Calls for papers

Announcement Calenda 1 367 625

Announcement Calenda 1 367 625 (extracts)

In May 2027, the DeCoLa program of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law will hold the fourth edition of its decolonial comparative law workshop series in Cameroon. Organized in partnership with the Afric'Avenir Foundation, this edition aims to rethink the divide between the formal and informal economy through a decolonial comparative legal approach. It also aims to contribute to the consolidation of a decolonial comparative law community across the African continent and beyond.

This call is part of a series of workshops on decolonial comparative law. Following workshops on methodology (Johannesburg/online 2020), pre-colonial law (Oxford 2022) and property (Brasília 2024), this fourth workshop will examine decolonial comparative approaches to the informal and formal economy.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Informal cross-border trade, including trade carried out by peoples transcending state borders, regardless of its legality under national legislation.
• Local and digital currencies created or used for non-colonial purposes.
• Indigenous and customary economies, both urban and rural, including their own non-colonial value systems, exchange practices and monetary forms.
• Ecofeminist, pastoralist and intentional communities (e.g. ZADs in France), as well as pre-colonial or other traditional modes of value creation (regardless of the actual historical roots of the practice).
• Labor rights in informal work, including economic dependence within and beyond the employer-employee relationship, conflict resolution practices and collective organization (e.g. unions, associations, cooperatives).
• Microcredit, alternative securities and property rights as mechanisms for accessing capital.
• The (non-)legal recognition of informal workers.
• Migration and the (in)formal economy.
• Informal work at the heart of globalization.
• Digital businesses and the linking of informal workers via digital platforms (e.g. Instagram/TikTok, Yango/Uber).
• State-imposed constraints on local economic sovereignty, including the spatial distribution and regulation of formal and informal economic activities.
• The blurred boundaries between formal and informal economies: workers operating in both contexts (e.g. secondary jobs for civil servants; 'entrepreneurs' or 'débrouillard.e.s').

If your research does not fit any of these themes, we still encourage you to submit a proposal. Generally speaking, we invite authors to analyze and destabilize coloniality by examining, in a comparative way, the economic and legal imaginaries through which communities (generally, but not necessarily, in the South) define, practice or refuse to practice an economy beyond (or in spite of) coloniality.

Announcement Calenda 1 363 334

The Revue Droit, Société et Pouvoir invites contributions for its Volume 15, Issue 2 (September 2026). The journal welcomes original research articles as well as theoretical contributions offering rigorous interdisciplinary analyses of contemporary transformations in legal systems, governance structures, political authority and international dynamics.

The following themes are particularly encouraged (non-exhaustive list):

• Legal systems and institutional reforms.
• Social and political rights.
• International relations and global governance.
• Public policy and societal impact.
• Political theories and ideological developments.

Announcement Calenda 1 364 149

After the creation of the universe, the Genesis account of origins depicts Adam and Eve settling in a paradisiacal space, before their exclusion following the original transgression. This passage from the garden of abundance to the earthly world is symbolically associated with the obligation to work and the confrontation with a nature now marked by hostility. The human experience of nature is thus invested with a strong religious charge: natural elements, whether benevolent or destructive, are interpreted in many traditions as the expression of a divine will or judgment.

Announcement Calenda 1 359 022

With this thematic issue, the journal Géographie et Cultures aims to examine the ecosystemic processes associated with the notion of "desertification", its economic, political and environmental causes and consequences, as well as the representations associated with it and their constructions.

presentation (extracts) instructions

Each issue of Nouvelles Questions Féministes deals with a theme proposed by a coordinating group, made up of members of the magazine's editorial board and possibly external specialists. The magazine accepts off-theme proposals for the Champ libre section at all times, and reserves the Grand angle section for thematic contributions. NQF regularly issues calls for contributions on these themes, but not always, when, for example, an issue is put together following a symposium that the editorial board has deemed of interest to the magazine.

Announcement Calenda 1 358 938

The International Review of the UNESCO Chair in Education and Sustainable Development (ESD) is a multidisciplinary scientific collection dedicated to the critical exploration and dissemination of knowledge, innovative teaching practices and field experiences related to the contemporary challenges of sustainable development. Its first issue inaugurates a series of scientific publications dedicated to critical, interdisciplinary and forward-looking reflection on the major contemporary challenges of education for sustainable development.

Announcement Calenda 1 351 288

Against a backdrop of increasing pressure on African coastlines, including erosion, overfishing, pollution and conflicts of use, the blue economy is emerging as a strategic horizon for reconciling economic development, social inclusion and ecological sustainability. However, this notion, often promoted by international bodies, is based on technocratic, top-down approaches that tend to marginalize local knowledge and cultural practices derived from the experience of coastal communities. In Africa, such knowledge, long perceived as "traditional" or "informal", nonetheless constitutes a reservoir of skills, norms of use and representations of the marine world, essential for thinking about integrated and situated management of marine and coastal resources. From a sociological point of view, this symposium is in line with work on the co-production of knowledge (Jasanoff, 2004), environmental commons (Ostrom, 1990) and participatory governance (Fung and Wright, 2003), which questions the way in which scientific and lay knowledge can dialogue to build legitimate, effective and equitable public policies. The aim is to go beyond a strictly extractivist vision of the blue economy and give it a territorial and social scope, by placing local stakeholders - such as artisanal fishermen, women processors, ecotourism guides, etc. - at the heart of the dynamics of innovation, regulation and valorization.

Moreover, from a postcolonial perspective, the recognition of local knowledge also makes it possible to question the epistemic hierarchies inherited from Western modernity (Santos, 2011), and pave the way for an "ecology of knowledge" capable of responding to the challenges of climate change, food security and environmental justice.

Thus, this symposium aims to question the theoretical, practical and political conditions for the valorization of local knowledge in the dynamics of the blue economy, through an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, anchored in African realities.

(Announcement Calenda 1153603)

The innovative Sports Atlas is an observatory of sports at different geographical scales. A tool for analyzing the sporting world and the dynamics that run through it, without claiming to be exhaustive, it brings together multiple contributions from researchers in geography and sociology, but also in anthropology, law, economics, history, political science, geopolitics, information and communication sciences, STAPS, as well as experts in digital and dynamic cartography. Going beyond a simple inventory and study of competitive sports, the project is part of a multi-disciplinary and complementary approach to understanding and representing sporting cultures, sport-related issues and their forms of spatialization. A cross-disciplinary project for cartographic development and scientific dissemination aimed at a wider (extra-academic) public, it is certainly inspired by previous reflections and productions, but intends to be an innovative project, drawing on a variety of materials, addressing a multiplicity of themes and questions, and promoting scientific and civic debate.

Calenda announcement 1 404 683 (extracts)

This is one of the questions that will drive the 6th edition of the colloquium for doctoral students and young doctors, entitled "Actualité et réactions du droit", to be held on November 17, 2026 at the Faculté de Droit et de Sciences politiques in Nantes. The aim is to discuss and study the various reactions of the law to events of varying degrees of importance. While the law may give the impression of feeding on current events, it also appears that certain subjects and certain types of events do not lead to any evolution, or even lead the legislator to go back on acquired legal norms.

Announcement Calenda 1 399 210 (extracts)

The 7ᵉ edition of the Congress broadened the scope of analysis by systemically integrating the five fundamental pillars of climate action: (1) mitigation, (2) adaptation, (3) loss and damage, (4) resilience and (5) finance, marking an essential conceptual transition towards an integrated and territorialized vision of climate change, in line with international scientific and political priorities.