The 17th European Sociological Association Conference in #Warsaw has come to an end!

I am leaving with a head full of inspiration and ideas for future research, but also with the joy of reconnecting with friends from across Europe.

What our team presented

🌊 We presented the first results of our modelling of the Baltic Sea’s energy futures in the paper “Imagining the Baltic: Constructing Poland’s Energy Future at Sea.”

🌊 Emilia Srebrna presented her excellent Master’s thesis on how the energy transition is imagined, negotiated and experienced by the local community in Choczewo.

🌊 Together with Oliwia Mandrela, we organised two sessions entitled “Enacted and Contested Futures of the Ocean: Sea Societies, Marine Technologies, and Maritime Spaces.”

🌊 We established cooperation with RethinkBlue and the Maritime Sociology research network, opening up exciting possibilities for future research on the social dimensions of seas and oceans.

🌊 I also had the pleasure of chairing several sessions on imagining the future, energy transitions, marine technologies and nuclear energy.

🌊 I am grateful for the trust of ESA RN12 “Environment and Society” for letting me serve on the RN board for another 2 years!

Why this matters

I am particularly pleased that the Baltic Sea is increasingly becoming not only an object of environmental or strategic research, but also an important field of sociological inquiry. It is where energy transitions, geopolitics, emerging technologies, local communities and competing visions of the future meet.

The conference may be over, but the conversations, collaborations and new research questions are only beginning. See you on the next sociological — and maritime — journeys!

More about the conference: europeansociology.org/conference/2026

#ESA2026 #Sociology #EuropeanSociologicalAssociation #MaritimeSociology #SociologyOfTheFuture #BalticSea #EnergyTransition #SociotechnicalImaginaries #OceanFutures #MarineSociology #JagiellonianUniversity #Choczewo #AcademicResearch #ResearchCollaboration