Andrea Zinzani, Matteo Proto and Marco Immovilli.
Introduction
Over the last two decades, critical geography and political ecology scholarships have deeply analyzed the political dimension of the contemporary global socio and eco-climate crisis. They have also questioned the technocratic nature of global environmental governance and its logic of capital accumulation through nature exploitation. Indeed, they have highlighted the controversial and conflicting dimension of processes of nature production (Smith 1984) and argued the need to radically reconfigure socio-environmental politics towards more just and progressive futures (Castree 2003; Perreault et al. 2015; Bryant 2017; Kothari et al. 2021). Inspired by a neo-marxist, post-structuralist and post-colonial epistemological backgrounds, they emphasized the importance of shedding light on politics, power relations and conflicts in the social production of the environment. The analysis of these processes is even more strategic today to advance the reflection on environmental futures and imaginaries in the contemporary crisis and support desirable structural changes towards more just socio-environmental relations. Indeed, the notion of crisis could be defined as a temporality that implies radical reconfiguration of ideas, structural changes in visions and politics, possible social instability together with the rise of socio-environmental conflicts as discussed by Martinez-Alier (2002), Le Billon (2015) and Bryant (2017) among others. These authors highlight the crucial role of conflict in the emergence of political spaces, social empowerment, and the radical reconfiguration of politics and power negotiations.
Therefore, to move beyond this moment of crisis, post-crisis visions and scenarios need to be developed and environmental futures imagined. Over the last years, Futures Studies have sought to explore and anticipate, through an interdisciplinary perspective, social and technological advancements alongside environmental scenarios to understand how societies will live the future (Gidley, 2017). Indeed, this scholarship argues that futures are not predetermined but shaped by multiple possible or desirable perspectives, but also by diverse imaginaries. These imaginaries can be traced to a conflicting dimension, as they are rooted in either conservative political visions and narratives or, conversely, in aspiration for transformative change in socio-environmental relations. Moreover, visions and narratives can originate from scientific debates, governmental policymaking discourses involving various stakeholders and their interests, or from grassroots propositions and claims that reflect the multifaceted dimension of society.
Mountain environments are today significantly affected by the eco-climate crisis, as formalized by recent IPCC reports and climate scientists (IPCC 2022; Huss 2024). These dynamics imply significant questions on the social production of mountain environments: on the one hand, on imaginaries of mountain futures, and, on the other, on power relations, interests and conflicts involved which shape the configurations produced. Critical geography approaches might provide significant analytical perspectives to these issues since mountains represent a key space of research on new types of conflicts over resources and imaginaries, as well as on negotiating governance and equity issues in times of disputes and transitions. Indeed, contemporary mountain environments are characterized by complex heterogeneous and controversial socio-environmental dynamics of change: on the one hand by transcalar politics of infrastructural development, nature valorization and commodification (Perlik, 2019). While on the other hand, they are driven by diverse processes of social marginalization, abandon, out-migration and rewilding (Varotto, 2020). Therefore, we argue that it is essential to analyze these processes and tensions of mountain socio-environmental change through a reflection on the conceptualization of mountain futures and imaginaries. This could help to overcome the recurrent dichotomies between society and the environment, as well as the separation between mountain, communities and urban spheres that has long characterized spatial analyses. By considering perspectives that view the environment as socio-politically produced, mountain research could achieve a better understanding of the complex socio-political nature that characterizes the mountain, especially in today’s profound crisis. Such reflections could reveal a twofold contribution. On the one hand, they could offer a better understanding of transformation politics and projects promoted at different geographical scales, highlighting their political nature and their conflictual impacts in terms of power relations. On the other hand, they could strengthen theoretical and methodological frameworks to support alternative mountain futures grounded in diverse imaginaries and aimed at fostering socio-environmental justice.
