Conference program

📍

Lucian Blaga University Library
Lucian Blaga Street, 2A
Sibiu, Romania

Monday, May 18, 2026 (Day 1)

08:3009:00Registration: Welcome Coffee & Registration
09:0009:15Opening Session: A welcome message from ULBS representatives and EcoJust management
Room: Senate Hall
09:1511:15Keynote Session: Film screening and opening discussion with Prof. Stefania Barca, Prof. Erik Swyngedouw, and Prof. Vivian Price
Room: Senate Hall
11:1511:45Coffee Break
Library Lobby
11:4513:00Parallel Sessions
T1 – Energy Justice and Inequalities in the Green Transition
Chair:
Hestia Delibas
Room: Senate Hall
G1 – Environment, Extraction, and Governance in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe
Chair:
Gabriel Girigan
Room: Computer Lab
Giulia Mininni & Saska Petrova – Intersectional energy precarities in extractive practicesRuxandra Păduraru, Alexandru Iorga, Dragoș Tudorache – Tulcea–Chilia Veche Road (DJ222N): Stone, Dust, and Promises
Katarina Kušić – Water, wind, and sun: Continuity and change in the energy futures of the Dinaric karstBogdan Iancu – From irrigation to extraction: the socio-ecological afterlives of a socialist water infrastructure in southern Romania
Lilian Pungas – Agroecology right beneath high-voltage power lines and oil shale plantsLinda Szabó, Czeglédi Alexandra – Governance of ruptured resistances to infrastructures of East Asian EV battery investments across Hungary
Nikola A. Venkov-Rose – “Born to pollute: Cleaning Stolipinovo – mission impossible”: The media-governance complex as a socio-political apparatus sustaining environmental racismSergiu Novac – The Residual Violence of the Green Atom: Romania’s Uranium Mining in the Age of Nuclear Renaissance
Noémi Gonda & Jutka Bari – Energy poverty, racial abandonment and the limits of energy justice: reflections from a Roma settlement in HungaryDorina Damsa, Kathinka Fossum Evertsen, Hallam Tuck – Para-criminal modes of forest governance in Romania/European Union
Lunch Break at “Rabbit Hole and Soup”
Address: Grand Square, no. 11
14:3015:45Parallel Sessions
R1 – Green Just Transitions?
Chair:
Filip Alexandrescu
Room: Senate Hall
Ignite Talks
Chair:
Ioana Savin
Room: Computer Lab
Daniela Ana, Michael Eilenberg – Drying Landscapes, Shifting Practices: Unequal Green Transition and transnational farming in RomaniaIoana Pantilimon – The Eco-Social and Intercultural Pact of the South and Green Transitions in Eastern Europe
Markus Sattler – A just green transition without the meta-industrial class? Labour, class and resistance to hydropower in GeorgiaJosefina Marklund – The Politics of Sidelining Just Transition
Mikuláš Černík – Steering the Wheel of Just Transition in Czechia: Civic resistance in post-mining regional developmentGeorge Iordăchescu – Conservation frontierization in the Carpathian Mountains: understanding justice between extractivisms and non-extractive use
Emanuela Ignatoiu-Sora – Naiads, insurance companies and climate justice: Pechea from a hydrofeminist perspectiveDonald Davis – Greying the Greenzone: Environmental Injustice in the Jadar Valley of Serbia
Călin Cotoi, Alexandru Iorga – The Return of Development: War and Natures in the Danube Delta
Carmen Voinea, Mihai Stoica – Exploring knowledge about methane gas emissions and community organisation potential in frontline communities
15:4516:00Coffee Break
Library Lobby
16:0017:00Special Format Session: Film screening & discussion: “Natural Gas, The Bridge To Climate Disaster” with Maria Martelli, Just Wondering collective
Room: Senate Hall
18:3020:00Dinner at The “La Dobrun” Restaurant
Address:
Dobrun Street, no. 1

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 (Day 2)

09:0010:15R2 – Transitions’ Environmental Conflicts
Chair:
Filip Alexandrescu
Room: Senate Hall
Balša Lubarda – Exclusionary environments: Environmentalism and scapegoating in Serbia and Montenegro
Rositsa Kratunkova – De-hydrocapitalism: struggles for water in Bulgaria
Nora Hein – A ‘Justice Lens’ perspective on the Green Transition in South Moravia (Czechia) and Kaigu Peatland (Latvia)
Clara Salaverría Embid – ‘Tomorrow in your backyard?’ Ecological distribution conflicts and sustainability transitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adrian Deoancă – Thinking Between the Posts: Postcarbon, Postsocialism and Cement
10:1510:40Coffee Break
Library Lobby
10:4012:00T2 – Industrial Legacies and Green Extractivism
Chair:
Irina Velicu
Room: Senate Hall
Agnes Gagyi & Lela Rekhviashvili – Green investment conflicts at the EU’s eastern peripheries: towards a comparative research framework
Laura Maghețiu – “This Will Revolutionize Private Forestry Here”- On Romania’s Emergent Carbon Offseting Industry Landscape
Anna Iosif – Productive Pollution. Landscapes of Labour and Contamination in a Romanian Socialist City
Elena-Maria Cautiș – Wasted Heritage Futures: Toxic Inheritances of Post-Socialism at the Rulmentul Factory, Brașov
Jana Tsoneva – From fossil socialism to helio-socialism: towards an alternative to market-based decarbonization
12:0013:00Coffee and Networking Break
Library Lobby
13:0014:30Lunch Break at Rabbit Hole and Soup
Address: Grand Square, no. 11
14:3015:45Parallel Sessions
R3 – Post-socialist Scenarios of Transformation
Chair:
Bogdan Vătavu
Room: Senate Hall
G2 – Local Governments Navigating Post-Socialist Legacies and the Green Agenda in CEE
Chair:
Filip Alexandrescu
Room: Computer Lab
Anastasia Oprea – Feminist Transformative Leadership in Post-Socialist Rural RomaniaPiotr Derejczyk – Local Government in Poland and the Green Transition: Institutional Legacies of Post-Communist Transformation and Contemporary Climate Challenges
Lenka Suchá, Zuzana Harmáčková, Pavlína Schultzová – Triggering Social-Ecological Transformation in Central and Eastern EuropeVlad Bejinariu – EU’s Mission 100 as Socio-Ecological Fix: Green Transitions, Inter-Scalar Tensions, and New Accumulation
Lenka Suchá, Zuzana Harmáčková, Eliška K. Lorencová, Magdaléna Koudelková, Jitka Martínková – From Global Scenarios to Local Realities: Rethinking Shared Socio-economic Pathways in Central and Eastern EuropeIacob Mihai – Unpacking the Sustainability Fix: Governance Mechanisms in Urban Redevelopment across Central and Eastern Europe
Giorgian Guțoiu – Nature and urban space: an Open Marxist frameworkVedran Obućina – Faith-Based Actors in Environmental Governance: Religious Contributions to the Green Transition in Central and Eastern Europe
Ina Laurențiu – Among Blocks, Gardens, and Hills: Social dynamics and urban transformation in Sopor
15:4516:00Coffee Break
Library Lobby
16:0016:30Eco-Drama with Oana Rusu, actress at “Ion Dacian” National Operetta and Musical Theatre // researcher EcoJust
Room: Senate Hall
16:3017:30Closing Discussion
Preliminary conclusions and discussions about the future challenges with our guests of honour, Prof. Stefania Barca, Prof. Erik Swyngedouw and Prof. Vivian Price
Chair: Irina Velicu
Room: Senate Hall
18:3020:00Dinner at the “La Dobrun” Restaurant
Address: Dobrun Street, no. 1