RC21 Conference, Antwerp, July 6–8, 2020
Session organizers: Griet Steel, Femke van Noorloos and Abigail Friendly, Department of Human Geography & Planning, Utrecht University
Sustainable
urban housing stands at the nexus of multiple SDGs (SDG11 figuring
prominently), with spectacular urban growth, exacerbating inequality, environmental
degradation and housing shortages as some of the pressing issues. Incremental
housing – a step by step approach to housing construction in which the built
environment is improved by owner-builders as money, time and materials become
available – is a key driver of contemporary urbanization worldwide. Taking
place in informal ways and driven by urban residents rather than the state,
incremental housing practices remain challenging to integrate with formal
state-led city-making. However, these experiences vary widely depending on
inequalities at different scales, people’s roles and power positions, policies
and regulations related to incremental housing and city-making, and broader
structural forces shaping land and housing markets and urban development more
broadly. Scholarship on incremental housing continues to focus largely on
tenure, building materials and housing conditions at a local level, while
incremental housing is embedded in – and dependent on – larger urban and
regional systems and flows. Housing is inserted into a broader context of
city-making , including flows of labor, people, finance, knowledge/ideas,
technologies, design and infrastructure. Mapping these dynamics is necessary to
understand fundamental questions of where, how and why initiatives aimed at
addressing the urban housing shortage in the global South advance or get stuck.
Academically, a further reconceptualization of incremental housing is needed
that acknowledges the embeddedness of local incremental building practices within
broader industries, markets and practices of city-making. Given the reality of
incremental housing practices across the Global South, academic debates need to
understand the complexity of these challenges.
In this
session, we aim to focus on how the process of creating incremental housing
produces a variety of ever-changing embodied experiences for dwellers-managers
over time, depending on how they engage with flows of building materials,
finance, and labour, together with land, design and infrastructure. By focusing
on these embodied experiences of incremental housing flows, we aim to
scrutinize how to overcome dilemmas related to urban incrementalism, long-term,
city-wide planning, and compact cities in the Global South. We are particularly
interested in receiving submissions from scholars from the Global South.
In
particular, we welcome papers that analyze city flows, chains and circuits that
emerge from incremental housing practices by focusing on:
- the
functions and experiences of different actors such as self-builders, suppliers
of materials and finance and informal brokers, identifying winners and losers
in incremental housing dynamics, including the generation of employment for
specific groups;
- the
industries and value chains that emerge and change, including financial or
credit systems, where materials come from, go to, and flow together; and
- the reasons why certain housing developments stand empty and why
repair and recycling are not used optimally, for example for emptied
vertical blocks and older housing estates.
Urban researchers largely recognize that
contemporary cities are constantly in flux and created and recreated through
various flows and relations of people and materials, and not the stable
products of past planning decisions ‘frozen in space’. Nevertheless, modern
urban planning tools, methods and procedures often continue to reflect the idea
of planning as the creation of something stable and long-lasting, such as
zoning or land-use plans. They emphasize stability instead of dynamic
connections, interlinkages and movement. By focusing on the actors and the
lived experiences of user-driven, self-organized industries of building,
maintaining, repairing and renewing/upgrading, the panel aims to put an
innovative light on the embeddedness of ‘local’ incremental and self-managed
building practices within broader industries and city-making practices.
Submit an abstract at: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/rc21-sensing-the-city/call-for-papers/
For more information, please contact Femke van
Noorloos (h.j.vanNoorloos@uu.nl) or Abigail Friendly (a.r.friendly@uu.nl)
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
LANDac | New publications MDPI Land
In collaboration with the MDPI Open Access journal Land, LANDac has published three open access papers on ‘Land Governance in Transition: How to support transformations that work for people and nature?’.
