Edward L. Webb (Viikki Tropical Resources Institute, University of Helsinki)
Heini Vihemäki (Viikki Tropical Resources Institute, University of Helsinki)
Description:
Rural, farming-based landscapes across the Global South are losing people as individuals and entire families seek new livelihoods elsewhere. The drivers of this outmigration are well studied. Far less understood is what happens to the landscapes and communities left behind. How are relationships between people, communities and land changing in depopulating rural areas, especially in the landscapes in diverse parts of Global South? How are socio-ecological systems adapting, or failing to adapt, as agricultural labour declines, remittances reshape household economies, and food security shifts? Where farming persists, it may move from subsistence and staple cropping toward market-oriented, profit-maximising modalities. Elsewhere, land could be abandoned, consolidated, acquired by outside actors, or reclaimed by forest and wildlife.
These transformations raise tricky questions about who controls land and resources in rural landscapes of the Global South as communities thin out. The changes also raise the question on what becomes of commons and customary tenure, including so called community-based resource management systems. Furthermore, such transformations make us ask whether abandonment opens space for biodiversity recovery or for new resource frontiers, and how, when and where the remaining residents are capable to shape their own futures.
This Working Group invites proposals related to the questions raised above, and related dynamics. The Working Group will take the form of an interactive poster session, enabling participants to share their key findings, receive feedback on their work, triggering exchange and discussion across disciplines, schools of thought, and geographic regions. We invite contributions in the form of posters and associated short oral presentations that highlight the main questions raised and bring out key theoretical, methodological or empirical contributions, possible reflections and questions raised by the work.
We aim at 5-6 posters and associated short talks and interactive discussions. We are especially interested in research-based posters. Yet we also welcome examples from practice and related reflections on rural depopulation, its consequences for people–nature relationships. We welcome a wide range of perspectives and cases, including changing agricultural, forestry and land-use systems, ecological outcomes, and cultural, philosophical or conceptual transformations.
Type of call:
Open for abstract submissions
Participation mode:
In-Person Only (Helsinki)
Submission Details & Funding Note:
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- Email address(es) for submissions of abstracts and inquiries: edward.webb@helsinki.fi; heini.m.vihemaki@helsinki.fi
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Abstract word count limit: 300 words. The abstracts should describe background or justification, questions, key findings and contributions of the project/case. The final output is to be presented in a poster format and associated short oral presentation (few minutes) in the in-person working group. Each presenter is also expected to provide comments to another presenter in the session. For selected posters, we will ask for an electronic version of the poster latest two weeks prior to the event.
Funding note:
Participants are expected to secure their own funding to participate in the working group.
Contacts:
Edward L. Webb, eward.webb@helsinki.fi
Viikki Tropical Resources Institute
Department of Forest Sciences
University of Helsinki
University of Helsinki