Centre for Environmental History

61^st ITH Conference: Working nature – exploring intersections of labour history and political ecology

The bundle of human-made ecological crises has reached a point where most earth scientists see an actual breaching of ecological thresholds, not only in relation to climate change but also six of nine processes for which “planetary boundaries” have been defined. In this context, the interdisciplinary field of political ecology (which dates to at least the 1970s) has experienced a spectacular boom. In a certain sense, it has become the interdisciplinary critical social science of our days, a field in which both academic and political concerns converge. In the English-speaking world, political ecology has proved to be strongly inflected by historical reasoning, with several authors highlighting the entanglements between material extraction, energy carriers (particularly fossil ones), ecological over-use, capitalist economic development, and exploitation.

While the history of work and labour relations have a place in these studies, many commentators have noticed an ongoing non-communication between labour history and political ecology. Despite such (self-)critical assessments, the last decades already have seen numerous instances scholarship at the intersection of “labour” and “environmental history” as well as “political ecology”. It thus seems both timely and necessary to bring global labour history and historical political ecology into a more structured and fruitful dialogue, to assess existing research at the intersection of both and to explore further avenues of research. While open to a broad spectrum of topics and approaches – from the carbon nexus to agrarian ecologies, from toxic through contested to multispecies labour –, this conference will insist on “labour” as one major category of differentiation in past and current ecological predicaments.

Organiser: International Conference of Labour and Social History (ITH)

Early bird registration ends on 3 July.

Time: 17.09.2026 - 19.09.2026
Place: Linz, Austria

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Verena Winiwarter Prize

The International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations (ICEHO) is proud to announce the Verena Winiwarter Prize for the best article that contributes to global environmental history, focusing on comparisons and connections between different parts of the world or on areas outside mainstream scholarship in the field. The prize is named in the honor of former ICEHO president Verena Winiwarter, who has not only contributed greatly to environmental history through her scholarship, but who also has been a driving force in the creation and success of ICEHO.

The prize will be awarded every two and a half years: at the World Congress (held every five years) and once in between congresses. The first prize will be awarded in February 2027. Deadline for submissions is August 15, 2026.

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Umweltgeschichte im Fokus: Wie Simone Gingrich die Vergangenheit für eine nachhaltige Zukunft erforscht

Die historischen Entwicklungen von landwirtschaftlicher Intensivierung, Wiederbewaldung und der Expansion tierischer Produktion haben nicht nur die Ernährungsgrundlagen für wachsende Bevölkerungen geschaffen, sondern auch erhebliche ökologische Konsequenzen nach sich gezogen – von steigenden Treibhausgasemissionen bis hin zu Veränderungen in globalen Stoffkreisläufen.

Antrittsvorlesung
Umweltgeschichte im Anthropozän
Univ.Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ Simone Gingrich

Montag, 24. März 2025, um 17:00 Uhr
BOKU University - Ilse-Wallentin-Haus - SR 29
Peter-Jordan-Straße 82, 1190 Wien
und im LIVESTREAM auf https://youtube.com/live/ais7V_yYNcQ?feature=share