CONFERENCE CALL "Land use in transition: potentials and solutions between abandonment and land grabbing"

Deadline for paper proposals and mini-symposia: 27 January 2012
Notification of paper proposals acceptance: 16 March 2012
IAMO Forum 2012: 20 - 22 June 2012

"Land use is receiving increasing attention due to its manifold repercussions on human wellbeing and the environment. Land use changes are particularly pronounced in many transition economies, where the legacies of the rapid and drastic institutional and socioeconomic system changes sent land use systems on new trajectories.

The IAMO Forum 2012 will provide a platform for research that investigates the main trends and drivers of land use in transition economies of Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, and East Asia. We welcome contributions that shed light on patterns, phenomena, and drivers of land-use changes. We aim to capture the prevalent changes and modification of land use including agricultural abandonment and recultivation, changes in farm size and farmland fragmentation, the emergence of large-scale agricultural production units, extensification and intensification of agriculture, logging and forest transitions. The conference contributions may exploit a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches ranging from micro-level analysis of land management to institutional, socioeconomic and geographic investigations of land-use change at the local, regional and cross-national level. Interdisciplinary contributions are particularly welcome.

Call for Mini-symposia
We welcome proposals for mini-symposia that focus on a specific topic within the interests of the IAMO Forum 2012. They will be limited to 90 minutes. Proposals for mini-symposia should include the symposia title and an abstract of up to 300 words that concisely describes its aim. They should further summarize the content and structure of the event and give the names and affiliations of the prospective participants. The organizers are responsible for all aspects of the mini-symposium, including soliciting, reviewing, and selecting the contributions. Proposals for mini-symposia have to be submitted electronically in English to forum2012[at]iamo.de until 27 January 2012.

Call for Paper Proposals
We request the contribution of paper proposals with up to 1,500 words. Paper proposals need to include an abstract of up to 250 words plus a concise summary of the motivation and research questions, data and methods, main results, and key literature of the prospective paper. Please follow the formatting guidelines for paper proposals and use the provided Word Template. The specified structure for paper proposals is obligatory. The paper proposals have to be submitted electronically in English via our website until 27 January 2012. Online submission is now open.

All contributed paper proposals will go through peer review. Notification of selected proposals for an oral presentation will be sent by 16 March 2012. All accepted paper proposals will be published on the conference website. A selection of the best contributions will be invited to submit a full paper for inclusion in a special issue of a high ranking journal.

Researchers from Central and Eastern Europe are strongly encouraged to submit paper proposals. In order to facilitate the participation of talented young researchers we offer a limited number of travel/accommodation grants for authors of accepted contributions (depending on availability of funds)."

More information: http://www.iamo.de/forum0/forum2012/conference-call.html