The Laudato Si’ Research Institute hosts a two-day online symposium, The politics of land: insights from Asia, on 11 and 12 February 2021 at 1300-1500 GMT, gathering academics and practitioners to explore and analyze concerns on land governance, land dispossession, environmental protection, and the rights of indigenous communities in Asia, and all in dialogue with Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
As described in the symposium flyer, the tension in “modern life consists of an encounter between the local and the global. In his recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis set forth his vision for this encounter. ‘We need to pay attention to the global so as to avoid narrowness and banality’ yet ‘we also need to look to the local, which keeps our feet on the ground.’ Only by holding these in creative tension with one another can we be prevented from ‘falling into one of two extremes.’” (Fratelli Tutti, paragraph 142)
“The delicacy of this tension is nowhere more evident than in the issue of land rights and land governance in Asia. What sort of global or national interests are encroaching on Indigenous Peoples’ land, forests, and waterways? How can government policies be developed from the perspective of social justice and people’s response to dispossession of land? How can issues of social identity, culture, livelihood, and food security be examined through a study of land reform?”
This symposium is part of a series of events by the Laudato Si’ Research Institute on the theme of integral ecology. Registration is free and all are welcome to join.
