REMASS PhD Workshop: Rethinking Social Metabolism in Times of Crises

On December 9–10, over 30 international PhD students from more than 13 universities and research institutions gathered for a dynamic two-day workshop focused on “Rethinking Social Metabolism in Times of Crises.”

The event fostered interdisciplinary exchange between the social and natural sciences, encouraging early career researchers to present their projects, receive feedback, and engage in open discussion.

Highlights included a vibrant poster session on the second day, offering space for networking and collaboration. The afternoon concluded with a walking discussion on “Greening the Social Provisioning of Vienna” providing a relaxed setting for deeper conversations beyond formal sessions.

The workshop represented a significant step toward bridging disciplinary boundaries.
Participants came from a wide range of academic fields — among others, spanning social ecology, political economy, and ecology to industrial ecology, societal energy accounting, and feminist scholarship.

The discussions encompassed diverse topics, from specific components of social metabolism, such as regional waste dynamics, to broader systemic domains including food & housing systems, or circular economy and well-being perspectives, as well as global production and value-extraction chains.
Power relations, capitalistic dynamics and societal agency across different scales were actively debated.

Altogether, the workshop successfully fostered a vibrant network of early-career researchers committed to developing a dynamic, integrative understanding of social metabolism in the context of multiple, intersecting crises.