LUCSUS seminars

Autumn programme 2025

The programme is updated continuously. 

January 22

Too hot, too cold: dwelling in discomfort as a question of thermal justice
11-12 in Maathai
Speaker: Alice Guilbert, doctoral researcher and assistant at the Institute of Environmental Sciences

In Switzerland, temperatures keep rising—mostly in cities—while energy systems are under increasing pressure; facing this dual challenge, new patterns of vulnerability and inequality emerge in accessing thermal comfort. This thesis aims to identify the roots of these disparities by examining the unequal distribution of climate extremes and the impacts of the energy crisis on everyday living conditions. Focusing on Geneva, the research unpacks thermal injustices to understand the dynamics and processes that produce inequalities in dwelling comfortably when facing uncomfortable temperatures.

February 5

Book Presentation: Insurgent ecologies between environmental struggles and postcapitalist transformations
11-12 in Ostrom
Speaker: Salvatore Paolo de Rosa, Center for applied ecological thinking, University of Copenhagen.
Discussant: Melissa García-Lamarca, LUCSUS

Insurgent Ecologies takes readers on an inspiring journey across key sites of ecological crisis and contestation, showing how revolutionary politics can emerge from the convergences between place-based, often disconnected struggles. These engaging essays speak to longstanding debates in political ecology around how to advance transformations in, against and beyond capitalism. The collection starts from the belief that environmental struggles across the Global South and North are a necessary component of such transformations. The book presents unique stories of the visions and strategies of struggles organised around sovereignty, land, climate, feminisms and labour, written by scholar-activists rooted in territories around the globe, offering locally grounded yet global perspectives. Each story reflects on how to build solidarity and comradeship across diverse struggles and how new political subjects and transformative collective projects for social-ecological justice are created.

Salvatore Paolo De Rosa's work spans the fields of anthropology, political ecology, and environmental humanities, with a focus on environmental conflicts, grassroots organising and climate justice movements. Currently, he studies the repression and policing of activism in Denmark and participates in anti-repression networks and organising. He's the co-editor, with Armiero and Turhan, of the volume Urban Movements and Climate Change (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). He's a founding member and editor of the collective Undisciplined Environments, and a collaborator of the independent media Napoli Monitor.

February 19

Transboundary Ecologies of War: Destruction, Resistance, and the Quest for Peace
11-12 in Maathai
Speaker: Pinar Dinc, Associate Professor and Researcher, Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University

This presentation explores how nature becomes both a victim and a site of resistance in protracted conflicts across Kurdistan. Focusing on rivers, forests, and agricultural lands that transcend state borders, it examines how ecological destruction—through dam projects, deforestation, and scorched-earth tactics—has been weaponised in war. At the same time, it highlights the Kurdish freedom movement's ecological turn, framing environmental justice and sustainability as integral to its transnational struggle. The lecture situates these dynamics within broader debates on conflict ecology and environmental peacebuilding, asking what it means to seek peace in landscapes scarred by war yet rooted in resilience.