ECCA Policy Brief Workshop

The side-event “Policy Brief on Social Sciences and Humanities” chaired by Elisabeth Worliczek, took
place on Tuesday, June 20th, 2023 from 16:15-18:00 in the magnificent Dublin City Hall and gathered
16 experts with cross-cutting expertise in finance, sociology, theology, policy, psychology and earth
sciences to reflect on the following questions:

• Why are things contradictory?
• What are the baselines of our society?
• What are the common underlying assumptions that produce inequalities, green colonialism
  and extractivism?

Bringing together their expertise, the workshop produced lively discussions around the posed
questions in three randomly composed and rotating groups. They addressed the conflict of
sustainability with the capitalistic nature of our system and the general division between humanity
and the natural world. Root causes may lie in the increased prioritisation of scientific knowledge,
while almost entirely ignoring or delegitimising indigenous or traditional forms of knowledge.

When it came to societies’ values, the rise of individualism further leading to the disconnection of
societies was brought up. The importance of relationships and mutual caring to strengthen the social
cohesion was highlighted, as well as the power of the individual within our system. The need for
democratic reforms was emphasized, as its legitimacy is increasingly questioned in the Western
World. To counter that, the importance and role of climate justice for communities, as well as society
overall was stressed. Underestimated aspects, like the role of religion or other forms of manifested
values were also discussed.

The conclusions and key messages of the group discussions were presented to all attendees after
three rotations and are being prepared over the summer to be used as the foundation for the next
policy brief workshop taking place September 20th, 2023 at the International Conference: Reflections
on Transformation in Graz. These workshops set the foundation for a deliverable of the EU funded
project MAGICA, of drafting a policy brief on the current aspects around evolving the topic of social
sciences and humanities.

Read more about other ECCA2023 relevant sessions here