Paradigms Otherwise: Environment, Technology, and Shifting Futures

A conference and art exhibit at the University of Maryland, College Park
April 30, 2027
Hybrid

Every great invention challenges a paradigm, proposing new ways of relating to the environment and time, while leaving previous forms behind (or rendering them obsolete).

Throughout history, the relationship between human beings and their environment has been analyzed across various disciplines that seek to understand and anticipate the impact of our presence in space as well as the displacements caused by climate change. According to a 1995 study by Norman Myers, a professor at the University of Oxford, it was predicted that by 2050 there would be 150 million environmental refugees. In 2002, he revised that figure to 200 million (Pajares). Nearly thirty years later, given the rapid emergence of new industries and technologies, it is likely that the future Myers anticipated has changed much more quickly than he could have calculated. Likewise, with the emergence and spread of new digital technologies in recent decades, our relationship with our environment seems to be fading into the background of our daily lives, spent in front of screens while new forms of extractivism arise to sustain it. With the emergence of the internet and the subsequent ubiquity of the web, there was a shift in the logic of cultural consumption and production, as well as new ways of relating to one another. Currently, the widespread use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has filled digital interaction spaces with simulations, which, paradoxically, contributes to misinformation in an era of hyperconnectivity. Furthermore, the data centers that make this possible disrupt the ecosystems in which they are established and consume the natural resources of local communities in Latin America and the Caribbean, accentuating the long history of extractivism in the Global South. Alongside these phenomena, new aesthetics, forms of representation, and subjectivities are taking shape through the accelerated creation and destruction of knowledge and technologies. The technological transition has been so rapid that today we contemplate with astonishment—and not without a certain sense of disorientation—“the psycho-scape of the first generation that has learned more words from machines than from their mothers” (Berardi, 2011). Thus, today it is the digital infrastructure itself that seems to challenge its managers.

In this upcoming edition of our Annual Grad Student Conference, we are drawn to think of the Amazon river dolphin, commonly known as the pink river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis). An endangered species inhabiting the Amazon River and its tributaries, spanning Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, and other South American countries. Although these dolphins acquire their characteristic pink coloration as they reach adulthood, rising temperatures, climate change, and the environmental consequences of extractive industries—particularly oil exploitation—threaten their habitats and increasingly compromise their chances of survival. Their protection depends not only on the work of environmental organizations and conservation foundations but also on the everyday efforts of Indigenous communities, fishermen, and riverine populations whose livelihoods are deeply intertwined with the Amazon.

Beyond their ecological significance, pink river dolphins hold profound spiritual and cosmological meanings for several Indigenous peoples across the Amazon. Among the Tikuna people, for instance, they occupy a central place in Indigenous cosmology and are regarded as spiritual guardians of the river and its wildlife. Harming or consuming these animals is understood as a violation of sacred relationships between humans, nonhuman beings, and the natural world. Ironically, as fewer dolphins reach adulthood and therefore their characteristic pink color, pictures of them are being digitally altered to make them look more pink, producing an artificial reality that transforms their existence into an aesthetic novelty.

With these issues in mind, we welcome presentations and artworks that explore the sociopolitical, environmental, and philosophical aspects that arise at the intersection of humans, environment, and technology in the Latin American and Caribbean regions.

Let’s frame some questions:

How is reality being produced in the age of AI, and how does that affect our comprehension and sensibilities? What are the consequences of daily exposure to these technologies in early childhood? Why do companies like Anthropic destroy the primary sources that feed Claude’s databases? What impact might this have on academia and access to information in general? How has the quality or availability of water changed in areas where, until recently, people depended on this resource for their livelihoods? Which communities have been displaced or forced to migrate due to the destruction of their habitats? How do these displacements relate to the economy and current sociopolitical tensions?

Possible topics include:

Mapping displacement, mobility and migration.
Questioning and production of temporalities.
Body surveillance in the anthropocene.
Archives, memory and material erasure.
Technologies and the transformation of development.

Papers accepted in English and Spanish.

The art exhibit will be inaugurated during the conference but will remain open afterwards as an open exhibition.

Refer to the form for both submission types.

Form: https://forms.gle/Kshq8myKWsXXj9pb9