Polycrisis and Diverse Economies in the Baltic Sea Region: Analyzing Timespaces of Transformation

The Baltic Sea region is under pressure to transform toward more sustainable futures on land and sea and toward sovereign and democratic digital spaces. Even though the surrounding countries are digitally advanced and have high sustainability ambitions, the transformation in the region lags behind. This talk takes the Baltic Sea region as an example to analyze the spatial and temporal hindrances of blue transitions in a region. It underlines the transformative frictions of creating different futures in the context of international constellations, a shared blue ecosystem, and in times of multiple equally pressing concerns. It explores how re-introducing diverse economies as a research perspective provides ways forward. 

Alica Repenning is a postdoc at the Chair of Human Geography at the University of Greifswald. In her research, she investigates the interplay of entrepreneurship, sustainability, and technology in shaping geographies of change.
Alica Repenning studied Geography at Heidelberg University, Loughborough University, and the University of Copenhagen. From 2019 to 2023, she was a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS). In 2023, she received her doctorate from Humboldt University of Berlin with a thesis focusing on the tensions between online and offline spaces and their temporal contrasts.

Moderation: Dr. Max Roessler