Abstract:
The livelihoods of indigenous peoples, custodians of the world’s forests since time immemorial, were eroded as colonial powers claimed de jure control over their ancestral lands. The continuation of European land regimes in Africa and Asia meant that the withdrawal of colonial powers did not bring about a return to customary land tenure. Further, the growth in environmentalism has been interpreted by some as entailing conservation ahead of people. While this may be justifiable in view of devastating anthropocentric breaching of planetary boundaries, continued support for “fortress” style conservation inflicts real harm on indigenous communities and overlooks sustainable solutions to deepening climate crises. In reflecting on this issue from the perspective of colonial land tenure systems, this article highlights how ideas—the importance of individualised land ownership, cultivation, and fortress conservation—are intellectually flawed. Prevailing conservation policies, made possible by global non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and statutory donors, continue to harm indigenous peoples and their traditional territories. Drawing from the authors’ experience representing the Batwa (DRC), the Ogiek and Endorois (Kenya) and Adivasis (India) in international litigation, this paper examines the human and environmental costs associated with modern conservation approaches through this colonial lens. This article concludes by reflecting on approaches that respect environmental and human rights.
Abstract:
The core neoliberal strategy of Chilean agrarian politics has lasted now for more than 30 years. Despite minor reforms, its fundamental pillars remain in place. While members of the agribusiness sector consider this strategy to be a role-model for food production leading to explosive economic growth, the last decade exposed its socio-ecological limits, such as declining water availability and increased conflicts over land. Taking critical literature on neoliberalization as a theoretical approach, we used law and literature reviews as well as qualitative interviews with actors from the public and private sectors to reveal the details of the strategies in the exporting agriculture sector in Chile. From the understanding of neoliberalization as a multi-layered process, we analyzed the data, focusing on three dimensions of agribusiness in Chile: (a) regulation, (b) spatial fix, and (c) ideological paradigms. In doing so, we uncovered how far the coping strategies chosen by the state and private sector have re-designed and strengthened the process of agriculture neoliberalization in order to push its own socio-ecological limits.
Abstract:
Maize has become the second most produced crop in the world. Specifically, in sub-Saharan Africa, global statistics show that more and more land is being used for (small-scale) maize production to meet future food demands. From 2007 to 2017, the area on which maize is grown in sub-Saharan Africa has increased by almost 60%. This rate of expansion is considered unsustainable and is expected to come at the expense of crop diversity and the environment. Based on available literature, this paper explores the political and economic processes that contributed to the increased use of land for maize production in sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses population growth as an important driver. Moreover, it unravels some of the politics and narratives triggered by climate change that have paved the way for policy measures that aimed to boost maize production in the region. These measures, which often emphasize the need for increased production, the need for new technologies and resource scarcity, overlook the largest group of maize producers that are least powerful, but most crucial for food security in sub-Saharan Africa: smallholder farmers.
Keywords: land use change; maize; political economy; food security
These papers are part of the LANDac Annual International Conference 2019 – Land Governance in Transition: How to support transformations that work for people and nature? More information on the 2019 conference and other outputs can be found here.
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
Environment and Urbanization | Incremental Housing as a Node for Intersecting Flows of City-Making: Rethinking the Housing Shortage in the Global South
Newly released paper by Femke van Noorloos, Liza Rose Cirolia, Abigail Friendly, Smruti Jukur, Sophie Schramm, Griet Steel and Lucía Valenzuela (2020). Click here to read the full paper.
Abstract:
Incremental housing drives urbanization worldwide, and is recognized as the basis for socially relevant solutions to housing shortages in the global South. However, scholarship on incremental housing continues to focus largely on tenure, building materials and housing conditions at a local level, while incremental housing is embedded in – and dependent on – larger urban and regional systems and flows. We argue that a further reconceptualization of incremental housing is needed that acknowledges the embeddedness of local incremental building practices within broader industries, markets and practices of city-making. Starting from this observation, we suggest an extended framework for understanding the city-wide industries and flows around incremental housing, in relation to five dimensions: 1) land, 2) finance, 3) infrastructure, 4) building materials and 5) labour. Mapping these dynamics is necessary to understand fundamental questions of where, how and why initiatives aimed at improving or developing incremental housing advance or get stuck.
