CALL FOR PAPERS

Territories in Transition: Ecology and Digital in the Twin-Transition

Edited by Giacomo Cuoco and Giacomo Gilmozzi

After gaining an increasingly central role both in public debate and in research and academic production, the ecological issue and digital development have progressively intertwined in recent years. On the one hand, the recognition of the impact of the production and development model on the Earth system, and on the other, the possibilities opened up by new technologies to monitor, mitigate, or solve environmental imbalances, have certainly contributed to thinking of the two processes as movements to synchronize toward common goals.

The need for a twin-transition has been recognized, not least, by the European Union: the objectives of Next Generation Europe indeed reflect this conceptual framework – subsequently applied within the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (PNRR) – whose intent is to produce a “double transition” capable of articulating sustainable and ethical environmental-technological development. Nonetheless, the nature of the connection, its components, theoretical implications, possibilities, and limits of such an alliance still need to be explored.

In fact, beneath the apparent univocity of the concept of twin-transition, there lies a tension between different theoretical positions and the consequent political, ethical, and economic operations, which – far from neutral – directly affect territories and social relations. In a debate too often saturated by the technocratic and techno-solutionist approach, monopolized by neoliberal principles, critical thinking is called to intervene by highlighting conflicts and tensions, thus opening the political horizon to other ways of imagining, thinking, and designing ecological-digital transitions at different levels of territoriality or, to use a concept dear to Bernard Stiegler, of locality.

This issue therefore aims to investigate the current twin-transition paradigm adopted by the European Union and the possible alternative ways to combine ecological and digital transitions, with particular attention to the territorial issue, i.e., the role and responsibilities of territories and their inhabitants and the achievable choices they must make. If, inevitably, the operations of the twin-transition must "touch the ground" on various territorial scales, how can they reshape internal and reciprocal relationships between countries/different forms of sociality? How do they directly affect the inhabitants of these territories (understood broadly, from individuals to communities, private businesses, and public institutions)?

To respond to this call for papers, you are invited to submit your contributions concerning at least one of the following themes:

• History of twin-transition: genealogy of a concept, theoretical issues, and political-institutional developments;
• How might the twin-transition accentuate or reduce local and global social, economic, and ethical inequalities?
• Fundamental principles and differences between the approach of climate justice and the perspectives of sustainable development;
• What transformations of human ways of life and new processes of subjectivation are produced by the intersection of digital and ecology?
• What relationships are configured between the living and the non-living, and how is the responsibility of the living framed within this paradigm?
• Ethics and politics of transition models: which territorial governance models can ensure a fair and inclusive transition?
• Ethics and politics of the digital: critical investigation of the present (status quo) and new normative horizons (rule of law);
• Environmental and social impact of digital infrastructure and supply chains.
• Case studies and examples of twin-transition at the micro-/meso-local scale (neighborhoods, cities, territories) or beyond;
• How can the development of a double transition "touch the ground" and reshape the inside and outside of urban and non-urban territories?
  
  

General Information:

To respond to this call for papers, you are invited to submit an abstract of up to 1500 characters by April 5, 2025, to the email addresses: giacomo.cuoco@uniroma3.it and giacomo.gilmozzi@iri.centrepompidou.fr

If accepted, the article – with a maximum length of 30,000 characters (spaces included) – must be submitted by May 25, 2025. Contributions must adhere to the journal’s editorial guidelines (ITA/ENG) and will undergo a double-blind peer review. The outcome of the evaluation process will be communicated by July 15, 2025. The publication of the issue is expected for November 2025.

The document, strictly in *Word format, must include the author's name, surname, possible institutional affiliation, and an email address.

Accepted languages: Italian, English, and French. Articles in English are highly appreciated.

For more information, write to:

giacomo.cuoco@uniroma3.it
giacomo.gilmozzi@iri.centrepompidou.fr
babelprint@uniroma3.it