Roundtable: The Political Economy of Deindustrialization
2023-12-12 09:30 - 11:00 (America/Toronto) | Zoom
The Political Economy of Deindustrialization
Join us for a roundtable on The Political Economy of Deindustrialization, which will showcase the political economy section of the forthcoming Routledge International Handbook on Deindustrialization Studies, edited by Tim Strangleman.
Chairperson: Steven High, Concordia University
Moderators:

Fred Burrill (Cape Breton University) and Matthew Penney (Concordia University), “Bringing Marxian Political Economy Back into Deindustrialization Studies.”
Jason Hackworth (University of Toronto), “The racial dimensions of (de)industrialization.”
Lachlan MacKinnon (Cape Breton University), “The Region as an Analytical Framework for Deindustrialization Studies.”
Marion Fontaine (Sciences Po) and Xavier Vigna (Université Paris Nanterre), “Challenging and Politicizing Deindustrialization?”
Alice Mah (University of Glasgow), “Anticipating Just Transitions: Ecological Crisis and Future Deindustrialization.”

Get the Zoom link and sign up for by filling in this Google Form.
The roundtable will be filmed and uploaded to our YouTube channel.

Roundtable: De-Industrial Heritage
2024-02-29 09:30 - 23:00 UTC | Zoom
What does deindustrialization studies have to offer heritage studies—and what can scholars of deindustrialization learn from the world of heritage? Six DePOT student, postdoctoral, and research affiliates share their research on de-industrial heritage.
Register on Google Forms to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!

Chair: Steven High

Presenters:

Brian Rosa, Autonomous University of Barcelona: “The “Disciplining of Memory”? Narrating Traces of the Industrial Past in Barcelona”
Paula Fernández Álvarez, University Complutense of Madrid — “Post-industrial ruins and fossil imaginaries. Worker memory, spaces and visual culture of coal extractivism”
Guilherme Pozzer, University of Sheffield — “Crafting the Past: Empowering Communities through Creative Writing, Visual Narratives, Memory, and Place-Making”
Myriam Guillemette, Université du Québec à Montréal — “Sundown Towns phenomenon in Canadian planned communities; recognition of the industrial contribution of the Indigenous Peoples of Manitoba”
Jorge Magaz-Molina, University of Alcalà — “Climate action, carbon deindustrialization and heritage concerns in Northwestern Spain”
Laura Littlefair, Northumbria University — “From Cradle to Grave: Recontextualising the Deindustrialised Railway Town”

Labour in the shadows: A cultural event and walking tour of Chabanel district in Montreal
2024-03-17 13:00 UTC
Labour in the shadows: A cultural event and walking tour of Chabanel district in Montreal
Time: Sunday, March 17, 2024: 1pm, sharp!
Location: Ateliers Belleville, 545 Legendre Ouest, Suite 109
Please register by emailing Stefan at: stefan.christoff@gmail.com
You are invited to a community walking tour in Montréal’s garment district (Cité de la Mode) that will largely revolve around Chabanel street. This area of the city is being directly targeted by the Projet Montreal administration for gentrification, largely through the opening of funding for the transformation of former textile industry buildings into artist studios. It is now essential to understand the political textures of this area and the history of grassroots labour struggles that have taken place in the area.
This event will start with a cultural event in Suite 109 at Ateliers Belleville and then a walking tour in the district. There will be a set of performances in Ateliers Belleville and then presentations throughout the walking tour, facilitated and coordinated by Stefan Christoff with support from the Concordia based research lab on Media and Migration—Raah and is taking place in collaboration with the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC).
This popular walking tour aims to contextualize the shifts in industrial textile production in the city, the intentional outsourcing of garment sector jobs by Québec corporations who have utilized Quebec regulations that favor outsourcing to shift major production to locations in the global south where workplace labour conditions are more favorable for corporate profit. Specific existing corporations such as Lamour Inc. faced in recent years grassroots pressure and organizing for workplace justice.
Background on Lamour:
In 2007, immigrant workers at the Montreal-based garment manufacturer Lamour were “unceremoniously laid-off” after having worked at the company for decades. As the company prepared to shutter its domestic production activities, Lamour gradually laid off nearly 500 of its Montreal-based workers starting in 2006. The gradual nature of layoffs was strategic: had Lamour decided to close its factory all at once, they would have had to pay their workers collective layoff benefits. During this period, workers publicly denounced the abysmal labour conditions at Lamour, where they had been locked inside the factory during the night shift, forced to eat meals at their workstations, and were not paid when their machines broke down and they failed to meet their quotas. And, to worsen Lamour employees’ situation, their union was widely understood to be a pro-management or company union that did not advocate for workers’ real demands.
Over 2007 and 2008, laid off workers and community organizers at the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC) engaged in a struggle to gain compensation for laid off Lamour employees. They jointly pressured the Labour Relations Tribunal (Tribunal administratif du travail) and the Labour Standards Board (Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail, CNESST), demanding that the layoffs be treated as collective so that workers could receive fair compensation. In the end, many Lamour employees received an increased benefits package.
You can learn more about Lamour through Lauren Laframboise and Stefan Christoff’s podcast “Voices of the Immigrant Worker Centre on Deindustrialization and Dissent in Montreal’s Garment District.“

