A global conversation about the politics of land and resource struggles in an era of global and local crises

7-9 October 2025
University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

PLAAS is pleased to announce our upcoming international conference on Land, Life and Society.

Urgent attention is needed to the challenges of land and agrarian reform in the contemporary world. Today, intersecting crises, the rise of authoritarian populism and far-reaching processes of financialisation are affecting rural worlds globally. Land, water and rare earth minerals present new opportunities for accumulation of wealth, often in the name of carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation and the decoupling of economic growth from resource-intensive industries. All combine to further escalate competition for land and other natural resources. For the most marginalised communities in rural and urban spaces, the results of these interventions are predictable and familiar: land dispossession, jobless de-agrarianisation and political alienation.

Picture courtesy of Zacharia Mashele/Ndifuna Ukwazi.