Read the full paper (open access)
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
University of Antwerp | PhD Scholarship on political ecology of PES
The University of Antwerp (Belgium) is currently offering a 4-year PhD Scholarship on “Political Ecologies of Payments for Ecosystem Services and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Nicaragua and Guatemala” at the Institute of Development Policy.
The research seeks to engage with questions of power and social dynamics pertaining to indigenous peoples, women and/or young adults. Through comparative analysis, the selected candidate will study how conservation policies become socially embedded, to what extend they succeed or fail to reshape nature-society relations, and how they change resource use behavior in socially and culturally diverse contexts.
The scholarship is part of a broader project funded by the Research Foundation of Flanders (FWO), and is supervised by Gert Van Hecken (IOB) and Jennifer Casolo (Nitlapan-UCA, Nicaragua).
For more information on the scholarship and all requirements, please see the following link: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vacancies/ap/2020bapiobef167/
Deadline for application: June 1st 2020
Start date of scholarship: between October 1st and December 1st 2020
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
VVI Research Report and Policy Brief | Land and Climate Change: Rights and Environmental Displacement in Mozambique
A new research report and policy brief by Carolien Jacobs and Bernardo Almeida (2020) from the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI).
Mozambique is a country prone to natural disasters such as floods and cyclones, and climate change is increasing these risks. The Cyclone Idai, that in March 2019 hit the central area of the country with unprecedented strength, was a clear example of the issues that the country will face in the future. Extreme weather events such as Cyclone Idai result in many problems related to people’s land rights, both in the areas directly affected by such storms, and in the areas where environmentally displaced persons seek shelter. Moreover, land rights issues such as the need to displace people from high-risk areas bring another layer of problems to climate change adaptation.
Based on a six-month research project supported by the Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law, this report uses the aftermath of the Cyclone Idai in Mozambique as a case study. It looks into the dynamics of environmental displacement, land rights and conflict, and the role of international and national legal frameworks in addressing land-related problems caused by this displacement. A policy brief provides a summary of the main research findings.
You can download the research report and the policy brief here.
Last Updated: 1st April 2020 by Coordinator
IASC 2020 Virtual Conference: African Commons
Online Worldwide
July 13 – 27, 2020
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Download the call here.
The International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) organizes a virtual conference from July 13-27, 2020 on African Commons. This conference will be a mixture of prerecorded presentations and live streaming webinar panels. Presentations can be in French or English. The virtual conference aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers on the governance of shared resources in Africa. A virtual conference is more inclusive, has lower costs, a smaller carbon footprint and is not impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic, than traditional meetings.
With this virtual conference, we hope to get a broad exposure to the research done in Africa by African scholars and scholars abroad. The discourse during the conference seeks to improve governance and management of shared resources and create solutions for commons, common-pool resources, or any other form of shared resources.
Two keynote speakers are scheduled, namely Dr. François Deckon from the University of Lomé in Togo, and Dr. Barbara van Koppen from the International Water Management Institute in South Africa.
Submissions of abstracts are due June 1, 2020 via this webpage. This webpage also includes more detailed information on how to record your presentations. Presentation videos need to be submitted by July 1, 2020.
Let us know if you have any questions
Co-chairs
Koffi Alinon; koffi.alinon@gmail.com
Marco Janssen; marco.janssen@asu.edu
Everisto Mapedza; E.Mapedza@cgiar.org
Last Updated: 31st March 2020 by Coordinator
Master’s-level training on land at Chiang Mai University – Reflections from the first cohor, 2017-19
Since 2017, the International Master’s program in Social Sciences Development Studies) at Chiang Mai University has included a focus on land relations. This reflects a revitalized interest in land and its governance in the region involving academics, practitioners, activists and researchers. Through the focus, the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD), who have instigated the program at Chiang Mai University, provides training to develop a high standard of knowledge and research skills for a new generation of land practitioners.
