After our fruitful discussions at the Land, Life and Society conference at PLAAS, we will be meeting at a convening of the same name in the days before the ICARRD+20 conference. We hope that as many people as possible who participated in Cape Town will be able to join the next discussion, in Cartagena in February 2026.
International Academic Conference for Land, Life & Society
at the International Conference for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20)
Venue: University of Cartagena, Colombia
Dates: 20–22 February 2026
Deadline for submission of applications/abstracts: 31 October 2025
Results announcement: 15 November
Deadline for accepted participants’ full papers: 31 January 2025
The Steering Committee of the Red de Académicas y Académicos por la Tierra y por la Vida (Network of Scholars for Land and Life), University of Cartagena, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, the National Planning Department all of Colombia; the Rural Studies Network (Rede de Estudos Rurais), Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farminig (MDA) and National Institute of Colonization of Agrarian Reform (INCRA) of Brazil; the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists in the South (CASAS); and Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS).
Call for application to participate in the International Academic Conference for Land, Life & Society on 20-22 February 2026 at the University of Cartagena, Colombia.
The conference will co-constitute the International Conference of Researchers for Land, Life and Society, an academic gathering with a particular focus on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), but with international participation. While it is principally an academic space, it will also take the format of a dialogue with social movements. We will invite a critical mass of key representatives of social movements in Colombia, Latin America and the Caribbean and internationally to actively participate and engage in this space.
The international conference will provide simultaneous interpretation in Spanish, Portuguese and English, and will include a parallel Call for Abstracts both regionally and internationally.
We invite
Researchers, lecturers, academics, research groups, and doctoral students from Latin America and the Caribbean and internationally working on agrarian, food, labour environmental and rural issues, with an interest in agrarian reform and the care of the environment and nature – partly in dialogue with social movements.
Objectives
- To share research findings and ongoing processes with the interested academic community.
- To prepare recommendations from academia for the Second Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, to be held in Cartagena from 24 to 28 February 2026.
- To foster collaboration between academia and rural social movements in order to position and strengthen public policy on democratising land regimes through redistributive policies like agrarian reform.
Call for abstracts
We are keen on papers that look into the political economy and political ecology from critical perspectives on the politics of land in the broadest sense (that is, not just for farming). We are keen on those that link land politics to broader issues such as food politics, labour and livelihoods, migration and mobility, climate change and environmental issues, public authority and citizenship, violence and peace-building, and geopolitics, among others.
Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words indicating the type of presentation proposed for day one (paper, video or another format), together with the objective and the structure or thematic axes to be addressed.
Where to submit abstracts
Abstracts should be sent to icarrdacademic@gmail.com together with a short biographical note on the author(s) (a brief biography maximum of up to 50 words of each author).
Timetable
- Deadline for submission of applications/abstracts: 31 October 2025
- Announcement of results: 15 November
- Deadline for accepted participants’ full papers: 31 January 2025
The organisers have very little resources. We will not charge any conferences fees, and might be able tom offer free lunches during the conference, but we are unlikely to provide travel and accommodation support.
