The Future of Land Governance in Shifting Glocal Contexts
Utrecht, the Netherlands | 2-4 July 2025
As the LANDac contribution to the LAND-at-scaleknowledge management programme draws to a close, we are pleased to use our Annual Conference 2025 as a space to share the rich learnings over five years of collaboration, and to use these learnings to inform how land governance can contribute towards equality and justice in an increasingly polarising world. We will offer two days of thought inspiring keynotes, panel sessions, round tables and other sessions for which we welcome your suggestions. Prior to the conference, on 2 July, we host a pre-event with an educational focus, providing space for PhD and MSc students to present and exchange their work.
Registration for the conference is now open and closes 29 June. We are happy to offer an early bird fee of €175 (open until 17 April). The regular fee for participation after 17 April is €225. Reduced fees are available for students: €100 for PhD students and €50 for Master students. There is no additional fee for the Early Career Researchers Day. Online presentation is free of charge.
Our conference team will send you a payment link within 3 working days. Registration is confirmed after your payment has been received. Requests for letters for visa applications are also handled upon registration. We are not able to provide sponsorships or financial support to attend the event.
Registration fees for the Conference: • Early Bird fee: €175 (before 17 April 2025) • Regular fee: €225 (from 17 April 2025) • PhD students: €100 • MSc students: €50
Please note: Visa application procedures to the EU are lengthy. We strongly advise to start booking an appointment well ahead of time.
Conference Programme
Please note that the programme is provisional and thus is subject to change. For the latest version of the programme, please regularly check the Conference Page. Times are displayed in CEST (Central European Summer Time).
The 2-day conference kick-offs on Thursday morning 3 July with a plenary session with prominent keynote speakers. This is followed by several rounds of parallel sessions in 1,5 hour slots on Thursday and Friday 4 July. The conference closes on Friday afternoon with a keynote plenary. As in previous editions of the conference, we welcome a variety of formats: paper presentations, panel discussions, round tables for these two days. On 3 July we will close the day with drinks and snacks, offering ample opportunities for networking.
Prior to conference, on 2 July, we host a pre-event for early career researchers, providing space for PhDs and MSc students to share their knowledge, think about how to present this knowledge to other stakeholders, and to inspire each other.
The conference will be concentrated on-site, at Janskerkhof 2-3 Utrecht. We aim to stream keynote sessions. We will have the possibility to host a limited number of sessions in hybrid format.
Keynote speakers
Opening Plenary Day 1
Esther Mwaura-Muiru
Esther Mwaura-Muiru is currently the Global Advocacy Director for the Stand For Her Land (S4HL) Campaign at Landesa. Previously she worked at the International Land Coalition as the Global Women Land Rights Manager. Esther is also the Founder of GROOTS Kenya (Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood), a grassroots women movement of more than 3000 organised groups from rural and urban communities living in poverty across Kenya. Over the years, Esther has demonstrated deep expertise in development and management of initiatives that influence good governance and delivery of public services in sectors like health, housing, land, water, climate change and agriculture. “Transformative development is only possible if those impacted by inequality and oppressive systems are on the leadership and at the centre of the solutions towards a positive change”.
Raymond Cardinal
Ray Cardinal grew up in Alberta, primarily at Sucker Creek First Nation. One of six children, he is the son of the late Harold Cardinal and Maisie Cardinal. Ray earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Saskatchewan and his Master of Arts at the University of Arizona. A proud father to one son, his professional passions include monitoring, engagement, workforce training, and emergency preparedness. Ray holds leadership roles in several organizations, including Indigenous Chair of IAMC-TMX and member of the IAIA-WNC Executive Committee. He is also a proud member of Sucker Creek First Nation.
An Ansoms
An Ansoms, professor at UCLouvain, leads research on environmental and climate change in Central and Eastern Africa. Her team explores climate and resource conflicts using interdisciplinary, art-based, action-oriented methods. Working in DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi, she also specializes in research ethics, focusing on emotional and ethical dilemmas in challenging field contexts.
