Thematic line:
Precarious Worlds and Sustainability: Nature, Health, and Work

Coordinator: Ana Isabel Queiroz

Sustainability acquired a technical meaning in the last decades of the 20th century and is currently a buzzword, especially in reference to economic and environmental policies. In 2016, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defined 17 goals of sustainability, which include actions against poverty, inequalities, and climate change. In this context, historians are called upon to develop interdisciplinary perspectives that account for reflexivity and historicity and that are able to challenge dominant narratives.

The studies of the past have shown how nature (and the idea of nature), health, and work are crucial for quality of life, and how each of these factors were responsible for the creation of precariousness, uncertainty, and inequality in living conditions. Over the years, people have struggled against adversity looking for bearable, viable, and equitable solutions framed by the so-called pillars of sustainability: the social, the economic, and the environmental.