The first cohort of three students started in 2017. Ms Maw Thoe Myar and Mr Nyein Han Tun (both Myanmar), and Ms Chau My Duyen (Vietnam) received scholarships funded by MRLG (Mekong Region Land Governance project), with technical assistance provided by the Mekong Land Research Forum at Chiang Mai University. Following a conceptual and theoretical grounding in first year course modules, the second year involved field research towards a Master’s thesis. This brief looks at the achievements of the three students, who reflect on their experiences following the Master’s program, consider their aims for the future, and describe their thesis research. It is hoped that the brief will inform and inspire new students to join the program or seek equivalent schooling, thereby contributing to the training of land practitioners in the Mekong region.
For further information please visit the following websites:
• RCSD
• Mekong Land Research Forum
• MRLG
Download the Briefing Note here!
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
Update LANDac events due to COVID-19 Pandemic
Update: 9 April 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to turn our world upside down, and our thoughts are with everybody directly or indirectly affected by the virus. To ensure the health and safety of all of us and those around us, LANDac has made the following decisions.
LANDac 10-year anniversary
Unfortunately, the LANDac 10-year anniversary, originally planned on the 23rd of April, has been postponed until further notice. We will explore possibilities to hold the celebration later this year. Hopefully we can share more information with you soon.
LANDac Annual International Conference
The pandemic also affects the 2020 LANDac conference – not only as uncertainty persists on any possible (inter)national measures on events such as ours, but especially as it will affect the diverse and inclusive character of our conference. Therefore, the Organising Committee (OC) has decided to postpone the LANDac conference until early July 2021.
Despite this unfortunate turn of events, we do wish to bring the global land governance community together this year, and therefore want to invite you to the LANDac Online Encounter 2020, an online, interactive platform where we will also host a live (online) programme on and around the 2nd and 3rd of July. The OC will further develop this online programme in the coming few weeks and will include opportunities for you to actively participate.
If you submitted an abstract for the LANDac 2020 conference: the postponement of the 2020 conference means that the session organisers will decide in the coming two weeks whether they will postpone their session until next year, cancel their session, or hold an online session this summer. Session organisers will inform you on their decision later this month. If session organisers postpone their session until next year or hold their session online this summer, they will inform you on the status of your abstract as soon as possible, and, if accepted, explore your availability for next year’s conference or for an online contribution this summer. If your preferred session is cancelled or if your abstract is not accepted for your preferred session, LANDac will be in touch with you before the end of the month with more information on how to proceed. If you wish to withdraw your abstract, please contact us at landac2020@gmail.com.
Annual Summer School
LANDac organises its Annual Summer School in cooperation with Utrecht University, and as such we will follow the recommendations and guidelines of the University. Utrecht University expects that the Summer School courses in July and August will be able to take place. In the unfortunate event that we are not able to offer our course due to new, tightened national regulations, you will receive a full refund of your payment to Utrecht Summer School. You can find the latest information on the Summer School here.
We hope for your understanding and will continue to update this page if there are new updates. If there are any questions in the meantime, do not hesitate to contact us on landac.geo@uu.nl for questions related to the 10-year anniversary or Annual Summer School 2020, or on landac2020@gmail.com for questions related to the LANDac Annual International Conference.
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
Call for Papers: CFP RC21 Antwerp: Rethinking the urban housing shortage in the global South: incremental housing as a node for intersecting flows of city-making
RC21 Conference, Antwerp, July 6–8, 2020
Session organizers: Griet Steel, Femke van Noorloos and Abigail Friendly, Department of Human Geography & Planning, Utrecht University
Sustainable urban housing stands at the nexus of multiple SDGs (SDG11 figuring prominently), with spectacular urban growth, exacerbating inequality, environmental degradation and housing shortages as some of the pressing issues. Incremental housing – a step by step approach to housing construction in which the built environment is improved by owner-builders as money, time and materials become available – is a key driver of contemporary urbanization worldwide. Taking place in informal ways and driven by urban residents rather than the state, incremental housing practices remain challenging to integrate with formal state-led city-making. However, these experiences vary widely depending on inequalities at different scales, people’s roles and power positions, policies and regulations related to incremental housing and city-making, and broader structural forces shaping land and housing markets and urban development more broadly. Scholarship on incremental housing continues to focus largely on tenure, building materials and housing conditions at a local level, while incremental housing is embedded in – and dependent on – larger urban and regional systems and flows. Housing is inserted into a broader context of city-making , including flows of labor, people, finance, knowledge/ideas, technologies, design and infrastructure. Mapping these dynamics is necessary to understand fundamental questions of where, how and why initiatives aimed at addressing the urban housing shortage in the global South advance or get stuck. Academically, a further reconceptualization of incremental housing is needed that acknowledges the embeddedness of local incremental building practices within broader industries, markets and practices of city-making. Given the reality of incremental housing practices across the Global South, academic debates need to understand the complexity of these challenges.
