Call for Papers: Development Alternatives within Contested Territories in Latin America Workshop

Previous workshops on Contested Territories elaborated how the concept of Development Alternatives centres on the production and appropriation of space in relation to often overlapping cultural, economic, environmental and spatial conflicts (workshop in Leeds, May 2019). These also examined, from a political economy perspective, how the contestation of territory is deeply connected to the production, circulation and consumption of value (workshop in York, September 2019). The upcoming third and final workshop at the University of Sheffield builds on the above and further develops the concept of Contested Territories through a focus on development alternatives.

Call for Papers:

This workshop will focus on the construction of development alternatives in the context of Contested Territories, focusing not only on previous and recent social uprisings in Latin America but also on the institutionalisation of development alternatives – for example, within Bolivia’s and Ecuador’s constitutions – as well as on more subtle conscious and unconscious day-to-day practices which put into question conventional forms of development. In particular, we invite contributions that address one or more of the following questions:

• In which contexts and how do innovative approaches, framed around the notion of development alternatives, emerge in relation to Contested Territories in Latin America?
• What are the differences between distinct articulations of development alternatives?
• How can we highlight and reconcile tensions between such different articulations and associated ontological and epistemological positions?
• How are development alternatives being integrated into legal systems and governance mechanisms?
• To what extent and how are development alternatives engaged differently in policy and governance mechanisms on one hand, and in daily practices that shape, negotiate and appropriate Contested Territories on the other hand?
• What epistemological, theoretical and methodological approaches are required to make visible bottom-up models of scientific, cultural, political and economic innovation framed around development alternatives?
• What are the limits to 'development alternatives'?
• Are they simply 'alternatives to development as usual'?
• What are the convergences and divergences between official rhetoric on development and alternative knowledges epitomised in the Pluriverse?
• What are the resulting implications for Contested Territories?

Please see the detailed CfP links below‌ for more information (in English, Portuguese and Spanish):

• CfP Development Alternatives Contested Territories English (PDF , 570kb)
• CfP Development Alternatives Contested Territories Portuguese (PDF , 403kb)‌
• CfP Development Alternatives Contested Territories Spanish (PDF , 573kb)‌

Abstracts may be submitted in Spanish, Portuguese or English, summarising the objectives of the proposed paper communication and explain how they relate to the key questions addressed in this call. Abstracts should not exceed 200 words and include the names, contact details and affiliation of all authors. Drawing on the method of counter-cartography (see for example, This is not an Atlas), as part of the workshop, we will also be producing a collaborative map to visualise our different perspectives towards development alternatives within Contested Territories. For this, we will ask everyparticipant to bring along an artefact (e.g. photo, painting, poem, etc) which helps to foreground your perspective on this topic. Priority will be given to PhD and ECRs but the event is open to all.

All submissions are to be emailed directly to development_alternatives_sheffield@outlook.com by 13 December 2019