Fair Transitions and the Politics of Land

Institutions and imaginaries for inclusive futures

Deadline Extended to April 7th! 

This year, for the IOS-Fair Transitions – LANDac Annual International Conference, we are excited to host a wide range of sessions at the crossroads of the fair transitions and land governance debates in the context of climate change. The conference is structured around the joint challenge of finding ways to make transitions fair and inclusive, for human and non-human life. We look forward to an exciting transdisciplinary collaboration that we hope will draw many of you and your contributions to Utrecht, The Netherlands. The conference will be held on site with a limited offer of hybrid possibilities.

This year’s conference ‘Fair Transitions and the Politics of Land: Institutions and imaginaries for inclusive futures’ links debates about fair transitions with questions about how land is governed and controlled in the context of multiple crises. The energy transition, net-zero ambitions, nature protection, and food system transformation all involve claims on land, water, and forests. How these claims are framed, analysed, and governed, how access to land is organised, and who gets a seat at the table to discuss key decisions are questions of urgent concern from both a fair transitions perspective and a land governance perspective.

More than ever, land is scarce and the transitions on the agenda take place in a context of high inequality at multiple scales and levels. Exclusionary pathways of transition lead to highly unfair distributions of ‘costs and benefits’ of the effects of climate change and mitigation measures. Under the current conditions of capitalism and authoritarianism, climate, food security, and biodiversity imperatives may lead to the loss of access to land and resources, and propel a deepening of existing social, economic, and political inequalities. Feminist, post-colonial and intersectional critiques from across the globe suggest ways to rethink these issues and expose false solutions. The growing awareness that fair transitions in our times have to take into account non-human life in all of its articulations, asks for a serious change of perspective. Rethinking justice and inclusion from this perspective is hugely challenging, in land governance and beyond.

The current situation raises urgent questions as to how these transitions will and should be governed, and how dynamics of deepening exclusion and inequality should be addressed and prevented. The challenges ahead call for theoretical, historical, legal, and empirical analysis, feeding smart and sustained action. Key global concerns are: How much land do we need for what transitions? Who is able to claim what part, on what basis, and at whose expense? What (legal) frameworks should guide decision-making? With this background, the questions guiding this conference are:

• How could transitions be made fair for both human and non-human life?
• What role is there for land governance actors and (formal and informal) institutions?
• Who will have a seat at the table and what knowledges are taken into account?
• How will non-human interests be represented?
• Could transitions be a lever for promoting equity?

We are now pleased to invite abstract submissions for the 2023 IOS Fair Transitions / LANDac Annual International Conference. This Call for Abstracts is open until 21^st March 2023.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

We are pleased to announce that this year’s first confirmed keynote speakers: Dr Mark Jackson (Associate Professor in Human Geography at University of Bristol), will speak on “Theorising pluriversal approaches to inclusive land transition and governance”. Other keynote speakers will be announced shortly.

CONFERENCE FORMAT

The conference will be held on site, with a limited number of hybrid possibilities. The limited number of sessions that are organized in a hybrid format are only open to participants joining in person. We do not offer online participation. A hybrid session means that speakers / panelists can join the session remotely, while the session organizer(s) is hosting the session in-person, in Utrecht. To see which sessions are set up in a hybrid or in-person format, please refer to the Overview of Sessions 2023 document here. To see an overview of the sessions, please refer to the list of sessions below.

Keynote sessions will be streamed, but without possibilities for remote interaction or participation in the Q&As. Plenary keynote sessions of the first conference day will be open to anyone, free of charge. A link to distribute in your networks will be shared ahead of the conference. We strive to find a balance between making this conference accessible with hybrid sessions, while also attempting to maintain the ethos and excitement of an in-person conference. We are, therefore, looking forward to seeing most of you, in person, in Utrecht.

TENTATIVE PROGRAMME

The plenary conference programme starts on 28 June, at 12:30, followed by the opening keynote by Dr. Mark Jackson at 13:30. On the morning of the first conference day, Dr Mark Jackson is also giving a masterclass on “Posthuman and decolonial approaches to rethinking land”. This masterclass is intended for (PhD) students but open to all interested. The masterclass is hosted and organized by the IOS Fair Transitions board. In the afternoon of the second conference day, 29 June, Dr. Rick Dolphijn is hosting a plenary session titled “The Narratives of Land, Otherwise: a Roundtable on Artistic Research”. 

The parallel sessions are scheduled on all three days. The conference dinner will be held on the second day of the conference, starting from 18:00. Please note, that the cost of dinner is to be borne by conference participants, in addition to the participation fee. We conclude our conference programme on the afternoon of 30 June with a plenary closing session.

2023 CONFERENCE THEMES

• Transition pathways and the question of inequality
• Rethinking inclusive transitions from a more-than-human perspective
• Transition squared: Rethinking land governance, land rights, and responsible investment
• Sharing tools and solution pathways for fair transitions
• Activism: Trusted alliances and unusual collaborations
• For a complete overview of the sessions and their descriptions, click here. More information on the submission guidelines can be found below. The below list of sessions, as well as the Overview of Sessions can be subject to change. Please consult the IOS Fair Transitions and LANDac websites for the most recent versions.

