Biography

Jonas Van Vossole is a sociologist, economist, and holds a PhD in Political Science. He is an individual FCT-CEEC researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and a member of the Political Ecology research group - ECOSOC. He holds a Master's degree in Political Science and a Master's degree in Complementary Economics, both from Ghent University, complemented by a postgraduate diploma in Democracy in the 21st Century from the University of Coimbra. Jonas's main research interests include the study of democracy, social movements, social protest, and critical theory, as well as political economy and political ecology. His doctoral research focused on the influence of the euro crisis on democratic legitimacy in Southern Europe, with particular emphasis on Portugal. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Sociology of Work and Ecology at CES. Since 2023, Jonas has been co-coordinator of the Ecology and Society (ECOSOC) research laboratory in Political Ecology at CES and regional coordinator for the Centre region of the Portuguese Association of Political Economy. He is a member of the ECPR Standing Group on Southern European Politics and on Democratic Innovations, the SHIFT COST Action network, and the Observatory of Work and Living Conditions (OCTV - NOVA University Lisbon). His current research project, Nature and Labour, seeks to understand and propose trade union democracy as an alternative to the democratic and ecological crisis of capitalism. Jonas is part of the coordinating team of the FCT project EJMAPPING and has collaborated with the Just2CE research project, funded by the Horizon 2020 programme. He has also been a visiting lecturer in undergraduate and doctoral programmes at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, teaching on Capitalism, Social Class and Democracy, as well as on Ecology and Labour. He has presented his work at international conferences in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil. His current research project - Nature and Labour - funded by the FCT, aims to understand and propose trade union democracy as an alternative to the democratic and ecological crisis of capitalism. It combines a continuation of the critical approach to democratic theory adopted in his doctoral research with perspectives from Eco-Marxism. The approach is inspired by the reappropriation of Rosa Luxemburg's analysis of imperialism as a perspective on the relationship between Capital and Nature, as well as her approach to the mass strike in relation to trade unions and prefigurative politics. Empirically, the research is based on selected industrial conflicts involving ecological aspects and on interviews with trade union leaders and activists. The project expects to identify a democratic discourse grounded in the everyday struggles of the working class which-beyond inspiring climate activism and strengthening broader alliances with environmental social movements-can also be understood as a form of prefigurative politics. The research thus aims to demonstrate the potential of trade unions to play the role of a historical subject in a just transition toward a sustainable post-capitalist society.