Speaker / performer bios:

Nikczar Aguirre is a community organizer and member of the Immigrant Workers Centre. Nikczar is active within the Filipino diaspora and writes songs that speak to struggles for justice in Canada, the Philippines and beyond.
Philippe Battikha, musician, cultural worker and member of Ateliers Belleville.
Mostafa Henaway, a Canadian-born Egyptian, is a long-time community organizer at the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal, where he has been organizing for justice for immigrant/migrant workers for over two decades. He is also a researcher and PhD candidate at Concordia University.
Lauren Laframboise is a PhD student at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling in the Department of History at Concordia University, and a student affiliate of the Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time (DePOT) project. Her research explores the impacts of deindustrialization in the apparel industry in Montréal and New York City. She is also the External Affairs Officer for the Concordia Research and Education Workers’ Union (CREW–CSN).
Martín Rodríguez, transmission artist, educator, and member of Atelier Belleville.
Joseph Sannicandro, a sound artist, researcher and professor at State University of New York at Purchase.
Gaurav Sharma is a community organizer and artist living in Montréal. Over the last years Gaurav has been an organizer at the Immigrant Workers Centre and has particularly focused on creating theatre within the South Asian diaspora, creating multiple plays that speak to migrant worker experiences.
Yumna Siddiqi, a member of the IWC board and an associate professor of English at Middlebury College

Roundtable: Deindustrializing Workers and Places
2024-03-29 09:30 - 11:00 UTC | Zoom
Deindustrializing Workers and Places
Friday March 29th at 9:30am (EST)
Join us as six DePOT-affiliated researchers share their work on the deindustrializing places and people they study across six different industrial and regional contexts. The event is free, but registration is required to get the Zoom link.
Chair: Greg Wilson, University of Akron
Speakers:

Amber Ward, “Cultural motifs in deindustrialising Central Fife, Scotland, 1940s-1990s.”
Valerio Caruso, “The Politicisation of Environmental Issues in the Deindustrial Areas of Naples”
Bharat Sundararajan, “Deregulation and Nationalisation: debates around industrial closure in Pondicherry’s textile mills (1954-2000).”
James Ferns, “Occupational Masculinity and Emasculation among Reemployed Scottish Heavy Industry Workers.”
Zoé Konsbruck, “Deindustrialization in Luxembourg’s steel towns, 1970-1990”.
Steven High, “Testing the ‘Failure of the Left’ Thesis: The Ontario NDP Confronts the Industrial Crisis, 1990-95.”

