Call for Abstracts
Feminist Perspectives on Climate Research
University of Bern, Switzerland, 18th – 20th of May 2026
Deadline for abstract submission: 30th of November
Research on climate change is situated within a context of historical and persisting injustices: populations who have contributed the least to global warming are currently most vulnerable to its impacts (e.g. Nakashima, 2018), regions of the world that are most vulnerable are often less well researched than regions in the Global North (e.g. James et al. 2018), and the knowledge and expertise of marginalised groups — including Indigenous people, young, (dis)abled, women of colour — is often not taken into account, leading to the intersection of climate, racial and gender injustice (Whyte, 2014; Whyte, 2016; Tuana and Cuomo, 2014). These injustices have to be reckoned with for climate research to be both reliable and fair. Indeed, the scientific community is currently facing major challenges that are not strictly epistemic: modelling and projecting climate impacts at local scales, filling in the knowledge gaps, addressing the human dimensions of climate change, and meeting the diversity of needs of the populations on Earth are all both epistemic and ethical issues. Yet, how to acknowledge and address injustices within knowledge production, how to design models and studies in order to fairly address people’s needs, how to organise the climate research community and how to effectively communicate about climate information and its uncertainty, are matters of ongoing but often behind-the-scenes debates.
The aim of this workshop is to explore ways in which resources from feminist epistemology can come to bear on these problems of injustice in climate research and climate action.
Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science are fields that for decades have reflected on the way power imbalances shape knowledge production. Yet, these resources have only rarely been applied to climate research. In this workshop, we aim to bring together scholars from philosophy of climate science, feminist philosophy and climate researchers who are interested in and reflect upon the intersections between these different literatures. We welcome contributions on, but not limited to, the following questions:
- How do epistemic injustices in climate research and climate injustices relate?
- How can climate models and data collection reinforce or mitigate injustices?
- How can feminist accounts of objectivity help reframe climate modelling practices?
- What kinds of problems does knowledge integration raise? What about co-production?
- How can social diversity impact climate research?
- How to conceptualise climate vulnerability and resilience?
- What roles can emotions play in knowledge production?
- How can feminist approaches to care address the question of living in a changing climate?
- How to communicate about climate uncertainty without inspiring distrust or inaction?
- What are the perspectives for climate activism?
- How do feminist approaches relate to other non-ideal approaches in the context of climate research?
Confirmed speakers:
Nancy Tuana, Penn State University, US
Kristen Intemann, Montana State University, US
Olivia Romppainen-Martius, University of Bern, Switzerland
Submission guidelines:
To apply, please send a 500 word abstract in form of a word or pdf file to femclim.oeschger@unibe.ch. Please make sure your name does not appear in the document – authorship details can be provided in the accompanying email. Speakers will have 30 minutes for presentation, followed by 10 minutes Q&A.
Participation in the workshop is free of charge, lunch and a workshop dinner will be provided for speakers. We particularly encourage members of underrepresented groups to submit.