Call for Papers: Conference on Stewardship of Planet Earth

May 31, 2014 | UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (UCL ISR)

On 6 & 7 November 2014, the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (UCL ISR) & UCL Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction (GCII) will be hosting a two day conference that will seek to explore the concept of stewardship for planet earth from a multitude perspectives. The programme will consist of a mix of plenary, parallel and networking sessions with speakers from across UCL and a range of external speakers from grassroots community organisations to high profile national and international speakers. We now invite applications from academic colleagues and early career researchers interested in presenting their findings at the symposium event. The symposium provides an excellent opportunity for you to present your work to a mixed audience of academics, industry representative, NGOs and policy-makers. Interested parties are invited to submit an abstract of up to 250 words outlining the research they would wish to present, under the following themes. 1. Challenges to Stewardship & Resource Use 

  • What cases are useful to illustrate challenges of multilevel and polycentric governance of resources?
  • What are the special challenges invoked by the resource nexus, planetary boundaries and security ramifications?
  • What is the context of stewardship, e.g. as regards to institutional and behavioural support mechanisms and socio-cultural connotations?
 2. Local approaches to stewardship: Cultures of ownership, conflicts, and cooperation
  • How do local communities deal with stewardship? What forms of national or international stewardship might help them to maintain their livelihoods?
  • What is the evidence for conflicts and cooperation in contemporary local or regional cases? What are the prospects for the future?
  • Are there lessons from history that might apply?
  • What is a role for business in local sustainable resource management?
 3. Emerging new forms of Governing Stewardship
  • What are the new governance mechanisms in e.g. forestry, marine, water, or materials stewardship?
  • How do they address the sustainability dimension and issues such as property rights, transparency, accountability, certification, participation, and consequences thereof?
  • What motives underpin contemporary articulations of stewardship, and are they being advanced as alternatives to more binding forms of state regulation?
  • To what extent does stewardship currently offer a meaningful route to resource sustainability?