Seeing from the South: Deindustrialization in Latin America and the Caribbean
2024-04-19 09:30 - 11:00 UTC | Zoom
This roundtable gathers scholars and practitioners from Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the region’s experiences and processes of deindustrialization. The panel discussion will examine various topics linked to deindustrialization, including industrial heritage, environmental waste, gender, political participation, and everyday life, among other issues.
Register on Google Forms to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Chairperson: Magdalena Novoa, University of Illinois.
Speakers:

Marcos Pérez, University of Washington and Lee
Daniela Morales, University of Illinois
Marion Steiner y Pamela Fuentes, Universidad de Chile and Placilla Museum
Karen Sanabria, Technological University José Antonio Echeverría de la Habana
Camilo Contreras Delgado, Colegio de la Frontera Norte de México

Depot Summer Institute: Difficult histories of gender and community
2024-06-20 09:00 - 2024-06-22 17:00 UTC | Queen’s University Belfast
DePOT Summer Institutes bring together graduate students and postdoctoral fellows as well as select faculty and partners to workshop their latest research in a small supportive setting. Summer Institutes are timed to occur on the eve of the project’s thematic workshops and assembly in order to encourage participants to attend these as well. It is an opportunity to forge connection with other deindustrialization researchers and receive critical feedback on work in progress.
This year, we will be coming together at Queen’s University Belfast for an exciting line-up of student talks, discussion plenaries, workshops, and walking tours of the city. On June 23, we will be traveling to Glasgow for DePOT’s project assembly and annual conference.
The Summer Institute is open to DePOT-affiliated students, postdoctoral fellows, researchers, and partners. Please use the link on Basecamp to register or email deindustrialization@concordia.ca for more. We’re excited to share the program shortly!
Organizing committee: Sinead Burns, Adna Camdzic, Shonagh Joice, and Naomi Petropoulos
Click here to download the final program!

Gender, Family, and Deindustrialization — DePOT annual conference
2024-06-25 09:00 - 2024-06-26 17:30 UTC | Strathclyde University, 40 George St (Graham Hills Building), Glasgow
In deindustrialization studies, representations of industrial closures have often dwelled on the ways that masculinity is threatened or reconfigured through the experience of job loss and on the erosion of collective ties and spaces linked to the world of work. Conversely, women have appeared only on the fringes of the literature on deindustrialization, sometimes in their capacities as wives and mothers, but increasingly also as displaced workers in their own right. DePOT seeks to bring the history of deindustrialisation into productive dialogue with histories of youth, the body, health, the home and the caring economy.
This conference, the culmination of our project’s Gender, Family, and Deindustrialization research initiative, features researchers from a variety of disciplinary and regional backgrounds. Registration is free. With a program of three concurrent panels, two keynotes, and a plenary with DePOT’s artists-in-residence planned, we are excited to see you in Glasgow!

Organizing committee: Jackie Clarke, Arthur McIvor, Rebekah Chatellier, Piyusha Chatterjee, and Yvonne McFadden
Links and resources

Registration link
FINAL conference program
AccessAble page for the University of Strathclyde
AccessAble page for the Graham Hills Building

ROUNTABLE: SETTLER COLONIALISM AND DEINDUSTRIALIZATION
2024-10-09 09:30 - 11:30 UTC | Zoom
In Canada, the United States, Australia, and other settler colonies, the dispossession of Indigenous land is integral to histories of industrialization. Resource industries like forestry, mining and oil are inextricably tied to the exploitation of Indigenous peoples. How then, do scholars of deindustrialization respond, when the “good jobs” lost during industrial closure were directly implicated in the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous lands? Join DePOT affiliates as they propose new directions for working through this tension in deindustrialization studies.
Wednesday October 9 (9:30AM Eastern Time).
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Chair:
Piyusha Chatterjee
Participants

Peter Thompson, University of New Brunswick,
Myriam Guillemette, Université du Québec à Montréal,
Raechele Lovell, 2024-25 DéPOT Artist in Residence,
Lachlan Mackinnon, Cape Breton University,
Petra Dolata, University of Calgary

