Modern life consists in 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”, he writes. And 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 topical issue of land rights and land governance in Asia. What sort of global or national interests are encroaching on indigenous people’s 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?

The symposium will bring together academics and practitioners working in the field to provide a dynamic and contemporary analysis of the situation. There will be a special focus on the situation in India as a case-study to inform our thinking about solidarity with the “cry of the poor” and the “cry of the Earth”, and to generate new calls to action.