Closing Plenary Day 2
Jahin Shams Sakkhar
Jahin Shams Sakkhar is a PhD researcher at the University of East Anglia’s School of Global Development, specializing in land rights, gender equity, and climate resilience. His research investigates whether the transfer of Khasland (public land) to women in Bangladesh can enhance their adaptive capacity, strengthen their agency and build resilience in the face of social and environmental change. With over a decade of experience in the NGO sector, Jahin worked with Uttaran, a grass-roots NGO in Bangladesh, where he led climate change and humanitarian programs in Bangladesh. His initiatives focused on water governance, Tidal River Management, Landscape governance, land rights, nature-based solutions, agro-ecology, climate change resilience, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian aid. His impactful work in the field earned him the Change Maker Award from the Start Network. Jahin is also involved in the CLARE SURF-IT project, which uses AI and satellite data to improve early flood warning systems, supporting his commitment to integrating technology into climate adaptation strategies.
Elizabeth Daley
Dr Elizabeth Daley works as Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) Advisor of the Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture in Recurrent and Protracted Crises (SPARC) programme. She is also Chair of the Board of the Land Portal Foundation and has worked as an independent consultant on land tenure, gender equity and social inclusion for over 20 years, including as Team Leader and instigator of the WOLTS (Women’s Land Tenure Security) project since its inception in 2015. Elizabeth has worked with multilateral and bilateral development partner agencies, international and national NGOs, and national governments, philanthropists, private sector companies and local communities. Her roles have included legal and policy reviews, project and programme evaluations, design and implementation of training and capacity building programmes, technical advisory inputs to land administration projects, and rigorous academic and technical fieldwork-based research on a host of land-related issues. As GESI Advisor for SPARC, Elizabeth supports local researchers across the consortium to elevate gender issues and strengthen understandings of normative change in pastoralist communities, for improved resilience and empowerment outcomes. See https://www.sparc-knowledge.org.
Conference Description
Over the five year period, we have seen changes in global and local contexts. Complex and interrelated crises threaten development achievements and challenge the resilience of people and governance agents. Themes central to the LAND-at-scale learning agenda have seen shifts: land and housing rights are increasingly insecure (2024 PRIndex Report), climate change more and more affects people’s ability to build livelihoods from their land, increasing numbers of people are displaced due to conflict, violence, political or economic instability, and despite many efforts, women still experience inequality when it comes to their rights to land and resources. In recent times the Global North is starting to renege on its efforts to curb climate change, its (financial) support to the Global South, and anti-immigration voices are getting stronger. Democracies and human rights are under pressure, across the globe. In a connected world, such global shifts have impact at local levels. In this rather grim reality, how can we, as academics, practitioners, CSO’s and policy makers, as human beings, contribute with our plurality of knowing, of seeing, of imagining, to a more just, inclusive and sustainable land governance?
Knowledge management is a way to bring these different stakeholders together with the aim to strengthen the implementation of land governance projects and programmes and inform policy in both the Global South and North. Dedicated components aim to work on generating, managing, disseminating, and using knowledge, with a focus on learning and adaptive programme management. This conference will zoom in on how plurality of knowledges have shaped and changed the implementation of land governance activities. With an integrated KM-strategy, implemented with and by LANDac and its partners, knowledge management and learning have been at the heart of the LAND-at-scale programme since its inception. The aim was to contribute towards the impact both at global programme level, and of the local in-country projects. The LAND-at-scale knowledge management programme brought together academia, practitioners, CSOs, policy makers and donors. This has taken shape in several collaborations such as between LANDac partners and the donor, and between the knowledge management partners and implementing organisations across the different countries. At country level, practitioners from different backgrounds and with different ways of thinking jointly worked towards shared outcomes. At the LANDac conference, we want to reflect on: What lessons can be learned from such collaborations, what has been the impact? At the same time, we want to look forward to see how these experiences can inform future land governance interventions in a glocal world where interconnected global and local issues are being reshaped.
Conference Themes & Sessions
The themes of the 2025 conference align with the objectives and themes of the LAND-at-scale knowledge management programme. In addition to the themes outlined below, cross-cutting themes are tenure security, gender and climate change in both rural and urban contexts. We welcome empirical, theoretical and philosophical contributions as well as practical and impact-oriented ones in the Global South and North. We now invite abstract submissions for those sessions open to abstracts on the following themes (please consult the instructions for submission below).
For a complete overview of the sessions and their descriptions, click here or click on the themes below. 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 LANDac website for the most recent version.
Shaping collaborations for just land governance
Working towards a fairer world involves addressing challenges at multiple scales and domains. Collaborations across different social and geographical spaces, disciplines, and positionalities might offer ways to address interconnected issues, but such collaborations come with challenges of their own. For this theme, we are interested in understanding the negotiation of power and knowledge in such collaborations and the transformative potential that might or might not be generated. We welcome sessions that discuss experiences of collaboration, how these engage with difference and plurality, and the (dis-) encounters involved. (How) can co-creation work? How to deal with different views on what is “just” and how to get there? How to translate lessons from one experience of collaboration to the next? Is collaboration always better than no collaboration?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
Shaping Collaboration in Transdisciplinary Research Projects
Using environmental collaboration to shape peace-positive land governance structures.
Shared Land Due Diligence: Towards a Common Framework to Reduce Harm and Securing Tenure
Bridging Differences – Leveraging Collaboration: Overcoming the challenges of transdisciplinary and inter-institutional project implementation
Effective collaboration for inclusivity and sustainability in land governance and administration
South-South Knowledge Exchange and Collaboration around Just Land Governance
The following sessions are not open for abstracts:
Fostering food security by ensuring access to land for persons with disabilities
Power asymmetries in multi-stakeholders platforms: putting Peoples’ organizations (POs) at the centre of land governance
Impact of knowledge
To effectively address the complex challenges of good land governance, knowledge management increasingly operates at the intersection of legal, social, economic, and environmental dimensions, while striving to integrate diverse sources of knowledge. Within this theme, we seek to deepen our understanding of how integrating diverse knowledge sources can create meaningful impact. We welcome contributions that address the following key questions. What is the influence of various knowledge sources on policy and practice in the field of land rights and governance, and how do policy and practice, in turn, shape these sources? What are the pathways through which such impacts are achieved? Moreover, what lessons can we draw from these pathways to optimise the use of diverse knowledge sources?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
G(e)overnmentality: unpacking the roles of geological and geographical knowledge for Earth governance
Faith and farming: exploring the role of spiritual values in the valuation and understanding of land
Potential Impacts and Limitations of the SDG Indicators 5.a.2, 5.a.1 and 1.4.2 and the related indicators in the Context of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
Understanding Grand Corruption in Land Governance: Key Features, Manifestations and Impacts
A critical reflection on LAND-at-scale’s knowledge management programme – tools to enable the plurality of knowledge (management)
Scaling and innovating approaches to land governance
Land and housing rights are increasingly insecure. New approaches and thinking have been implemented to strengthen land governance. One line of development focuses on new technologies, while another approach focuses on new collaborations and policy instruments directed at fit-for-purpose or bottom-up and community-based initiatives. What have we learned from such new methods and approaches? (How) can these be scaled responsibly to different contexts? And how to ensure institutionalisation for durable solutions and long-term sustainability?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
Innovative Ideas in Land Administration and Management: Lessons from Digitalising Land Documents
Living apart together: Land Commissions as attempt to marry customary rules and state legislation for securing land tenure, building peace and settling land conflicts in the Sahel/West-Africa
Breaking Ground on Land and Housing Rights: Grassroots Solutions for Security of Tenure and Adequate Housing
Secure Land Tenure in Customary Land: Unlocking Opportunities or Not?
Land governance in contexts of increased migration and mobility
Debates on land politics and migration have conventionally focused on fixing people to a particular space by regularising land tenure, containing migrants within a territory, and enforcing boundaries against outsiders. In these debates, little attention has been paid to how land and human mobilities are mutually linked – how land politics and governance arrangements shape migration, and how mobilities influence land use and access to land for different groups of people. As increasing numbers of people are on the move due to conflict, to climate change, to build livelihoods and seek opportunities; or many people are also immobile despite risks, we need new insights into the question whether the focus on fixing people in a place or securing land titles helps people – especially when we pay attention to intersectional gender inequalities and power relations – to prosper in the increasingly volatile world. Given the salience of mobility and immobility worldwide, this theme invites contributions to the question how to make land governance – traditionally geared towards sedentarism – better prepared for future migration/mobility?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
Homemaking and land in situations of protracted displacement
Slum blind: The overlooked links between climate migration and informal settlements
Rethinking relocation practices: land rights, spatial politics and social ordering
Land Governance and Women’s Rights in the Context of Migration and Mobility in Africa
The following sessions are not open for abstracts:
New Urban Land Development and (Im)Mobilities in Indonesia: Learning from Nusantara
Learning from SPARC Research on Gender and Youth Issues in Farmer-Herder Conflicts and Pastoral Land Governance
Land governance in post-conflict contexts/settings
Violent conflicts tend to seriously influence land and property-related issues, due to protracted displacement and partial return, irregular war-related acquisitions, and erosion of land governance capacity and legitimacy. What is the role of land governance and its reform in post-conflict period? How does it help rebuild war-torn societies or instead cause new conflict? How to deal with overlapping land rights due to government endorsed, but contested reallocation, long-term occupation of land by refugees, or competing tenure systems? To what extent can reform programmes from less conflictive settings inspire post-conflict reforms?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
Tenure security in post-conflict settings: differentiated effects of land governance strategies.