In this session, we aim to focus on how the process of creating incremental housing produces a variety of ever-changing embodied experiences for dwellers-managers over time, depending on how they engage with flows of building materials, finance, and labour, together with land, design and infrastructure. By focusing on these embodied experiences of incremental housing flows, we aim to scrutinize how to overcome dilemmas related to urban incrementalism, long-term, city-wide planning, and compact cities in the Global South. We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from scholars from the Global South.
In particular, we welcome papers that analyze city flows, chains and circuits that emerge from incremental housing practices by focusing on:
Urban researchers largely recognize that contemporary cities are constantly in flux and created and recreated through various flows and relations of people and materials, and not the stable products of past planning decisions ‘frozen in space’. Nevertheless, modern urban planning tools, methods and procedures often continue to reflect the idea of planning as the creation of something stable and long-lasting, such as zoning or land-use plans. They emphasize stability instead of dynamic connections, interlinkages and movement. By focusing on the actors and the lived experiences of user-driven, self-organized industries of building, maintaining, repairing and renewing/upgrading, the panel aims to put an innovative light on the embeddedness of ‘local’ incremental and self-managed building practices within broader industries and city-making practices.
Submit an abstract at: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/rc21-sensing-the-city/call-for-papers/
For more information, please contact Femke van Noorloos (h.j.vanNoorloos@uu.nl) or Abigail Friendly (a.r.friendly@uu.nl)
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
Land Portal | Data Stories Contest 2020
The Land Portal has released its Data Stories Contest 2020! Extended Deadline: 23rd March 2020.
For more information, see below or visit the Land Portal website.
“As data enthusiasts, we believe in the power that data holds and are strong proponents for democratizing information, making it easy to share and reuse. Despite this, data scientists and those working with data in general, often struggle to communicate how and why data are essential and potentially life changing. The word data often conjures up notions of difficult to understand numbers or facts, information that is out of reach for the general population, meant for data scientists or those carrying out work that requires a certain level of expertise. This is where we feel data stories can be of great use. Data stories provide an opportunity to reflect that data is not sterile and difficult to understand , but part of wider, participatory process. We want to bring data to life!
It is with this in mind that we are launching our second Data Stories Contest. Data stories are an agile and malleable form of communication that are intended for non-specialized audiences. Data stories can include text, interviews, videos, infographics and maps to tell a narrative in a compelling way, based on what is deemed appropriate on a case by case basis. The narrative, as well as visual elements of the story, should focus heavily on and reference a specific dataset or data. Successful stories will be dynamic, engaging and original and will include innovative presentation of information and lets the data speak to an audience beyond the realm of academic researchers and data scientists. We invite you to take part and share your stories with us!”
Download the flyer here.
Last Updated: 25th May 2020 by Coordinator
Extended! NEWAVE Network| PhD positions at host organisations
The NEWAVE Network (Next Water Governance) aims to point the way forward in the global debate about water governance. It does so by developing research and training for a new generation of future water governance leaders, and by equipping them with the transdisciplinary skills to better tackle water challenges.
The NEWAVE Network is now recruiting PhDs. There are 15 available positions offered by 10 host organisations. Candidates are expected to start in September-October 2020 and NEWAVE is prepared to adapt to the Covid-19 situation by leveraging remote connection and remote work.
Click here for an overview and more information.
Deadline for application: May 24, 2020.