September 25, 2025

“the South should not be reduced to a source of raw data that are to be inserted or simply included into the Northern theory factories”

Diana Ojeda & Nicholas Blomley (2024) ‘Grounding legal geography: Conversations on law, space, and power across disparate geographies’. Politics & Space, 42(3):325-333 at 326.

I had the pleasure of attending the First International Conference of Critical Legal Geography, which was held in Turin, Italy in February 2024. The Call For Papers for the Second iteration of this gathering has recently been finalised (I’m a member of the Conference’s Steering Committee), and I copy it below.

Hosting the next event in South America marks the truly global, inclusive intentions of the Critical Legal Geography network, and echoes the agenda-setting work of Ojeda and Blomley in seeking to develop productive, collaborative, academic conversations between legal geographers in the North and South, as reported in their 2024 article quoted above. Their article introduces a Special Issue which explores the situated (grounded) nature of Colombian and Canadian legal geographies, as explored via a series of collaborative workshops between 2017 and 2019. Their concern is with the practice of doing legal geographies, acknowledging the plurality of such knowledge and investigation and “the uneven geopolitics of knowledge”(326). The authors’ aim is to *“provincialize”*legal geographic enquiry so as to better see how its knowledge rises up from locality and to see again the “power-ridden processes of co-constitution of law and space” (326) – i.e. colonial domination. Advocating a North / South co-production of knowledge (rather than just making the South intelligible to the North) Ojeda & Blomley (2024) speak directly and clearly to both of the legal geography project’s splicing foci.

The conference in Concepción will further that equitable co-production. Here’s the CFP:

Second International Conference of Critical Legal Geography

Universidad de Concepción, Chile 17-20 March 2026

Description

The second International Critical Legal Geography Conference brings together transdisciplinary scholars to discuss the mutual constitution of space and law, broadly conceived. The conference follows the first international CLG conference held in Turin (Italy) in February 2024.

This call intends to create an open space for projects that engage with the ‘big tent’ that is critical legal geography. We welcome a variety of thematics and approaches. Given the locality of the conference in Concepción, Chile, we wish particularly to invite scholars whose work focuses on topics that are important in this context (Indigenous territories; extractive borders; the appropriation of common goods; the consequences of climate change; alternative spatial imaginaries) to apply. The intention is to generate debate concerning the current imbrication of law in sociospatial processes of all kinds with an emphasis on the value of perspectives from the South; however, given the general nature of the conference, we welcome contributions on other questions relevant to critical legal geography, such as:

#energy and extraction #(post)(neo)(settler) colonialism #Indigenous rights

#the global/the local #method #anthropocene #climate change

#future spaces #more-than-human legal geographies #blue legalities

#housing #migration #informality/illegality #borders #property #land use ****

#cities/urban #spatial justice #legal pluralism #infrastructures #spatial justice

The emphasis of the conference on indigenous rights and environmental issues will be reflected not only in a series of parallel thematic sessions, but also in some excursions. Actually, the Bio Bío Region of Chile, home to a significant population of the Mapuche people, has been the site of longstanding struggles over land rights, cultural recognition, and environmental justice. Indigenous organizations in Bio Bío have engaged in legal, political, and direct action strategies to reclaim ancestral lands, protect sacred sites, and assert autonomy over natural resources. These efforts often challenge prevailing models of economic development and call for alternative frameworks grounded in Indigenous cosmovision and territorial rights. Excursions and meetings with local communities will enable participants to gain first-hand knowledge of these issues, which will stimulate research projects on these topics.

Location

Universidad de Concepción, Chile

Edmundo Larenas 234, Concepción, Chile

• Read about Concepción, Chile
• Universidad de Concepción

Submissions

Those interested in participating have two options:

One is to respond to one or more keywords by submitting an abstract (max 500 words). Name(s), affiliation(s), and short bio(s) (maximum 200 words) of the authors must be included as well.

The second option is to self-organize and propose a thematic session. In this case, authors should submit a broad overview of the session, together with the titles and short abstracts of the contributions (minimum 3, maximum 4), names, affiliations, and short bios of the participants. In the spirit of dialogue and flexibility, if we receive an individual proposal that also suits a proposed thematic suggestion, we may ask you to create space for the additional presentation.

In selecting abstracts, we will make every effort to reflect diverse perspectives, in particular, from groups which are under-represented. Such considerations will not be limited to gender, race, ethnicity, ability, and economic status, and will take into account intersectional diversity as a whole.

• Submit your Abstract
• Submit your Thematic Session

Deadline

The deadline for submissions is 10 November 2025. We will respond to all submissions by 28 November 2025.

Fees & Grants

Fees: No conference fee is requested.

Grants: The conference will provide a limited number of grants to financially support participants experiencing financial hardship, with a particular attention to Indigenous scholars, Palestinians and other scholars impacted by war, conflict, and humanitarian crises in their home countries. People interested in receiving such grants must get in touch with the organizing committee after the acceptance of their contribution.

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Organizing Committee

Voltaire Alvarado Peterson (Department of Geography), Paula Quijada Prado (Department of Geography), Verónica Delgado Schneider (Department of Environmental Law), Noelia Carrasco Henríquez (Department of History), Matthew W. Caulkins (Department of Urbanism-Intercultural and Indigenous Studies), Robinson Torres Salinas (Department of Sociology), Edilia Jaque Castillo (Department of Geography-Multihazards Studies).

Steering Committee

Hadeel Abu Hussein (Erasmus University); Marco Allegra (University of Lisbon); Voltaire Alvarado Peterson (University of Concepción); Nufar Avni (Hebrew University of Jerusalem); Tugba Basaran (University of Cambridge); Luke Bennett (Sheffield Hallam University); Francesco Chiodelli (University of Turin); Philip Hubbard (King’s College London); Isabella Leroy (University of Amsterdam); Gail Lythgoe (University of Edinburgh); Elya Milner (Technical University of Berlin); Daniela Morpurgo (Polytechnic University of Turin); Matteo Nicolini (University of Verona); Elsa Noterman (University of Nottingham); Andrea Pavoni (University Institute of Lisbon); Jae Page (University of Toronto); Giacomo Pettenati (University of Eastern Piedmont); Benjamin Ralston (University of Saskatchewan)

Funders

The conference has been funded by: Fondo de apoyo para la organización de Congresos y Encuentros de Investigación VRID (University of Concepción); ANID-FONDECYT Regular N°1251553, ANID-FONDECYT Iniciación N°11240564, ANID-FONDECYT Iniciación N°11241033 and ANID-Fortalecimiento de Programas Doctorales N°86220002 (University of Concepción); Law and Society Association Grant 2025 “Spatial Justice in the Americas”.

Image credit:“All shall be equal before the law: justice graffiti in Cape Town, South Africa” by Ben Sutherland is licensed under CC BY 2.0.