International Symposium "Conflicts over land and global change" a great success
Moderation: Kristina Dietz
Image Credit: Hanna Friedrich
Keynote: Michael Watts
Image Credit: Hanna Friedrich
PANEL: State, authority and citizenship
Image Credit: Hanna Friedrich
PANEL: Labor relations
Image Credit: Hanna Friedrich
Book Launch: Contested Extractivism, Society and the State. Struggles over Mining and Land. Editors: Bettina Engels and Kristina Dietz
Image Credit: Hanna Friedrich
With more than 100 participants, 15 presentations from international scholars from Europe, North America and sub-Saharan Africa, a keynote lecture held by Michael Watts, a comment from Sybille Bauriedl, four thematic panels and concluding remarks from Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Glocon's first international symposium on conflicts over land in the context of global transformation processes, held from December 1-2, 2016 in Berlin, has been a great success.
News from Dec 21, 2016
Over the past 20 years a growing demand for raw materials as well as the financial and food price crisis have led to a sharp increase in prices for minerals and agricultural products. These global dynamics together with national policy and legal reforms have provoked large and rapid land use changes for agro-industrial and mining purposes worldwide. Land and resources are central to social power and belonging, political authority, ecological systems and cultural representation. Changes in use, control, distribution and representation of land are contested and in many cases lead to conflict.
The four thematic panels were centered around questions concerning the relation between global changes and conflicts over land. The panel "spatial relations" explored the potential of spatial categories for the analysis of conflicts over land. The role of state and non-state actors in conflicts over land were investigated in the panel "state, authority and citizenship". In the panel "labor relations" the panelists and participants discussed how trade unions can face transformations of production processes in agriculture and mining. The panel "social movements" highlighted the role and strategies of social movements in struggles against agro-industrial projects and mining. All panels had one conceptual and three empirical inputs in order to combine theoretical aproaches with empirical findings.
In addition to the panelists, numerous researcher from all over the world and from different academic disciplines participated in the symposium. We thank all participants for their inspiring contributions, comments and discussions.
Podcast of the Symposium:
Michael Watts (Keynote lecture): Conflicted frontiers and the land question at the edge of the state
Haroon Akram-Lodhi: Concluding remarks
The Power-Point presentations of our speakers can be downloaded here.
KEYNOTE
Michael Watts: Conflicted frontiers and the land question at the edge of the state
PANEL: Spatial dynamics
Bernd Belina: Territoriality, ground rent and the circulation of capital through the land
Kristina Dietz: State, space, society: Conflicts over mining in Colombia
Géraud Magrin: New mining in the margin (Western and Central Africa): territorial (dis)-integration?
PANEL: State, authority and citizenship
Elisabet Rasch: Citizens as criminals. Violence and citizenship in socio- environmental conflicts in Guatemala
Sarah Kirst: Traditional authorities and conflicts over land in Ghana
Detlef Müller-Mahn: Africa ́s land rush – future-making at the margins?
PANEL: Labor relations
Akua Britwum: Organizing for interest representation: Smallholders and outgrowers in Ghana’s plantation agriculture
Oliver Pye: Labor and the social relations of nature in the palm oil industry
Jan Brunner: Labor relations and worker struggles in the sugarcane sector of São Paulo, Brazil
PANEL: Social movements
Louisa Prause & Bettina Engels: Linking social movement studies, political ecology, and spatial theory
Victor Munnik: Seeing coal like an activist: dealing with the dynamics of coal contention in early 21st century South Africa
Katy Jenkins: Making the Extraordinary Everyday: Women anti-mining activists’ narratives of staying put and carrying on in Peru and Ecuador
