Call for extended abstract
Instabilities within water, food and heath complex interconnections are self-reinforcing and have direct and disproportional effects on mental and physical wellbeing and sustainable development across geographies and genders. These instabilities are exacerbating daily by various dynamics including but are not limited to climate change, urbanisation, inequality, inequity and population growth. Consequently, we live in the age of vanishing territories as well as disappearing landscapes, foodscapes , waterscapes and healthscapes . The grim statistics of water and food-related human sufferings, including illnesses, are not only on the increase; they are also characterised by starling paradoxes: Overweight and underweight now coexist in the same household; over seventy percent of the earth is water yet over two billion people lacked access to clean water and sanitation; 795 million people are food insecure but one third of all food produced in the world is thrown into dustbin per annum.
These problems and paradoxes are evidently seen in various waterscapes and foodscapes across BRICS-PLUS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and other African countries). This conference, therefore , calls for innovative, conjectural, ideological, theoretical and practical templates for unmaking unsecured and unstable waterscapes and foodscapes in BRICS-PLUS . The conference accordingly welcomes scholarly papers and invite pundits, scholars and policymakers to interrogate and ponder new ways of addressing practices, political economies , and power relations associated with the troubled waterscapes and foodscapes in order to build sustainability into water , food and health nexus in BRICS-PLUS .
While a country specific case study is welcomed, priority will be given to papers that compare a particular case study across BRICS-PLUS and/or between genders. The paper proposal is an extended abstract (approximately 1000 words) comprising author's contact information, outline of the main issues, key hypotheses/ arguments, methodology, case studies to be considered, structure of the paper and keywords. Please, submit your extended abstract (approximately 1000 words) along with your 2-page CV by 1st of August 2018 via email: vicokoria@yahoo.com
The thematic areas:
Track 1: Nutrition security in water and food nexus
Track 2: Politics and policies in water and food nexus in humanitarian spaces and peacebuilding projects
Track 3: Mental health and wellbeing in water and food nexus
Track 4: Social and spatial justice in water and food nexus
Track 5: Water and food nexus and technology and digitalised world
Track 6: Gender equality in water and food nexus
Track 7: Water and food nexus in the age of vanishing territories and climate change
Track 8: Violence, threats and instability in water and food nexus
Track 9: Ecosystem, urbanisation and livelihoods in water and food nexus
Track 10: Value-chain, media, non-state actors and agricultural extension in water and food nexus