​The Transformative Potential of Rights of Nature? Perspectives and Synergies in Arts, Activism, and Academia (2025)

Abstract
On 23 and 24 January 2025, artists, activists and researchers came together at the University of Tübingen for the Knowledge Lab "The Transformative Potential of Rights of Nature? Perspectives and Synergies in Arts, Activism, and Academia.” This experimental thinking event was hosted by Riccarda Flemmer (University of Tübingen), Annette Mehlhorn (MPI Halle) and Cecilia Oliveira (RIFS Potsdam).
The objective of the LAB was to reflect on ways to think and feel about human-nature relations and how to include these ways into one's own world of experience as places from which change may emerge. For Riccarda Flemmer, this is the closing event of her project “The Transformative Potential of RoN? Struggling for Alternatives to Destructive Anthropocentric Development” funded by the RiSC program of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Arts, and as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments. Annette Mehlhorn is a researcher in the project “Rights of Nature without Biocultural rights? Investigating the conflicting dimensions of ecocentrism”, operating under the umbrella of the Max Planck Fellow Group “Environmental Rights in Cultural Context” (ERCC) at the Max Planck Institute for Cultural Anthropology. Cecilia Oliveira is head of the research group "Ecopolitics and Just Transformations" (EcoPol) at the Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam and her current project, “Amazon of Rights,” works with a visual ethnography of RoN and the production of a documentary about the rights of the Amazon River.
​We thank Micha, Lily, and Zahid of the Tübingen Team as well as all participants who made this event a welcoming and inspiring space for exchange.
Flemmer, Riccarda (ed., 2025): Workshop report “The Transformative Potential of Rights of Nature? Perspectives and Synergies in Arts, Activism, and Academia” (23–24 January 2025), University of Tübingen, Germany (Full report)

The Transformative Potential of Rights of Nature? (2023)

Flemmer, Riccarda (ed.): Workshop report "The Transformative Potential of Rights of Nature?" 20 and 21 January 2023, University of Tübingen, Germany (Full report).
Abstract
The workshop “The Transformative Potential of Rights of Nature (RoN)?” was held on 20 and 21 January 2023 at the University of Tübingen. The objective of this event was to engage in a critical discussion about RoN and think about potential collaborative research perspectives. The participatory format brought together indigenous and non-indigenous academic and activist actors from different parts of the world (Europe, Latin America, Australia and Aotearoa/ New Zealand) to speak about the prospects and limitations of guaranteeing nature own rights, especially to forests. More specifically, indigenous representatives from Te Urewera, Aotearoa/ New Zealand and from Sarayaku, Ecuador as well as lawyers, philosophers, political scientists, and activists from the Americas, Australia, and Europe exchanged experiences, approaches, and research interests about RoN.
The event was hosted by Junior-Professor Dr Riccarda Flemmer (Political Struggles in the Global South) at the Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen. She and her interdisciplinary team Mariana Contreras Leal, Verena Gresz, Babette Thron, and Lina-Marie Weber welcomed the participants. The facilitators Dr Timmi Tillmann and Dr Maruja Salas (Vipp) guided the participants through the programme using different interactive and reflective methods for sharing experiences, rethinking concepts, and envisioning transformation. The visual protocols of each session were elaborated by Alessandra Zaffiro (Housatonic). Brigit Hoinle (Universität Hohenheim) supported the event as an interpreter (English-Spanish).
We are thankful for the funding provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments.

More publications/más publicaciones

  • Tittor, Anne and Riccarda Flemmer (2016): Educational material (Unterrichtsmaterial für die Sekundarstufe II), Dossier: ‘Ressourcenkonflikte im Nord-Süd Kontext und Rohstoffreichtum in Lateinamerika’; Bielefeld: kipu-Verlag.