The proposed special issue aims to advance this perspective by reflecting on mountain futures and visions. The notion of “mountain futures” builds on the need to reflect on how ideas, visions, power relations and conflicts can evolve and constitute “future” socio-environmental interplays and scenarios. In this regard, critical approaches seem particularly fertile since they specifically address power relations and inequalities by paying particular attention to make visible the powerless and voiceless groups of people. In particular, over the last years the perspective of socio-environmental and climate justice has gained support in imagining more equitable imaginaries of future, together with the vision of rebalancing humans-non humans relationships through the promotion of conviviality and convivial conservation (Perreault et al. 2015; Buscher and Fletcher, 2020). In the European and especially Alpine academic traditions, scholars adopted a critical approach to debate mountain sustainable development, mountain-urban areas relations, tourism dynamics and the role of local communities (Debarbieux and Price, 2008; Messerli and Rey 2012; Fonstad 2017; Dematteis, 2018; Sarmiento 2020; Zinzani, 2023; Salvini and Proto, 2024). Recently, a special issue in this journal has proposed a radical approach to Mountain Studies (Varracca and Sallenave, 2024).
This call for papers seeks to advance and consolidate these perspectives through linkages between different contemporary critical geography approaches and mountain research scholarship and to strengthen the collective reflection on mountain futures in the eco-climate crisis and their contested politics, visions and practices in particular. From a theoretical perspective we aim to collect contributions that focus and discuss, theoretically and conceptually, contested mountain futures and related visions, politics and practices by reflecting on the social production of mountain environment and alternative mountain imaginaries. Therefore, it welcomes contributions that address and shed light on the contested political nature of mountain futures, its transcalar politics and practices, and indeed on their controversies, contradictions and uneven power relations. Moreover, through a critical reflection and deconstruction of mountain futures’ existing narratives and discourse, we consider essential to think through ideas and visions of alternative mountain imaginaries towards more just and convivial futures.
We expect articles that tackle, theoretically and/or empirically, the following —and non-exhaustive— issues:
- What futures the today “dominant” transcalar politics, discourses and practices on and of mountain regions design? How do they (re)produce uneven power relations and contribute to increase the contemporary socio-ecological crisis? On the opposite, what are the “alternative” politics, discourses and practices imagined for desirable mountain futures? How and by which socio-political actors these scenarios are imagined and implemented?
- What are the contradictory, and therefore potentially conflicting, elements inherent in the “futures” propositions, either promoted by “dominant” or by “dominated/subaltern” actors? And how do contestations and conflicts shape these perspectives? What conflict and crisis resolution can be imagined?
- What does the implementation of those alternatives imply in terms of institutions and property regimes they challenge? Which trajectories are imagined and implemented to go beyond mountain commodification and abandonment and to seek socio-environmental justice?
- How are “mountain futures” concretely shaped in narratives, prospective reports, policy and planning documents at different scales and in different mountain contexts?
Timeline
Article proposals, around 1,000 words in length, should be sent in either French (if the author is a native French speaker) or English (if the author’s mother tongue is any other language) by 1st November 2025 to Andrea Zinzani (Université de Bologne, andrea.zinzani4@unibo.it), Matteo Proto (Université de Bologne, matteo.proto2@unibo.it) and Marco Immovili (Université de Wageningue, marco.immovilli@wur.nl)
as well as the editorial team, addressed to Cristina Del Biaggio (cristina.del-biaggio@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr) and Maxime Frezat (m.frezat@protonmail.com).
Final articles are expected by 1st June 2026. Final articles must be submitted in one of the languages in which the review is published: Alpine languages (French, Italian, German, Slovenian), Spanish or English. The author must see to it that the article is to be translated into the second language after it has been assessed.
Publication of the articles is scheduled for Early 2027.
Submission guidelines: https://journals.openedition.org/rga/10534
We also welcome contributions linked to the thematic of this special issue for the thematic sections of the journal, details of which can be found on the journal website:
Transitions https://journals.openedition.org/rga/11018
Localities https://journals.openedition.org/rga/10516
Mountains in fiction https://journals.openedition.org/rga/11244