I. Transition pathways and the question of inequality

• Fighting climate change with secure land tenure: Challenges and opportunities
• Grabbing land to save the planet? Why we need to safeguard legitimate land tenure rights to stay within1.5 Degrees and protect biodiversity.
• Business as usual? The role of large-scale land acquisition in the energy transition, carbon offset projects and deforestation-free supply chains
• ‘Seeing Like a State’ in times of transition: The bigger picture of land reform
• Energy transitions, land governance, and global inequality
• Strengthening Women’s Land Rights: A Feminist Pathway Towards Achieving Transformative Climate Action
• Enhancing Land Governance on Biodiversity Conservation for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
• The power of human rights to protect tenure rights; fair results through inclusive land governance processes
• Inclusivity in Social Impact Assessments for infrastructure projects with multiple stakeholder interests

II. Rethinking inclusive transitions from a more-than-human perspective

• The politics of energy and mineral development in land governance
• Today’s Natural Contract: Rewriting Political Theories of the Modern Age
• Structural Transformations and India's Land Economy: A Dialogue on Transition Pathways for Small and Marginal Farmers and the Landless Amidst Ecological and Economic Distress

III. Transition squared: Rethinking land governance, land rights, and responsible investment

• Community led forest land conservation for sustainable livelihoods and right to resources
• Comparing Regimes of Dispossession: States and Corporate Land Acquisition
• Good Land Governance: The Problems of Transition to Transparency, Participation, and Accountability
• How the climate crisis is facilitating land corruption to the detriment of communities and citizens’ fair transition
• The responsibility of land speculation in the artificialization of soils and urban sprawl in Africa
• Governing frontiers of large-scale land-based developments for sustainable transition in Indonesia
• Justice at the heart of land governance: Envisioning the intersections of informal justice with land conflict, climate vulnerability, and food insecurity
• Beyond accountability, using land data to shape responsible land use planning processes and balance inequalities in land governance arenas
• Improving land governance? Looking at the impact through the eyes of beneficiaries and non- beneficiaries
• Does strengthening land governance align with fair climate transitions?
• Exploring recent country level progress, and lessons from this, for improved land governance, with a focus on the management of competing land interests in the context of multiple social and ecological crises.

IV. Sharing tools and solutions pathways for fair transitions

• Conflict Management in Land and Natural Resource Governance
• Building a business case for responsible investments in land tenure – the why and how of integrating tenure into land-based projects and programmes
• Fair, Inclusive and effective land administration: Capacity development material for land professionals to transition into inclusive futures
• Whose voice counts? Practical and fundamental lessons on local community engagement by transnational institutional investors and their investees.
• Round table: (how) can we scale bottom-up or community-based initiatives towards fair and inclusive land governance?
• Measuring Access to Information: Making Land-Related Findings More Actionable

V. Activism: Trusted alliances and unusual collaborations

• Taking care: Stress, emotions, and wellbeing amongst activists
• How do we justify and demarcate ‘Right to Land & Water’?! – ‘Right’ for whom – ‘Ethical Right’ vs ‘Legal Right’ - ‘Property’ or ‘Resource’ – How we ‘Coexist’ – Why we ‘Compete’?
• Innovation and strategic partnerships in land governance to support fair transition
• Towards a Global Land Agenda - a reinforced, broader and better coordinated approach to change
• Connecting dialogue, data, and learning beyond the land sector

Other  

Masterclass on Posthuman and decolonial approaches to rethinking land, given by Dr. Mark Jackson.
Research harvest and poster presentations.
 

SUBMITTING AN ABSTRACT

We now invite abstract submissions for the IOS Fair Transitions - LANDac Annual International Conference 2023. IOS Fair Transitions and LANDac invite you to review the collection of conference sessions and submit your abstract to your preferred session. Abstract submissions should use the Abstract Submission Form, and include:

• Title of the panel the abstract is submitted to
• Title of the abstract
• Name(s) and affiliation(s)
• Contact details of the presenter
• Abstract of max. 250 words (or follow the alternative instructions of the session you are submitting your abstract to).

Important! Abstracts should be submitted by April 7th, 2023, in English and using the Abstract Submission Form. Please submit your abstract as a word file directly to the contact person of your preferred session and with fairtransitions.landac2023@gmail.com in CC. The session organisers and LANDac Organising Committee will review all submissions. Notification on acceptance of abstracts will be done in the beginning of April. Please consult with detailed list of sessions and session organizers about the format of your session (hybrid/in-person).

REGISTRATION AND FEES

Registration for the conference will open soon and close mid-June. We are happy to offer an early-bird fee of €175 (open until 1 May). The regular fee for participation after 1 May is €225. To present online in a hybrid session, the fee is €25. For more information on the fee for (PhD) students, please send an email to fairtransitions.landac2023@gmail.com.