Since the 1970s, environmental constraints, shifting social values, and the crisis of post-war productivism have profoundly challenged the Western left. Once grounded in beliefs in scientific progress, technological innovations, and rising material prosperity, left-wing movements have increasingly been forced to confront planetary limits, rising inequality, and growing public ambivalence toward technoscience. These tensions have crystallised in contemporary debates on the Green Transition, where competing visions of abundance (growth-oriented technological optimism) and sufficiency (degrowth, sobriété, post-productivism) shape political and social antagonisms.

Argument

Since the 1970s, environmental constraints, shifting social values, and the crisis of post-war productivism have profoundly challenged the Western left. Once grounded in beliefs in scientific progress, technological innovations, and rising material prosperity, left-wing movements have increasingly been forced to confront planetary limits, rising inequality, and growing public ambivalence toward technoscience. These tensions have crystallised in contemporary debates on the Green Transition, where competing visions of abundance (growth-oriented technological optimism) and sufficiency (degrowth, sobriété, post-productivism) shape political and social antagonisms.

This workshop welcome contributions that investigate how the left broadly understood, both in Western and nonWestern contexts, has responded to the dilemmas of progress, environmentalism, and social justice. We particularly welcome research on how political actors, social movements, experts, and institutions have negotiated the dilemma between technological expansion and planetary limits, and how these choices continue to influence debates, policies, and imaginaries today. We encourage empirical case studies, comparative perspectives, and theoretical contributions.

The workshop will consist of 9-10 speakers organised into three thematic panels. Each participant will circulate a short paper two weeks before the event to facilitate discussion.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) :

• Scientific progress, technoscientific optimism, and the rise of risk awareness
• Sufficiency, sobriety and austerity : social, political, or ideological transformations
• Energy transitions, decarbonisation, and socio-economic inequalities
• Productivity, R&D policy, and debates about the drivers of economic growth
• Consumption, lifestyle politics, and changing social expectations
• Non-Western or postcolonial perspectives on development and technological progress

Submission Guidelines

Please send the title and abstract of your proposed contribution (max 300 words) to e.costa@ssmeridionale.it as a single PDF file by February 27th, 2026.

Notifications will be sent by March 27, 2026.

Scientific Committee 

• Ettore Costa (SSM)
• Antoine Dolcerocca (University of Bologna)

Practical Information

The SSM will cover accommodation for invited speakers ; travel support for additional speakers may be available depending on budget. Coffee breaks and lunches will be provided. Additional details will be circulated to selected participants.