Plurality of Knowledge in Conflict-Sensitive Land Governance. Addressing the Past for a Resilient Future
Rebuilding Land Governance in Post-Conflict Africa: Challenges
Governing land amidst protracted armed conflict
Global connections, local approaches
The world is interconnected, people engage across places. In recent times of geopolitical shifts and increased nationalism – while global interconnectedness has not weakened – land governance at local levels faces new challenges. Under this theme we want to explore the following questions: What is the space for local ways of land governance and climate resilience particularly when financed by Western (donor) funds? What is the role of international relations in re-shaping control over land and natural resources and ‘vice versa’? How does decolonisation play out within land governance, and with new geo-political actors entering the scene? And how can local voices and knowledges be better represented in global value chains, trade agreements, and international policies for food security and climate change?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
The REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism: impacts on land tenure and local empowerment
Discourses on sustainable agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa and their impact on land tenure
Measuring and monitoring social and human wellbeing in payment for ecosystem services (PES) projects
Local land governance for peace and climate?
Knowing land locally, knowing land globally: translations, negotiations, tensions
The following sessions are not open for abstracts:
People power for social and environmental justice in (global) value chains – Experiences from community-led advocacy for just transitions and social & environmental safeguards in extractives and energy value chains in Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Impacts and ongoing challenges.
Pre-event: Early Career Researchers Day
Are you an early career researcher working on topics related to land governance, justice, and sustainability? As part of the LANDac Annual Conference 2025, we are pleased to announce the Early Career Researchers Day, dedicated to supporting and showcasing the work of PhD and MSc students.This day is open to early career researchers attending the conference, with a focus on fostering meaningful discussions and collaborations.
The Early Career Researchers Day will take place on Wednesday 2 July 2025, immediately prior to the LANDac Annual Conference. This special day is dedicated to providing a platform for early career researchers to share their work, exchange ideas, and receive constructive feedback in an interactive and supportive environment. You will focus particularly on translating your research findings into a useful product and format for non-academic (e.g. policy, practitioner, activist) audiences. To participate on this day, you will need to submit a contribution (see below) outlining your research and the target audience you want to reach.
What to expect of the day:
Opportunities to present and discuss your research with peers and experienced professionals.
Workshops on translating research into applicable knowledge for diverse stakeholders and enhancing research impact.
Networking with other young researchers and professionals in the field of land governance and related areas.
If you would like to participate in the Early Career Researchers Day, please submit the Contribution Form where you can provide:
Your research topic/them
Ideas for a product or target audience related to your research
A short motivation (300 words max)
Send your Contribution directly to landac2025@gmail.com.
Below you can find the hotels and hostels that have agreed to partner with us and have provided us with booking codes and discounts:
NH Hotel
The NH Utrecht hotel sits right in the heart of this historic city. It’s very near to Utrecht Central train station, and is about a 10 minute walk from the conference location. The hotel is one of the highest buildings in Utrecht – it’s 21 stories high and enjoys fabulous views over the city.
NH Utrecht offers a rate of €145 per night for a single person, including breakfast. This special rate is available from 1-5 July. You can find this offer here.
Inntel Hotels Utrecht Centre
The 11-storey Inntel Hotels Utrecht Centre is connected to the Central Station. The hotel is centrally located in Utrecht in an inspiring hub to meet, stay, and relax.
Inntel Hotels Utrecht Centre offers a 15% discount on rooms for 2 and 3 July. Use this link to access this discount.
Bunk Hostel
Bunk Hostel is a trendy and affordable hostel located in a historic building (old church) in the heart of Utrecht. With a range of dormitory and private rooms, Bunk Hostel offers comfortable and stylish accommodation for budget-conscious travelers. The hostel also features a restaurant and bar, as well as a shared kitchen and lounge areas.
