• Abstract submission deadline: February 10, 2025 (closed)

• International travel award application deadline: March 15, 2025 (closed)

• Early registration deadline: April 14, 2025 (closed)

• Conference: June 18–21, 2025

Note: The registration desk opens at noon on Wednesday, June 18. Opening events, keynote presentations, and welcome reception takes place 3:00 – 7:00 pm.  Saturday, June 21 is a fully scheduled day, with the conference close at 5:00 pm.

Sand as a Relational Subject
Christine Winter, University of Otago, New Zealand

Just Sustainabilities in Policy, Planning and Practice
Julian K. Agyeman, Tufts University, United States

Forests of Refuge
Ariadne Collins, University of St. Andrews, Scotland

SHE meetings rely heavily on the suggestions and contributions of participants. Our aim is to make this event as broadly interdisciplinary as possible, bridging science, social science, and policy perspectives with literature, humanities, and creative arts. Contributions from all areas of human ecology—theory, education, research, and practice—are welcomed. Examples of recent SHE conference sub-themes include, but are not limited to:

• Sustainability issues

• Teaching human ecology

• Environmental design

• Conservation psychology

• Food systems / food security

• Literature and ecology

• Water-use policy

• Human-animal interactions

• Collaborative planning

• Urban ecology

• Climate change

• Environmental arts

• Historical ecology

• Eco-spirituality

• Environmental health

• Traditional ecological knowledge

• Political ecology

Thematic symposium: These organized Sessions should fill a 1 and 1⁄2  hour block and involve up to 4 speakers. Session organizers are invited to propose a theme or set of papers that expand on one of the conference themes noted above; other session topics are also welcome. The organizer is responsible for the coordination of participants. At this point, only provide session summary information and the names of your intended sessions speakers. Abstracts for the individual speaker’s papers are not yet needed.

Individual paper presentation: Contributed papers will be grouped on similar issues with time allotted for delivery and follow-up discussion, in a format similar to a symposium session (e.g., 4 papers per 1 1⁄2 hour time block). Only a working title and the name and institution of presenters is needed now.

Roundtable discussion groups: These groups are arranged by the conference committee to encourage exchange of ideas among participants. Usually, one or two discussion leaders are designated and 6 - 10 participants are assigned to a thematic roundtable. If you would like to be placed on a Roundtable Discussion Group, please reply with your areas of expertise/interest.

Poster: Space and time will be provided for poster style presentations. Submissions for posters follow the same guidelines as a contributed paper, (e.g. author, title and abstract). But only the presenter’s name and tentative title are needed at this time.

Note for poster presenters:  Space will be available to allow posters to be displayed throughout the meeting.  In addition, a special opportunity for poster presenters to discuss their contributions will be scheduled during the Thursday (June 19) afternoon Reception -- from 5:00 to 6:30 pm. The chairperson for poster presentations will be in personal contact with all presenters—shortly after the April conference registration deadline—to clarify guidelines and further coordinate affairs.

Ignite (PechaKucha style) presentations: Time slots will be available for Ignite presentations. These are rapid-fire, visually rich, PowerPoint presentations, in which 20 slides are set to advance every 15 seconds for a presentation of exactly five minutes. Ignite sessions will involve up to 10 presentations in an hour-and-a-half session and so feature about half an hour of audience discussion. These sessions are particularly suited to student project reporting but are also open to others. However, if you are also intending to give a full paper presentation you need to make that clear when you submit your proposal as there may not be room in the conference schedule for you to do both.

The Society does its best to keep conferences as affordable as possible. The conference fee includes entrance to all sessions including the welcome reception, and morning and afternoon coffee/snacks. 2025 SHE Membership is included with the cost of registration for non-members.

Registration fees (USD)

• Professional: $300 ($230 with active membership)

• Early career: $230 ($160 with active membership)

• Student / developing nation: $100 ($70 with active membership)

• UMons community / UCLouvain student: $0

UMons faculty/students and UCLouvain students receive complimentary admission to the conference but must pre-register and provide a UMons or UCLouvain email address at registration.

Online registration is preferred. The earlybird registration deadline is April 14, 2025. All registrations after April 14, including on‐site registrations, will include an additional fee of $25.

Register here

The 2025 conference will be hosted by the University of Mons at various locations in historic Mons, Belgium, located about 60 kilometers southwest of Brussels.

Click here to download more information about traveling to the conference venue.

Click here for lodging recommendations including where SHEXXVI attendees receive a discount.

Learn more about Mons here.

Dear Colleagues and Friends

Thank you for your contributions to the XXVI International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology—“Ecology, Politics, and Justice: Working Towards the Pluriverse", June 18–21, 2025—being held at and hosted by the University of Mons (Belgium).

A preliminary (draft) version of the program is attached below. It contains a daily summary of plenary keynotes, symposia/organized sessions, contributed papers, an initial list of posters and ignite presentations and developing roundtable-discussion themes. Taken together, they promise an exciting and broadly interdisciplinary event. 

What we need now is feedback about the accuracy of names, affiliations, and presentation titles. Please review the attached file, which is in searchable pdf format [Control F for PCs; Command F for Macs], being aware that your name may appear in more than one place in the program.

In mid-May, a more complete (penultimate) version of the program will be posted here.

The final program is scheduled to go to the printer in early June, two weeks before the conference. In the meantime, we appreciate any feedback about errors, title modifications, etc. We realize this program draft needs further proofing and editing; however, we are sending this early copy to help participants to plan their schedules. 

Please note:  

For session organizers and multi-authored presentations:  In some cases, we may not have email addresses for everyone. Therefore, we ask that you forward a copy of this program to your colleagues.  If they have not yet received a copy of the program, please have them send a note to shexxviconference@societyforhumanecology.org so we can add them to the email list for future notices.

For poster presenters:  Our plan is to allow posters to be on display throughout the meeting. In addition, there will be an opportunity for poster presenters to discuss their contributions during the Thursday afternoon Sponsored Reception, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. More information and guidelines for poster presenters will be sent to you directly soon.

For roundtable/discussion participants: This part of the program is still a work-in-progress. Some of the roundtable themes are listed here. We expect to add more. These are ‘open sessions,’ in which everyone is welcome to take part. Additional updates and information will be included in the next version of the program.

Registration, Travel and Accommodations: The registration deadline for presenters has now passed. Non-presenting attendees may still register here.  Finally, it is important to move ahead on conference accommodations and travel plans. This information is available in the “Travel and Accommodation” section above. Thank you again for your contributions.  We look forward to seeing you in Mons.

On behalf of the whole organizing team,

Mihnea Tănăsescu
SHE-XXVI Conference Chair

Download: SHEXXVI Preliminary Program

Click here to download the most recent of the SHEXXVI program (version 4/25/2025)