ROUNDTABLE: DEINDUSTRIALIZATION, RACE, AND CASTE
2024-11-20 09:30 - 11:30 UTC | Zoom
Following the 2016 US presidential election, much ink has been spilled on the topic of the “white working class.” Conjured as the face of the US Rust Belt, whiteness has become synonymous with the “left behind” of deindustrialization, whereas figures of the “migrant” are operationalized to inflict blame. How then, have racialized communites been affected by deindustrialization, when whiteness is taken as a given? What might the experience of racialized communities, in the US, Canada, India and elsewhere, tell us about the process and aftermath of deindustrialization? Join DePOT affiliates as they share their work and discuss how race and caste figure into the landscape of deindustrialization studies.
Wednesday October 20 (9:30AM Eastern Time)
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Chair:
Stefan Moitra
Participants:

James Rhodes, Hiram College
Bharat Sundararajan, University of St. Andrews
Sherry Lee Linkon, Georgetown University
Rémy Chhem, 2024-25 DePOT Artist in Residence
Greg Wilson, University of Akron

ROUNDTABLE: DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND POPULISM
2024-12-09 09:30 - 11:30 UTC | Zoom
Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election threw “populism” into the spotlight. Populism, from both the left (Jean-Luc Melenchon, Bernie Sanders) and the right (Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump) has come to define the politics of deindustrializing societies. How do we make sense of this groundswell? Join DePOT as we explore populism and deindustrialization.
Wednesday December 9 (9:30AM Eastern Time).
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Chair:
Amber Ward
Participants:

Filippo Sbrana, University for Foreigners of Perugia
Marion Fontaine, Science Po
Mike Makin-Waite, independent scholar
Manuela Vinai, University of Turin
Lachlan Mackinnon, Cape Breton University
Steven High, Concordia University.

ROUNDTABLE: DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE LEFT
2025-01-21 09:30 - 11:30 UTC | Zoom
View the event recording here
What happens to workers’ parties when work dries up? Deindustrialization has presented a profound challenge to parties of the left and centre-left, with their traditional base in the trade union movement becoming increasingly precarious. In this roundtable, DePOT affiliates will explore how deindustrialization affected the political left, how parties and organizations of the left responded to deindustrialization, and the future of how the political left might adapt to the post-industrial moment.
Tuesday January 21 (9:30AM Eastern Time).
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Participants:

Gilda Zazzara, University of Ca’Foscari Venice
Fred Burrill, University of New Brunswick
Marion Fontaine, Sciences Po
Xavier Vigna, Université Paris-Nanterre
Indranil Chakraborty, Concordia University
Manuela Vinai, University of Turin
Graham Latham, Concordia University.

ROUNDTABLE: IN CONVERSATION WITH TIM STRANGLEMAN
2025-02-12 09:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Join his former students and colleagues to celebrate the career of Tim Strangleman, DePOT co-founder and author of many books on the sociology of deindustrialization.
Wednesday February 12 (9:30AM Eastern Time).
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Sherry Lee Linkon, Georgetown University
Jefferson Cowie, Vanderbilt University
Gilda Zazzara, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Thomas Wilson, University of Kent
Tim Strangleman, University of Kent

ROUNDTABLE: NEW RESEARCH IN DEINDUSTRIALIZATION STUDIES
2025-04-24 09:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom
Journey from Poland to the American Midwest in our next roundtable, featuring research from seven DePOT affiliates and chaired by Steven High!
Thursday April 24th (9:30AM Eastern Time).
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Chairperson: Steven High (Concordia University)
Yuan Yi (Concordia University) , “Deindustrialization: A Useful Category for Challenging Linear History.”
Anna Ruth Guildea (Scuola Normale Superiore), “Masculinity, Occupational Change, and Support for the Radical Right in Europe.”
Cory Haala (University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point), “Fighting Deindustrialization in the American Midwest, from Factory to Farm.”
Nora Küttel (University of Halle), “Unveiling the Emotional and Social Consequences of Deindustrialisation: The Case of East Germany’s Shipbuilding Industry.”
Mart Chmielewski (European University Institute), “Bra-Making and Postsocialist Transformation: Privatization, Global Capital, and the Reshaping of Industry in Central Poland”.
Monika Glosowitz (University of Silesia), “Narratives of Women from Coal Mining Families from Upper Silesian Coal Basin. An Artivist Research Project.”
Melissa Meade (Seton Hall University), “Digital Memories in Centralia, Pennsylvania and The Reshaping of Labor Narratives”