Bunk offers LANDac a 10% discount. When booking, enter promo code UU25.
Stayokay Hostel Utrecht
Stayokay Hostel is a budget-friendly option for travelers looking for affordable accommodation in Utrecht. The hostel offers dormitory rooms as well as private rooms, all equipped with modern amenities such as free WiFi. Guests can also enjoy the hostel’s communal kitchen and lounge areas.
To use the special LANDac rate, enter coupon code UU25 after filling out your personal details.
Updates on the programme will be published on the LANDac website.
Organising Committee
Kei Otsuki (IDS-UU, co-chair), Femke van Noorloos (IDS-UU, co-chair), Wytske Chamberlain (LANDac/LAND-at-scale), Gemma van der Haar (LANDac & WUR), Marja Spierenburg (Leiden University), Dimo Todorovski (ITC-University of Twente), Gemma Betsema (RVO LAND-at-scale), Mathijs van Leeuwen (Radboud University), Bertus Wennink (KIT Institute), Brent Sandtke (IDS-UU).
Supported by
Summer School
The conference forms part of the LANDac/Utrecht University Summer School. This Summer School takes place from 30 June – 11 July. Titled “Fair Land Governance and the Politics of Competing Claims”, it offers a space to explore the multiple and competing claims of various actors on land, how these are framed and how they can be understood. For more information and to register, visit the Utrecht Summer School website. For enquiries, contact landac2025@gmail.com.
Last Updated: 22nd May 2025 by Coordinator
LANDac Annual Conference 2025
REGISTER NOW
Plurality of Knowledge:
The Future of Land Governance in Shifting Glocal Contexts
Utrecht, the Netherlands | 2-4 July 2025
As the LANDac contribution to the LAND-at-scale knowledge management programme draws to a close, we are pleased to use our Annual Conference 2025 as a space to share the rich learnings over five years of collaboration, and to use these learnings to inform how land governance can contribute towards equality and justice in an increasingly polarising world. We will offer two days of thought inspiring keynotes, panel sessions, round tables and other sessions for which we welcome your suggestions. Prior to the conference, on 2 July, we host a pre-event with an educational focus, providing space for PhD and MSc students to present and exchange their work.
Contents
Registration and Fees
Registration for the conference is now open and closes 29 June. We are happy to offer an early bird fee of €175 (open until 17 April). The regular fee for participation after 17 April is €225. Reduced fees are available for students: €100 for PhD students and €50 for Master students. There is no additional fee for the Early Career Researchers Day. Online presentation is free of charge.
Our conference team will send you a payment link within 3 working days. Registration is confirmed after your payment has been received. Requests for letters for visa applications are also handled upon registration. We are not able to provide sponsorships or financial support to attend the event.
Registration fees for the Conference:
• Early Bird fee: €175 (before 17 April 2025)
• Regular fee: €225 (from 17 April 2025)
• PhD students: €100
• MSc students: €50
Please note: Visa application procedures to the EU are lengthy. We strongly advise to start booking an appointment well ahead of time.
Conference Programme
Please note that the programme is provisional and thus is subject to change. For the latest version of the programme, please regularly check the Conference Page. Times are displayed in CEST (Central European Summer Time).
Format
The 2-day conference kick-offs on Thursday morning 3 July with a plenary session with prominent keynote speakers. This is followed by several rounds of parallel sessions in 1,5 hour slots on Thursday and Friday 4 July. The conference closes on Friday afternoon with a keynote plenary. As in previous editions of the conference, we welcome a variety of formats: paper presentations, panel discussions, round tables for these two days. On 3 July we will close the day with drinks and snacks, offering ample opportunities for networking.
Prior to conference, on 2 July, we host a pre-event for early career researchers, providing space for PhDs and MSc students to share their knowledge, think about how to present this knowledge to other stakeholders, and to inspire each other.
The conference will be concentrated on-site, at Janskerkhof 2-3 Utrecht. We aim to stream keynote sessions. We will have the possibility to host a limited number of sessions in hybrid format.
