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10 years ago, the Basque city of San Sebastián had a crucial role to discuss relational values of and about nature, which are the preferences, principles and virtues about human-nature relationships. Since then, the concept has attracted much attention in science and policy and much has happened in terms of theoretical framing and empirical application, as well as in terms of placing it at the forefront of science-policy initiatives, such as IPBES assessments.

Now, a decade later, BC3 and the University of Tokyo have gathered once again international experts in San Sebastián to evaluate what has been achieved and to outline a new roadmap on RV research that would be useful for academics, policy makers and practitioners.

The 2nd International Workshop on Relational Values took place between 23rd and 26th of June and was coordinated by Unai Pascual (BC3) and Hiroe Ishihara (Univ. Tokyo). 

An international team got together for three days and one key topic of discussion centred around environmental justice, particularly recognitional and epistemic justice. 

“It was generally agreed that Relational Values scholarship has successfully challenged the risks of over-dominance of utilitarian and universalist valuation frameworks and has opened space for recognizing plural ontologies, knowledge systems, and cultural meanings about human-nature relations”, explains Unai Pascual. 

In this sense, Relational Values scholarship already functions as a form of recognition of justice, acknowledging that what matters in human–nature relationships can not be reduced to commensurable metrics or externally imposed categories, thus, connecting to for instance decolonial and ecofeminist scholarship. 

“Bringing Relational Values into a more explicit dialogue with environmental justice scholarship, particularly debates on recognitional and epistemic injustice, offers an opportunity to clarify and strengthen the normative and political dimensions of RV”, adds the Ikerbasque researcher from BC3.

This workshop had the support and funding of Kubota U-Tokyo Lab, Sumitomo Foundation Environmental Research Grant Program, Environmental Research and Technology Development Fund S-21, the Basque Centre for Climate Change, and Ikerbasque.