Call for papers due 5 January: 7th Global Conference on Economic Geography Clark University, 4-8 June 2025

Call for papers for the 7^th Global Conference on Economic Geography “Governance Challenges for A Sustainable and Inclusive Future”, June 4-8, 2025, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

Session Organizers: Amelie Bernzen (University of Vechta), Alexander Follmann (University of Cologne), Marit Rosol (University of Würzburg)

Agri-food systems under pressure – Governance and other challenges for a sustainable and inclusive agri-food transformation

The interconnected global crises, also known as the polycrisis, which include climate change, biodiversity loss, geopolitical tensions, conflicts, wars, and the lingering effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, underscore the urgency of transforming agri-food system at global, national and regional/ local scales. The polycrisis is having direct impacts on agri-food value chains, threatening food and nutrition security as well as income and livelihoods for producers and other stakeholders. At the same time, the dominant productionist paradigm that structures global agri-food systems is a significant contributing factor to some of these crises, above all the massive loss of biodiversity. In this already dire situation, it is of great concern that current responses to the polycrisis of governments, agri-food corporations, producers and consumers are endangering the still rather limited transformative pathways towards more sustainable and equitable food systems. Such responses include, for example, the suspension of environmental and sustainability targets in EU agricultural policies, reshoring debates, and inflation-related changes in consumer behavior leading to declining sales of organic food.

While shocks to the system (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) may initially provide a window of opportunity for rethinking and reorganizing food systems at different scales, we are currently witnessing an at least partial reversal of the already inadequate transformation efforts. Furthermore, while Free Trade had been the tenet of neoliberal economic policy for decades, there are indications that a new phase of protectionism may be emerging. The confluence of these factors, coupled with the ascendance of populism and authoritarianism, the widening urban-rural divides, rising social inequality and polarization, and the uncertain and uneven effects of sweeping technological change, poses significant challenge to the realization of sustainable and inclusive food futures. In this context, the governance of agri-food systems at all levels and by a range of actors – including regulatory efforts and economic and trade agreements at the sub-national, national, supra-national and global scale; governance of value chains and production networks; as well as governance of alternative food networks, producer or producer-consumer organizations – is of great importance. 

With a specific focus on, but not limited to, governance questions, in this session we therefore we aim at:

1) an examination and critical analysis of the current state of agri-food system development, related to inherent issues and contradictions, the polycrisis, and existing transformation efforts, and

2) an investigation of possible ways forward regarding different scales and actors, including new forms of economic governance, novel political and regulatory approaches, alternative economic practices and initiatives, and other strategies.

We welcome theoretical and/ or empirical presentations from various economic geography perspectives addressing these issues.

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit presentation title, abstract of up to 250 words and contact details of all presenters to Amelie Bernzen (amelie.bernzen@uni-vechta.de), Alexander Follmann (a.follmann@uni-koeln.de) and Marit Rosol (marit.rosol@uni-wuerzburg.de) by 5^th January 2025.

We will send notifications on the acceptance of abstracts by Friday 10 January 2025. Authors will need to submit abstracts via the GCEG conference website and pay the registration fee by the conference deadline of 15 January 2025.

For general information on the conference see: https://gceg.org/