Keynote speakers
Opening Plenary Day 1
Esther Mwaura-Muiru
Esther Mwaura-Muiru is currently the Global Advocacy Director for the Stand For Her Land (S4HL) Campaign at Landesa. Previously she worked at the International Land Coalition as the Global Women Land Rights Manager. Esther is also the Founder of GROOTS Kenya (Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood), a grassroots women movement of more than 3000 organised groups from rural and urban communities living in poverty across Kenya. Over the years, Esther has demonstrated deep expertise in development and management of initiatives that influence good governance and delivery of public services in sectors like health, housing, land, water, climate change and agriculture. “Transformative development is only possible if those impacted by inequality and oppressive systems are on the leadership and at the centre of the solutions towards a positive change”.
Raymond Cardinal
Ray Cardinal grew up in Alberta, primarily at Sucker Creek First Nation. One of six children, he is the son of the late Harold Cardinal and Maisie Cardinal. Ray earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Saskatchewan and his Master of Arts at the University of Arizona. A proud father to one son, his professional passions include monitoring, engagement, workforce training, and emergency preparedness. Ray holds leadership roles in several organizations, including Indigenous Chair of IAMC-TMX and member of the IAIA-WNC Executive Committee. He is also a proud member of Sucker Creek First Nation.
An Ansoms
An Ansoms, professor at UCLouvain, leads research on environmental and climate change in Central and Eastern Africa. Her team explores climate and resource conflicts using interdisciplinary, art-based, action-oriented methods. Working in DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi, she also specializes in research ethics, focusing on emotional and ethical dilemmas in challenging field contexts.
Closing Plenary Day 2
Jahin Shams Sakkhar
Jahin Shams Sakkhar is a PhD researcher at the University of East Anglia’s School of Global Development, specializing in land rights, gender equity, and climate resilience. His research investigates whether the transfer of Khasland (public land) to women in Bangladesh can enhance their adaptive capacity, strengthen their agency and build resilience in the face of social and environmental change. With over a decade of experience in the NGO sector, Jahin worked with Uttaran, a grass-roots NGO in Bangladesh, where he led climate change and humanitarian programs in Bangladesh. His initiatives focused on water governance, Tidal River Management, Landscape governance, land rights, nature-based solutions, agro-ecology, climate change resilience, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian aid. His impactful work in the field earned him the Change Maker Award from the Start Network. Jahin is also involved in the CLARE SURF-IT project, which uses AI and satellite data to improve early flood warning systems, supporting his commitment to integrating technology into climate adaptation strategies.
Elizabeth Daley
Dr Elizabeth Daley works as Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) Advisor of the Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture in Recurrent and Protracted Crises (SPARC) programme. She is also Chair of the Board of the Land Portal Foundation and has worked as an independent consultant on land tenure, gender equity and social inclusion for over 20 years, including as Team Leader and instigator of the WOLTS (Women’s Land Tenure Security) project since its inception in 2015. Elizabeth has worked with multilateral and bilateral development partner agencies, international and national NGOs, and national governments, philanthropists, private sector companies and local communities. Her roles have included legal and policy reviews, project and programme evaluations, design and implementation of training and capacity building programmes, technical advisory inputs to land administration projects, and rigorous academic and technical fieldwork-based research on a host of land-related issues. As GESI Advisor for SPARC, Elizabeth supports local researchers across the consortium to elevate gender issues and strengthen understandings of normative change in pastoralist communities, for improved resilience and empowerment outcomes. See https://www.sparc-knowledge.org.
Conference Description
Over the five year period, we have seen changes in global and local contexts. Complex and interrelated crises threaten development achievements and challenge the resilience of people and governance agents. Themes central to the LAND-at-scale learning agenda have seen shifts: land and housing rights are increasingly insecure (2024 PRIndex Report), climate change more and more affects people’s ability to build livelihoods from their land, increasing numbers of people are displaced due to conflict, violence, political or economic instability, and despite many efforts, women still experience inequality when it comes to their rights to land and resources. In recent times the Global North is starting to renege on its efforts to curb climate change, its (financial) support to the Global South, and anti-immigration voices are getting stronger. Democracies and human rights are under pressure, across the globe. In a connected world, such global shifts have impact at local levels. In this rather grim reality, how can we, as academics, practitioners, CSO’s and policy makers, as human beings, contribute with our plurality of knowing, of seeing, of imagining, to a more just, inclusive and sustainable land governance?
