CALL FOR PAPERS!
FIREPOL will participate in the 2026 POLLEN Conference in Barcelona!
We are joining forces with Michelle Valette (Imperial College London) and Kapil Yadav (Royal Holloway, University of London) to organize a panel on “Power, Land, and Fire: Crisis Narratives and Burning Practices”.
This panel explores the political ecology of fire, focusing on the narratives and practices that shape fire governance and their relationship with land politics. Historically, Eurocentric narratives and conservation agendas have undermined and delegitimised local fire practices and knowledge while justifying regulatory interventions.
In recent years, sensationalist media coverage of uncontrolled “megafires” has reinforced suppression-oriented narratives that obscure the key socio-ecological functions of fire. These prevailing narratives also overlook the long-standing role of fire as a tool of political contestation, particularly for land controls and management, and a cultural bridge between human and non-human spheres.
Land ownership is being reconfigured through the language of ecological risk, green finance, or infrastructure-led development, reshaping who can burn, who is blamed, and who is displaced.
Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, we aim to offer a critical discussion that problematizes the ways in which fire management is often entangled in broader processes of land dispossession, inequality, mobility, and epistemic violence, frequently reproducing colonial legacies.
We also seek to foreground the diverse, locally rooted meanings and uses of fire, particularly as they relate to rural livelihoods, land stewardship, and cultural identity.
The panel will examine how a wide range of actors (state authorities, corporate players, indigenous and local communities, and international organisations) mobilise fire practices, discourses, and policies across different historical and geographical contexts.
We welcome contributions that explore how fire governance interacts with struggles over land access and territorial control, accumulation by dispossession, emerging conservation discourses and broader capitalist transformations. In doing so, we seek to deepen understanding of the socio-ecological and political dynamics surrounding fire, positioning it as a medium of power, resistance, and transformation within contested landscapes.
Format: Open panel, 4-5 presentations (15 minutes each), 30 minutes dedicated to Q&A, moderated by a discussant who will also provide feedback.
If you would like to participate, please submit your proposal by December 5th by clicking here.
For further information, feel free to contact:
Alessandro Tinti – alessandro.tinti@unito.it