Désindustrialisation, nation, immigration : quelles réponses politiques ? / Deindustrialization, Nation, Immigration: What Political Responses?
2025-06-19 08:00 - 2025-06-21 17:00 UTC
Deindustrialization, Nation, Immigration: What Political Responses?
Deindustrialization, which began affecting North America and Northwestern Europe in the 1950s, unevenly impacted various workforces. These groups, which have experienced mass layoffs and relocations due to globalization and trade liberalization, include both men and women, national and immigrant workers, and racialized individuals, some of whom have been replaced by lower-paid, less protected labor forces. This powerful movement gained momentum in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at a time when the labor movement was at its peak and social democratic parties held power, particularly in Western Europe.
In this context, deindustrialization profoundly destabilized the labor movement and left-wing parties, which faced an immense political, strategic, and intellectual challenge. This challenge arised from the disappearance of an industrial model that provided a framework, the crisis of countercyclical economic and social policies, and, last but not least, the erosion of their electoral base. Simultaneously, chauvinistic or xenophobic reactions, which traditionally accompany economic and political crises, have multiplied, aiding the consolidation of far-right movements that denounce the presence of immigrants, unfair foreign competition, and even local populations or entire regions perceived as burdens taking advantage of the social welfare system.
While some of these issues regularly capture media and public attention, it is clear that proper historical analyses linking these different elements are still lacking. The same applies to comparisons between regional and national situations.
The aim of this conference is to shed light on these different contexts from a historical perspective, and to rearticulate these contemporary phenomena to understand how different forms of deindustrialization challenge issues of race, immigration, and nation. It also seeks to explore how these processes transform the political responses that can be offered to these issues. Case studies focusing on a particular situation, territory, or group are welcome (in Europe and North America during the late 20th-early 21st century but also in the global South). We also encourage papers that cross categories, compare territories, or vary the scales of analysis.
Several non-exclusive avenues of inquiry may be explored, including: Race, nation, and immigrant labor; Between powerlessness and action, between blindness and awareness: what responses from workers’ movements?; Populism, far-right, and deindustrialization.

Conference News
The program is now available in English and French.

The call for papers is now available on our website! Read and download it in French or English here.
Frequently Asked Questions
As conference organization proceeds, we will be updating this page with more information about venues, conference hotels, program information, and more information to help prepare attendance.

ROUNDTABLE: IS THE FIELD OF DEINDUSTRIALIZATION STUDIES TOO ONE SIDED?
2025-09-26 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Toronto) | Zoom
Oral history has been the primary methodology of the field of deindustrialization studies for the past quarter century. The field is therefore anchored in working-class lives and the lived interior of deindustrialization. In a draft paper, DePOT member Stefan Berger provocatively asks if the field has become too one-sided as a result? He argues that “the field would gain in multi-perspectivity by moving away from its one-sided focus on working-class memories of deindustrialization.” The virtual session will begin with a 15-minute presentation from Stefan Berger and we will then hear from a series of respondents (who have read the paper) for 5-6 minutes each. It will then be opened for questions and comments.
Friday September 26th 2025 at 9:00am eastern time
Register on Eventbrite to get the Zoom link and receive reminder emails ahead of the roundtable!
Chairperson: Steven High (Concordia University)
Presentation: Stefan Berger (Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum)
Respondents: Fred Burrill (University of New Brunswick), Xavier Vigna (University of Paris-Nanterre), Amber Ward (University of St. Andrews), Bharat Sundararajan (University of St. Andrews), Emiliano Aguilar (University of Notre Dame)

