Commodification and Resistances in Land and Housing.
A discussion across the North-South

This academic conference is concerned with the various manifestations of urban development and land commodification across the Global North and South. The academic conference is expected to bring together researchers and academics from around the world to debate, interrogate, and critique the current dynamics of urban development, the issue of land commodification, and its impact on access to housing in different regions. The program will feature keynote lectures, panel discussions, and individual presentations on the themes outlined below. This Call for Papers invites proposals for presentations within the following themes: Land commodification, speculative dynamics, and financialization, Strategies and challenges of resistance movements to land commodification, and Methodological issues in contexts of spatial and/or socio-economic vulnerability. We welcome empirically grounded contributions.

The conference seeks a Global North-South exchange of ideas to enrich the debate on how the commodification of land under intensifying capitalist accumulation generates complex urbanisation dynamics in different regions, particularly vis-à-vis the dynamics of global urban development (Peck et al., 2009; Soja, 2010). Despite the diverse spatial context, one pervasive effect emerges: limiting access to housing for most social groups (Rolnik, 2017; Aalbers, 2016). This analysis will shed light not only on the similarities and differences between the legal and planning systems governing urban development, the diversity of land tenure and its impact on everyday life, but also on the emergence of local resistances and the articulation of alternative epistemologies regarding the conceptualisation of property.  It proposes a comparative analysis of urbanisation processes in the 21st century as a basis for dialogue. We invite contributions on geographies whose urban trajectories share similar dynamics and engage with topics related to the call, or that bring them into productive comparative dialogue.

Conference themes

The goal of this event is to bring together a broad range of knowledge production from different geographies at the intersection of land, housing, property, real estate speculation, resistance, and urban development, and comparisons between North-South contexts. We welcome empirical papers, including case studies, comparative work, and research based on qualitative or quantitative data. The following list is intended to be illustrative but not exhaustive:

1. Land commodification, speculative dynamics, and financialization

• • • Informal, illegal, and illicit investments in real estate: the vulnerability of property financial systems 

    • Informal, illegal, and illicit urban development

    • Gentrification, urban speculation, commodification, and financialization

    • The different scales of speculation in land and housing

    • The vulnerability of property financial systems

2. Actors and Institutions in Urban Development 

• • • The role of policy, legal, and planning structures in urban development

    • New players in urban development, planning, and legislation

    • Institutional fragmentation and the opacity of planning and urban development legislation within market-led urban policies

3. Strategies and challenges of resistance movements to land commodification

• • • Vulnerable communities’ survival efforts or new forms of entrepreneurialism

    • Alternative epistemologies of the concept of property and land relations.

    • Tensions, conflicts, and resistance to market-led urban development.

4. Methodological issues in doing research in contexts of vulnerability

• • • Measuring and mapping urban growth and urbanization

    • Qualitative data gathering in contexts of poverty, vulnerability, and unsafety

    • Research ethics: conducting research with vulnerable communities

Abstract submission

Abstracts must be submitted to: https://forms.gle/yNiHd9NTzCWiFybC6

Abstracts can be submitted in English or Spanish. 

If you have any questions, please contact proyecto-mercantilizacion@pucp.edu.pe 

More information: https://urbancom.pucp.edu.pe/

Read the call here.