Call for Papers: Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting 2014, April 8-12, Tampa, Florida
Politics of Peri-urban Land
Session Organizers: Gerda Wekerle and Donald Leffers
Land use changes in peri-urban areas are dramatic and political processes that are often accompanied by conflict. These conflicts arise in the context of the changing role of governance and the state, hegemonic constructions of economic growth, tensions between use and exchange value, and diverse constructions of land, property, place, and nature. Although conflicts are often framed as specific siting issues (e.g. the location of wind farms, landfills, energy projects, quarries, etc.), they can also be understood more broadly as contestations over transformations of land use. In peri-urban areas, land use conflicts often emerge in response to resource-based project proposals and nature conservation initiatives. They challenge housing and infrastructure development, water takings and wind farm sitings.
Proposals for land use change are increasingly contested by citizen activists and social movements at various scales. New regulatory and governance frameworks seek to address alternate claims. Competing discursive strategies vie to shape the form and content of policies. In some places, this has resulted in alternative and innovative policy processes and policy implementation. There is new attention to land development, property, and property developers and owners.
We are anticipating sessions that aim to develop a broader understanding and critical reflection that moves beyond site-specific or sectoral case study analyses to address cross-cutting theoretical and policy frameworks that connect land use conflicts in per-urban areas. We encourage participants to focus on the politics of land in the peri-urban from a range of theoretical perspectives, including political ecology and political economy, institutionalism, interpretive policy analysis, social movements, strategic stakeholder negotiation, and governance and planning. Within the above frameworks, specific emphases of presentations may focus on the politics of planning and governance, developers, development and housing, property, social movement mobilization, First Nations’ land claims, politics of extractive industries and land, land grabs, and the politics of farmland preservation.
Please submit a 250 word abstract by October 28, 2013 to Gerda Wekerle ([log in to unmask]), Faculty of Environmental Studies, and Donald Leffers ([log in to unmask]), Department of Geography, York University, Toronto, Canada.