ROUNDTABLE - POLICIES AND PROGRAMS: DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
2025-11-07 09:30 - 11:00 (America/Toronto) | Zoom
DePOT’s Deindustrialization and the Environment working group is pleased to host its first roundtable, Policies and Programs: Deindustrialization and the Environment. This session brings together eight scholars whose research examines the intersections of industrial decline, environmental activism and remediation, and policy responses by a variety of levels of government. Presentations will consider how states, companies, and communities respond to the environmental legacies of deindustrialization, including questions surrounding the construction of uneven geographies of remediation and sacrifice zones. Drawing from several national and local contexts, the panel will highlight how difference policy frameworks shape the aftermath of deindustrialized spaces and landscapes.

Friday November 7th at 9:30am Eastern Time

Presenters:

Greg Wilson (University of Akron)
Valerio Caruso (Institute for Mediterranean Studies)
Petra Dolata (University of Calgary) & Julian Rioux (University of Saskatchewan)
Shouvik Mukhopadhyay (University of Calcutta) & Indranil Chakraborty (Fanshawe College)
Chris Walley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
David Beorlegui (University of the Basque Country)
Steven High (Concordia University)

ROUNDTABLE - RESEARCH FROM ENERGY IN SOCIETY
2025-12-05 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Toronto) | Zoom
Join DePOT and Energy In Society as we talk extractivism, energy transitions, and degrowth!

DePOT’s Deindustrialization and the Environment working group is pleased to host its second roundtable, Deindustrialization and Environment: Research from Energy In Society. This session brings together scholars from the Energy In Society working group at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, a DePOT partner institution. Based in the “energy province” of Alberta, these researchers from across a variety of disciplines (anthropology, history, communication studies, political science, geography, economics and creative writing) examine questions of deindustrialization and energy transition, degrowth and extractivism. Presentations will use examples and case studies from Alberta, Canada and the world to consider the role energy has played in deindustrialization processes and critically engage with the many ways (stories, political economy, propaganda etc.) people think about energy industrialization, deindustrialization and reindustrialization.
Presenters
Katelyn Anderson (University of Calgary, Communication, Medi and Film)
Anna Bettini (University of Calgary, History/Anthropology)
Petra Dolata (University of Calgary, History)
William Gillies (Calgary)
Lilia Garcia Manrique (University of Calgary, Earth, Energy, and Environment)
Jennifer McDougall (University of Calgary, English)
Mack Penner (University of Calgary, History/CanCO2Re)
Ana Alicia Watson Jimenez (University of Calgary, Political Science)

REGISTER HERE

Rountable: Labor and Working Class Environmentalism
2026-02-06 10:00 - 11:30 UTC | Zoom
Join us for our first Deindustrialization and the Environment working group discussion of the year!

Chairperson: Gregory Wilson
Presenters:
Lachlan Mackinnon: Blue Economy and Ocean Industries in Atlantic Canada
Ute Eickelkamp: “From the ground up? Grappling with ethnographic stories about nature lovers, climate change deniers and working-class environmentalists in the post-carbon Ruhr”
Adna Camdzic and Alessandro Ponsi: “From Jobs to Justice: Environmental-Work Conflicts and Industrial Closures in Italy (1980–1999)”
Monika Glosowitz: “Fluorosis – A Broken Story of Worker’s Fights”
Melissa R. Meade: ““Standing Tall Before You”: Culm Banks, Memory, Play, and Survival in Pennsylvania’s Anthracite Coal Region”

Roundtable: (In)Justice and Heritage After Industry
2026-02-20 09:30 - 11:00 UTC | Zoom
Join DePOT for this new roundtable as we talk about the aftermath of industry!