Knowledge management is a way to bring these different stakeholders together with the aim to strengthen the implementation of land governance projects and programmes and inform policy in both the Global South and North. Dedicated components aim to work on generating, managing, disseminating, and using knowledge, with a focus on learning and adaptive programme management. This conference will zoom in on how plurality of knowledges have shaped and changed the implementation of land governance activities. With an integrated KM-strategy, implemented with and by LANDac and its partners, knowledge management and learning have been at the heart of the LAND-at-scale programme since its inception. The aim was to contribute towards the impact both at global programme level, and of the local in-country projects. The LAND-at-scale knowledge management programme brought together academia, practitioners, CSOs, policy makers and donors. This has taken shape in several collaborations such as between LANDac partners and the donor, and between the knowledge management partners and implementing organisations across the different countries. At country level, practitioners from different backgrounds and with different ways of thinking jointly worked towards shared outcomes. At the LANDac conference, we want to reflect on: What lessons can be learned from such collaborations, what has been the impact? At the same time, we want to look forward to see how these experiences can inform future land governance interventions in a glocal world where interconnected global and local issues are being reshaped.
Conference Themes & Sessions
The themes of the 2025 conference align with the objectives and themes of the LAND-at-scale knowledge management programme. In addition to the themes outlined below, cross-cutting themes are tenure security, gender and climate change in both rural and urban contexts. We welcome empirical, theoretical and philosophical contributions as well as practical and impact-oriented ones in the Global South and North. We now invite abstract submissions for those sessions open to abstracts on the following themes (please consult the instructions for submission below).
For a complete overview of the sessions and their descriptions, click here or click on the themes below. 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 LANDac website for the most recent version.
Working towards a fairer world involves addressing challenges at multiple scales and domains. Collaborations across different social and geographical spaces, disciplines, and positionalities might offer ways to address interconnected issues, but such collaborations come with challenges of their own. For this theme, we are interested in understanding the negotiation of power and knowledge in such collaborations and the transformative potential that might or might not be generated. We welcome sessions that discuss experiences of collaboration, how these engage with difference and plurality, and the (dis-) encounters involved. (How) can co-creation work? How to deal with different views on what is “just” and how to get there? How to translate lessons from one experience of collaboration to the next? Is collaboration always better than no collaboration?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
The following sessions are not open for abstracts:
To effectively address the complex challenges of good land governance, knowledge management increasingly operates at the intersection of legal, social, economic, and environmental dimensions, while striving to integrate diverse sources of knowledge. Within this theme, we seek to deepen our understanding of how integrating diverse knowledge sources can create meaningful impact. We welcome contributions that address the following key questions. What is the influence of various knowledge sources on policy and practice in the field of land rights and governance, and how do policy and practice, in turn, shape these sources? What are the pathways through which such impacts are achieved? Moreover, what lessons can we draw from these pathways to optimise the use of diverse knowledge sources?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
The following session is not open for abstracts:
Land and housing rights are increasingly insecure. New approaches and thinking have been implemented to strengthen land governance. One line of development focuses on new technologies, while another approach focuses on new collaborations and policy instruments directed at fit-for-purpose or bottom-up and community-based initiatives. What have we learned from such new methods and approaches? (How) can these be scaled responsibly to different contexts? And how to ensure institutionalisation for durable solutions and long-term sustainability?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
Debates on land politics and migration have conventionally focused on fixing people to a particular space by regularising land tenure, containing migrants within a territory, and enforcing boundaries against outsiders. In these debates, little attention has been paid to how land and human mobilities are mutually linked – how land politics and governance arrangements shape migration, and how mobilities influence land use and access to land for different groups of people. As increasing numbers of people are on the move due to conflict, to climate change, to build livelihoods and seek opportunities; or many people are also immobile despite risks, we need new insights into the question whether the focus on fixing people in a place or securing land titles helps people – especially when we pay attention to intersectional gender inequalities and power relations – to prosper in the increasingly volatile world. Given the salience of mobility and immobility worldwide, this theme invites contributions to the question how to make land governance – traditionally geared towards sedentarism – better prepared for future migration/mobility?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
The following sessions are not open for abstracts:
Violent conflicts tend to seriously influence land and property-related issues, due to protracted displacement and partial return, irregular war-related acquisitions, and erosion of land governance capacity and legitimacy. What is the role of land governance and its reform in post-conflict period? How does it help rebuild war-torn societies or instead cause new conflict? How to deal with overlapping land rights due to government endorsed, but contested reallocation, long-term occupation of land by refugees, or competing tenure systems? To what extent can reform programmes from less conflictive settings inspire post-conflict reforms?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
The world is interconnected, people engage across places. In recent times of geopolitical shifts and increased nationalism – while global interconnectedness has not weakened – land governance at local levels faces new challenges. Under this theme we want to explore the following questions: What is the space for local ways of land governance and climate resilience particularly when financed by Western (donor) funds? What is the role of international relations in re-shaping control over land and natural resources and ‘vice versa’? How does decolonisation play out within land governance, and with new geo-political actors entering the scene? And how can local voices and knowledges be better represented in global value chains, trade agreements, and international policies for food security and climate change?
