena.de/symposium-zur-soziologischen-waldforschung-am-01-dezember-2023-in-jena/; join our Email-list: https://www.listserv.dfn.de/sympa/info/soz-wald

_{^{Picture: John Welsh}}

Sakari Säynäjoki from the University of Helsinki is visiting flumen in Jena as a guest researcher from 31 March to 4 April 2025. He is working on a dissertation in the doctoral programme of the interdisciplinary environmental sciences, specialising in practical philosophy, and his topic is fossil civilisation from the perspective of critical social research. He discusses the topic of fossil mentalities with the flumen staff and also gave an online presentation entitled ‘Beyond Primary Energy Myopia’ on April 1st, 2025.

abstract: In our current fossil-fuelled civilization, energy transition and fossil fuel phase-out will obviously ential profound transformations of all parts of society. Yet, social thinking engaging with the issue — i.e., environmental social and political theory — more often than not equate fossil fuels with energy: the transition and FF-phaseout seem to be merely a shift between sources of primary energy. Hence, fossil fuels are usually understood simply as fuels, despite the fact that they occupy indispensable roles in the social metabolisms and cultures of contemporary societies. In my talk, I term this reductive way of thinking primary energy myopia and draft some outlines for a more realistic and qualitative affordance analysis of fossil fuels. Thinking in terms of affordances could help translate the qualitative uniqueness of fossil-based metabolism into socially relevant and applicable terms and, thus, aid us in going beyond primary energy myopia.

Abstract: The concept of ‘sustainable welfare’ conceptualizes welfare and wellbeing within planetary limits. Yet there is a lack of knowledge about possible social and political carriers of corresponding social-ecological transformations. For the promotion of the changes of societal core institutions that climate scientists deem necessary in the nearer future knowledge of which parts of the population are most likely to support these and which would resist such a political turn is crucial. This paper uses a Bourdieusian methodology to explore the field of the general public’s perceptions of social-ecological transformations in relation to their future orientations. We assume that an eco-social policy agenda capable of initiating transformational social and ecological change is most likely to receive critical societal support if it is close to people’s experiences and, especially, expectations and hopes in relation to the future. Applying Bourdieu’s relational approach, we investigate with survey data from Sweden how expectations of the future are linked to attitudes towards a transformational sustainable welfare agenda as well as to corresponding political actions and socio-economic factors.

The article can be accessed freely here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328725000552

Journal Publication: Martin Fritz (2025). Welche Bioökonomie wollen wir? Sozial-ökologische Mentalitäten und Vorstellungen von Bioökonomie in der deutschen Bevölkerung. Ökologisches Wirtschaften – Fachzeitschrift, 40(1), 34–39. https://doi.org/10.14512/OEW400134

Jana Holz, Philip Koch, Martin Fritz and former head of flumen Dennis Eversberg gave a presentation entitled “Tightened lines of conflict in the socio-ecological transformation? Mentalities and social structure in (de-)civilizing processes

Link: https://us.sowi.tu-dortmund.de/forschung/veranstaltungen/tagung-a-climate-of-de-civilization/

02 April 2025 

6 am MST (BNOrth America) / 2 pm CET (Germany) / 3 pm EET (Finland)

Titel: „‘This is Nature Protecting itself’ – Forest Occupations Against Sand & Gravel Extraction in Germany”

Input by: Sebastian Garbe (Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Applied Sciences Fulda)

Presentation and discussion will be held online and in English.

About:

In recent years, forest occupations have become one of the most prominent and visible protest strategies within Germany’s climate justice movement. While some occupations have sought to protect forests from the expansion of open-cast lignite mining and the construction of motorways, a more recent occupation south of Frankfurt is resisting the expansion of a sand and gravel pit operated by a local company. 

Departing from that occupation and building on ongoing ethnographic field research in the region, this talk takes up a variety of threads from this case study as an example of contemporary socio-ecological conflicts that revolve around protecting forests from sand and gravel exploitation. One thread points towards forest occupations as a protest strategy grounded in a distinct relational ontology of human-forest relationships. By focusing on sand and gravel as natural resources lying beneath forests, another trace explores the importance of introducing the conceptual framework of extractivism and the commodification of nature to contexts in the Global North. Finally, this case study also helps to showcase some of the effects of open-cast sand and gravel mining on local forests, the local population and the local climate justice movement. 

Instead of presenting final research results, this talk invites the audience into ongoing ethnographic field research in the forests south of Frankfurt, following various threads laid by this case study.

To join the event, please use the Zoom Link: https://uni-jena-de.zoom-x.de/j/65854920539

Meeting-ID: 658 5492 0539; Kenncode: 008070

Coffee Talks Human-Forest-Relationships

Let’s sit, have a coffee and talk in the scientific café! The “Coffee Talks HFR” give room for open and relaxed discussions on current research subjects related to human and society relations to forests. It warmly welcomes all interested in forest-related research to join the online sessions.

Each session lasts 1,5 hours. It starts with a 20-30 minute presentation of a guest speaker. After the presentation, with coffee or tea at hand, participants have plenty of room for an open discussion and exchange.

The “Coffee Talks HFR” take place three to four times per term on Wednesdays at 6 am MST / 2pm CET / 3pm EET.

Guest speakers wanted!

If you are interested in contributing to the “Coffee Talks HFR”, please contact either jana.holz(at)uni-jena.de, jodie.asselin(at)uleth.ca or tuulikki.halla(at)uef.fi with info on your subject (title and short abstract) and a preferred date.

The interdisciplinary and international scientific “Coffee Talks HFR” have a long tradition. In 2021, a cooperation between the Finnish research project Human-Forest Relationships in Societal Change and the German research group Mentalities im Flux (flumen) launched and hosted the “Scientific Coffee Sessions HFR”. Since then, they hosted more than twelve sessions with speakers form interdisciplinary social science background and international participants. In 2024, the network broadened and the event got a new name: “Coffee Talks HFR”.

The “Coffee Talks HFR” are hosted by:

• Human-Forest Relationship Research Club of the Finnish Society of Forest Science
• The research group “Mentalities in Flux” (flumen) Research Project
• Forest Anthropology Working Group on Europe and Beyond (FORAGE) FORAGE – WUR
• Soz-Wald, a newly-established German speaking network of sociological research on forest relations. Info on the network’s first event: https://www.flumen.uni-jena.de/symposium-zur-soziologischen-waldforschung-am-01-dezember-2023-in-jena/; join our Email-list: https://www.listserv.dfn.de/sympa/info/soz-wald