The Journées doctorales organized by the Pôle foncier (land tenure platform) in Montpellier are being held from 12 to 15 December 2011 at the Maison des sciences de l'homme in Montpellier. This means four days of scientific debate and discussions for PhD students working on land tenure issues in the South.

The event has been organized by the SIG Pôle de recherche sur le foncier rural dans les pays du Sud, which associates CIRAD, IAMM, the IRD and SupAgro. The Pôle foncier aims to foster synergies between scientific teams working on land tenure issues in developing countries.

As Emmanuelle Bouquet, a CIRAD researcher, explains: "the aim of the 2011 event is to provide a platform for PhD students who are opening up new fields of study and building the research landscape of the future. We are giving them the means to talk to each other and to researchers from the different current social science disciplines ".

For this first edition, some 17 PhD students from Africa and Europe will each have an hour and a half to present their work on land tenure to the scientific community, to be followed by debates with researcher "discussants" and the audience.

This series of presentations is of interest by virtue of the range of approaches covered:

disciplines: geography, economics, political sciences, sociology, anthropology, law

topics : land rights, land grabbing dynamics, agrarian contracts, land governance

geography : Colombia, Mexico, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Algeria, Thailand, New Caledonia.

Each day will begin with a plenary address:

Monday 12 December, 2 pm: Land rights in the long term: how can a complex history help us understand current land tenure issues?
- Gérard Chouquer (CNRS, geography)

Tuesday 13 December, 9 am: Is building collective land resource management bodies based on Elinor Ostrom's principle of commons still relevant in 2011?
- Thierry Ruf (IRD, geography)

Wednesday 14 December, 9 am: Land rights, between perceptions and demands for reality.
- Alain Rochegude (University of Paris I, law)

Thursday 15 December, 9 am: Microsocial approach to land disputes.
- Jean-Pierre Jacob (IHEID Geneva, anthropology).

The event is open to all, subject to prior registration at: pole.foncier@msh-m.org

Category: Science