The following sessions are open for abstract submissions:
The following sessions are not open for abstracts:
Pre-event: Early Career Researchers Day
Are you an early career researcher working on topics related to land governance, justice, and sustainability? As part of the LANDac Annual Conference 2025, we are pleased to announce the Early Career Researchers Day, dedicated to supporting and showcasing the work of PhD and MSc students. This day is open to early career researchers attending the conference, with a focus on fostering meaningful discussions and collaborations.
The Early Career Researchers Day will take place on Wednesday 2 July 2025, immediately prior to the LANDac Annual Conference. This special day is dedicated to providing a platform for early career researchers to share their work, exchange ideas, and receive constructive feedback in an interactive and supportive environment. You will focus particularly on translating your research findings into a useful product and format for non-academic (e.g. policy, practitioner, activist) audiences. To participate on this day, you will need to submit a contribution (see below) outlining your research and the target audience you want to reach.
What to expect of the day:
If you would like to participate in the Early Career Researchers Day, please submit the Contribution Form where you can provide:
Send your Contribution directly to landac2025@gmail.com.
Accommodation
Below you can find the hotels and hostels that have agreed to partner with us and have provided us with booking codes and discounts:
NH Hotel
The NH Utrecht hotel sits right in the heart of this historic city. It’s very near to Utrecht Central train station, and is about a 10 minute walk from the conference location. The hotel is one of the highest buildings in Utrecht – it’s 21 stories high and enjoys fabulous views over the city.
NH Utrecht offers a rate of €145 per night for a single person, including breakfast. This special rate is available from 1-5 July. You can find this offer here.
Inntel Hotels Utrecht Centre
The 11-storey Inntel Hotels Utrecht Centre is connected to the Central Station. The hotel is centrally located in Utrecht in an inspiring hub to meet, stay, and relax.
Inntel Hotels Utrecht Centre offers a 15% discount on rooms for 2 and 3 July. Use this link to access this discount.
Bunk Hostel
Bunk Hostel is a trendy and affordable hostel located in a historic building (old church) in the heart of Utrecht. With a range of dormitory and private rooms, Bunk Hostel offers comfortable and stylish accommodation for budget-conscious travelers. The hostel also features a restaurant and bar, as well as a shared kitchen and lounge areas.
Bunk offers LANDac a 10% discount. When booking, enter promo code UU25.
Stayokay Hostel Utrecht
Stayokay Hostel is a budget-friendly option for travelers looking for affordable accommodation in Utrecht. The hostel offers dormitory rooms as well as private rooms, all equipped with modern amenities such as free WiFi. Guests can also enjoy the hostel’s communal kitchen and lounge areas.
To use the special LANDac rate, enter coupon code UU25 after filling out your personal details.
Contact
Contact the conference organisers by email: landac2025@gmail.com
Updates on the programme will be published on the LANDac website.
Organising Committee
Kei Otsuki (IDS-UU, co-chair), Femke van Noorloos (IDS-UU, co-chair), Wytske Chamberlain (LANDac/LAND-at-scale), Gemma van der Haar (LANDac & WUR), Marja Spierenburg (Leiden University), Dimo Todorovski (ITC-University of Twente), Gemma Betsema (RVO LAND-at-scale), Mathijs van Leeuwen (Radboud University), Bertus Wennink (KIT Institute), Brent Sandtke (IDS-UU).
Supported by
Summer School
The conference forms part of the LANDac/Utrecht University Summer School. This Summer School takes place from 30 June – 11 July. Titled “Fair Land Governance and the Politics of Competing Claims”, it offers a space to explore the multiple and competing claims of various actors on land, how these are framed and how they can be understood. For more information and to register, visit the Utrecht Summer School website. For enquiries, contact landac2025@gmail.com.
Category: Conference 2025, Conference News, Events, News