Chairperson: Myriam Guillemette
Presenters
Riccardo Rosa, “Bagnoli after steel. Deindustrialization and participation in a former industrial area of southern Italy.”
Tim Liebregt, “Bust Amid Boom: Automotive Plant Closures in Windsor, Ontario, 1945-1965.”
Théo Georget, “Restructuration industrielle en France, économie morale et mobilisations sociales”.
Seana Irvine, “Spatializing (In)Justice: Politics, Planning and Citizen Participation in King’s Cross Redevelopment.”
Jaime Gallego Bellas, “La culture et le patrimoine dans la redynamisation des régions postindustrielles : analyse comparée entre le Pays Basque et l’agglomération lilloise”
Guilherme Pozzer,
Aparna Das, “Deindustrialisation and Spatial Governance in Kolkata’s Jute Mill Lands: A Bourdieusian Reading.”

DePOT Environmental Workshop: Gentrification and Greening
2026-03-06 10:00 - 11:30 UTC | Zoom
Join us for a March workshop with the Environment initiative to discuss Gentrification and Greening

Chairperson: Greg Wilson
Presenters:

Alexandrina Vanke: The visual aesthetics of green gentrification in deindustrialising landscapes: a cross-national qualitative comparison
Eliot Perrin: Environmental Reclamation and the Reimagining of Sudbury, Ontario’s Identity
Ellinor Eriksson: The nomadic town: Temporalities and trauma in Sweden’s postwar hydropower projects and their aftermath
Patrick Cooper-McCann: Planning the Future of Industry in Detroit: Gentrifying vs. Declining Contexts
Fiona Hamilton: Rivers of Industry, Currents of Decline: Environmental Memory in Adaptive Reuse

Rountable: Political Abandonment, Silencing and Absence in Deindustrialization
2026-03-12 09:30 - 11:00 UTC | Zoom
Join us for the March Roundtable to discuss Political Abandonment Silencing and Absence in deindustrialization

Chairperson: Clarence Hatton-Proulx
Presenters:
Nina Vodopivek, “Why is it still important to talk about deindustrialization? Silencing industrial workers and deindustrialization: postsocialist experiences.”
Sona Baldrian, “Among the Ruins of Past Utopias: Women, Work, and Political Abandonment in Postsocialist Armenia.”
Philippine D’Halleine, “La conséquence masquée de la désindustrialisation: la violence domestique”
Andrea Negro, “Deindustrialized Bodies in Motion: The Return of Italians from the Belgian Mines.”
Steven High, « A Grim Deterrent: Darlington, the US Supreme Court, and the Legalization of Anti-Union Plant Closures.”
Matthew Penney, “Between ‘Flying Geese’ and ‘Hollowing Out’ – Discourses of Deindustrialization in Japan.”
Sahar Ghasemshahi, “Oil, Deindustrialization, and the Absence of Heritage Policy: Abadan as an Industrial Palimpsest.”

(Un)Just Transitions? Deindustrialization and the Environment Transitions (In)Justes? La Désindustrialisation et l’Environment
2026-06-18 - 2026-06-21 | Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd W, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1M8, Canada
(Un)just Transitions?: Deindustrialization and the Environment DePOT Conference
Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada June 18-20 2026
What can the study of deindustrialization add to our understanding of environmental history? And conversely, what can the study of environmental history contribute to deindustrialization studies? Answering these questions will be the focus of the 2026 Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time (DePOT) annual conference, whose theme is “Deindustrialization and the Environment.”
Transitions are central in both environmental and deindustrialization studies. In environmental history, these transitions include the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and changes in energy sources from wood to fossil fuels, to renewables. These have been explored in the context of the legal system, labour, culture, economy and politics. Deindustrialization studies also centre on questions of transition. Studies might, for example, assess the impacts and transformations at work in the relationship between humans and nature in the decline, removal, or shift of industrial activity. The conference looks to explore these and other aspects of the intersection between deindustrialization and the environment.
Conference News
The program is now available in English and French : Conférence 2026 programme
The call for papers is now available on our website! Read and download it in French or English here.
