LANDac 2023

This year's LANDac Annual Conference is organised jointly with the IOS-Fair Transitions to discuss the crossroads of the fair transitions and land governance debates in the context of climate change. The conference will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 28-30 June and will be held on site with a limited offer of hybrid possibilities. The conference is structured around the joint challenge of finding ways to make transitions fair and inclusive, for human and non-human life, and the programme will include several keynote lectures and plenary discussions, in addition to hosting a range of parallel sessions.  For updates on keynote speakers, accepted sessions, and other details on the programme keep an eye on the LANDac website.

Intended audiences
This conference aims to bring together the professional fields associated with fair transitions and land governance in the context of climate change. Over the past 12 years, the LANDac International Annual Conference has offered a podium for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working on land governance for equitable and sustainable development, representing a wide range of backgrounds and concerns. The Institutions for Open Societies (IOS) Fair Transitions Platform seeks to engage scholars from the Humanities, Geosciences, Law, and Governance, as well as all those engaged in issues of sustainability.

Core concerns of the conference
Questions about how land is governed and controlled in the context of multiple crises are key to debates about fair transitions. 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 wicked problems 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?

Key dates

• Call for Abstracts: February 28th to April 7th, 2023 | closed
• Online registration:
  • Early bird tickets: April 14th until May 12th
  • Regular tickets: May 13th until June 27th
• Conference: June 28th to June 30th

Registration fees: 

Early-birds: €175

Regular: €225

Dinner on June 29th, 2023: €50 

REGISTER HERE

Summer School: Land Governance for Development

The conference takes place back-to-back with the LANDac/Utrecht University Summer School Land Governance for Development, which will take place 3-14 July 2023 in Utrecht. For more information and to register, please visit the Utrecht Summer School website Summer School participants may join the conference free of cost.