Transitions conference in North America!

SCORAI holds conferences in every other year.  2016 conference is in Orono, ME this June.  Here's the information about it.

On behalf of the Program Committee for the 2016 Conference of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI) being held at the University of Maine on June 15‒17, 2016, we are pleased to release the first preliminary agenda for the event.  

We are also delighted to note that the program includes papers and posters from more than 200 scholars representing 26 countries! Together we will cover a wide range of topics—from sustainable food, alternative economies, and urban transformations to theories of social movements and socio-technical transitions.  

We ask that you kindly check the schedule, available on the conference website and please forward this message on to your co-authors (for whom email addresses were not provided during abstract submission). Please inform us, as soon as possible, if corrections are needed or your plans have changed.

Information about travel, accommodation, registration and the post-conference excursion to Acadia National Park is available on the conference website. Early bird registration rates are available until March 15, so please register soon!  Registration rates include meals, refreshments and a one year membership to SCORAI. 

We have invited several presentations from scholars traveling from developing countries, many of whom receive no financial assistance from their institutions. If you, like us, are interested in participating in an inclusive and diverse conference, please consider adding a small donation to your registration fee to support scholars in need of assistance. You can also contribute via ourcrowdfunding campaign. 

Please remember that full papers are due May 1st (instructions for submission forthcoming). SCORAI –sponsored events provide a unique opportunity for deeper engagement by utilizing this format—which enables participants to read others’ work prior to the conference. We strongly encourage you to get your papers in so that your contribution will have maximum impact and our time together can be used most effectively to advance shared learning and collective knowledge.

Please note the pre-conference workshops and “dialog” sessions included in the program.  These sessions invite participation in a less formal and more discussion-oriented format.  The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) and OneEarth have developed the workshop “Identifying Promising Strategies for Advancing Sustainable Consumption in Cities” and Maurie Cohen (New Jersey Institute of Technology) and Peter Wells (Cardiff University) will be moderating a conversation on “The Burdens of Wealth: Impacts of ‘Decadent Consumption’”.  We welcome your participation in these events! We have also included, with this email, a call for participation for a dialog session on teaching sustainable consumption (see attachment and note the February 15th deadline).
 
Finally, we’d like to remind you of SCORAI’s new Early Career Scholar Award. If you are currently enrolled in a graduate program or are within four years from the completion of your PhD, you are eligible to submit your paper for consideration. For more information, please visit the conference website. 
We very much look forward to what promises to be a wonderful conference! Thank you all very much for your interesting contributions. We look forward to welcoming you to Maine in June and to a fruitful future of collaboration.  If you’re not already subscribed, please consider joining the SCORAI listserv for updates, announcements, and sustained interaction with the SCORAI community!


Cindy, Philip & the Conference Organizing Committee

-- 
Cindy Isenhour, Assistant Professor of Anthropology 
Cooperating Faculty, Climate Change Institute and School of Economics
Faculty Associate, Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions
University of Maine 
303.807.6515
http://umaine.edu/anthropology/faculty-staff/dr-cindy-isenhour/
Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice