Concept Note
We live in a ruined and ruining world. The postwar program and edifice of “development” as we know it—built on the assumptions of linear progress, donor-driven aid, and international cooperation—is crumbling. Development’s failures, rooted in the colonial and capitalist world-system, are manifest: in the stark precarity and inequalities sharpening under economic neoliberalism; in the climate emergency spiraling beyond control; in the defunding of social institutions and public services amid rising securitization and militarization; in the surge of reactionary, ethno-nationalist, and authoritarian-populist politics eroding human dignity and global solidarities; and in the realities of genocide, forced displacement, and mass starvation — cruelties inflicted against humanity.
These ruins in the contemporary polycrisis, entangled with the history of extractive capitalism and colonialism, demand profound reckoning. Yet, in the cracks—within the fissures and margins of the prevailing disorder—seeds of hope are already germinating. This hope is found both in the recognition of diverse forms of human coexistence that predate Western hegemony, and in vibrant new movements. From struggles for climate action, equality, peace, and food sovereignty, to feminist economies of care and Indigenous knowledge reclamations, to the uprisings led by students and the youth, people are reawakening consciousness and reclaiming agency, spaces, and the commons. These are not simply strategies of survival, but practices of community-building and world-making that prefigure life beyond the colonial capitalist paradigm of development.
Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the Finnish Society for Development Research, the #DevDays2026 international conference calls on scholars, practitioners, and activists to share their studies, reflections, advocacies, and experiences in engaging this dialectic of ruin and hope. We ask: How do we reckon with the ruins of development? How do we learn from, and nurture, the cracks where hope takes root? And how do we reawaken political consciousness for socio-ecological and economic-cultural transformation?
This gathering is more than critique. It is an invitation to self-reflection on Reckoning, Reclaiming, Reawakening toward renewal. As we reflect on four decades of critical development research in Finland, we take up the challenge not only to analyze collapse but to actively participate in the collective labor of reimagining and advancing futures of justice, care, and solidarity.
Sub-Themes for Working Groups
We invite proposals for Working Groups in various formats, such as academic panels, policy discussions, activist forums, poster sessions, or other creative activities. Submissions are encouraged to engage with the conference theme, including but not limited to the following topics and issues:
1. Reckoning with the Ruins: Critical Diagnostics of a Failing System
● Political economies of de-development: austerity, donor retreat, militarization, and financialization
● Genocide, mass displacement, and humanitarian catastrophe
● Polycrisis, shifting geopolitics, imperialist wars, and resource conflicts
● Colonial extractivisms, climate change, maldevelopment, and the accumulation of waste
● Crises of legitimacy in development institutions and global governance
2. Reclaiming the Cracks: Sites of Hope, Resistance and Alternatives
● Indigenous, peasant, civil society, labor, youth and Gen Z uprisings and struggles for land rights, sovereignty, ecological stewardship, democratization, and social change
● Feminist, queer, and communities of care and social reproduction
● Practices of commoning, degrowth, and Buen Vivir
● Technology as a tool for liberation and digital activism against surveillance capitalism
● South–South cooperation, emergent mutual aid, and reciprocal relations
3. Reawakening Consciousness: Theories and Pedagogies for Transformative Futures
● Decolonial, abolitionist, anti-capitalist and post-development frameworks
● Art, narrative, culture, and popular education for development communication
● Pedagogy of hope, educating for sustainability, and learning for participatory action
● Transnational solidarities and ethics of global justice in an age of insularity, racism and ethno-nationalism
● Methodologies for studying futures of, or alternatives to, development
Submission Guidelines and Timeline
Please submit a 300-word proposal with the contact details of the Working Group Coordinator(s) by 25 October 2025 to info.developmentdays@gmail.com.
● 30.09.2025: Call for working groups opens
● 25.10.2025: Deadline for working group proposals
● 31.10.2025: Acceptance of working groups
● 7.11.2025: Call for papers opens
● 30.11.2025: Deadline for paper abstract submission
● 8.12.2025: Notification of accepted abstracts
● 12.01.2026: Registration opens
● 15.02.2026: Registration closes
● 25.02.2026: Pre-conference events (DocShop, Master’s Workshop, Public Forum)
● 26.-27.02.2026: #DevDays2026 Conference in Helsinki
In line with our commitment to democratizing, diversifying, and decolonizing development knowledge, we welcome online participation and hybrid engagement. We particularly encourage collaboration with colleagues from the Global South.
For more information and updates, please visit the conference website regularly, follow FSDR’s social media pages (Facebook and LinkedIn), or contact us at info.developmentdays@gmail.com.