Launching seminar on May 24, 2012. 13-16 at Roskilde University (25.3)

Land-grabbing, deforestation, migration, urbanization, political participation, displacement, resettlement, decentralization … There is no shortage of processes – large in scale and deep in scope – that currently shape life conditions and chances for millions of people in the poorer parts of the world.

Disparate as these processes may seem, they all in various ways engage two core questions, namely what rights and access to resources are held by whom? How are resources secured, and how are entitlements distributed? Together, the relationship between property and citizenship – in a broad sense – capture this inquiry.

The newly founded research unit, ProCit, studies the shifting spaces and forms of struggle over the parameters of property and citizenship.

These conflicts include both assertions of formal state authority and the creation of different institutions with state quality. Thus, we simultaneously investigate state formation and fragmentation as a result of competition over resources and political subjectivity. We undertake field research in rural, peri-urban and urban contexts in Benin, Ghana, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines and Zimbabwe

Programme, May 24, at 13 - 16.

ProCit – What is the idea? Christian Lund, Roskilde University. [20 min]

Rural and Environmental Enclosures, Ole Mertz, University of Copenhagen. [20 min]

Urban Citizenship in (Post)Crisis Contexts, Amanda Hammar, University of Copenhagen. [20 min]

Discussants:

• Jesse Ribot, University of Illinois. [15 min]

• Jun Borras, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. [15 min]

General discussion [30 min]

Reception afterwards in building 23.2

Funding: Danish Social Science Research Council; Roskilde and Copenhagen universities and the

Research and Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims.