Narrating for new Narratives – Scientific Podcasts for Sustainability Transformations

Scientific podcasters who challenge conventional thinking discuss opportunities and challenges of podcasting for transformations

Podcasts have gained incredible popularity and also the number of scientific podcasters has grown. By them, podcasts are being explored as a tool to disseminate critical knowledge and reach an audience beyond academic journals and conferences. They not only offer new opportunities for knowledge transfer and dialogue, but also for research and theory building. Theories can be discursively negotiated and linked to current topics and political events.

Can podcasts serve as a digital arena to open up conversations between professors, activists, artists, and other practitioners, and the audience? Which challenges are associated to this?

This panel brings into conversation scientific podcasters that tackle contemporary climate politics and problematize the set of empirical, normative and epistemic problems that it engenders. It aims to discuss how podcasts can be a channel to promote conversations of issues that are difficult and yet relevant to the lived experience of everybody, such as power relations, social transformation, democracy, neoliberalism, postcolonialism, climate politics, environmental crises, sustainability, science, art. We bring together podcasters incite their audience to think critically by contrasting different perspectives and thus helping to expand our understanding of the world in crises.

A panel discussion with

Prof Dr Claudia Kemfert, Head of Department “Energy, Transport, Environment”, DIW Berlin, and Professor of Energy Economics and Energy Policy, Leuphana University in Lüneburg with her podcast Kemferts Klimapodcast
Prof Dr Alex Demirović, Professor of Political Science, University of Frankfurt, and Member of the Executive Board of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation with tl;dr – Too long, didn’t read – Der Theoriepodcast der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
Dr Cecilia Oliveira, Leader of the Research Group Democratic Governance for Ecopolitical Transformations (Ecopol), Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (RIFS) with Carbon Critique – Atmosphere Politics & Democracy
Victoria Luh, Research Associate, Regional Sustainability Transformations, RIFS with Hör mal, Lausitz

with an opening message by Henning Krause (Social Media Manager of the Helmholtz Association) and moderated by Alexandra Tost (Ecopol, RIFS).