Call for Papers

Workshop on Island Economies and Ecological Planning in the Philippines

The Young Scholars Initiative, in collaboration with partner scholars and institutions, invites applications from young scholars to participate in a two-day workshop on “Islands as Laboratories: Ecological Planning and Heterodox Economic Thought for Sustainable Development in the Philippine Archipelago.” The workshop will take place at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, in collaboration with the Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning (DCERP).

The workshop will bring together early-career researchers, doctoral scholars, advanced master’s students, young faculty members (within 5 years of PhD.), and policy-oriented researchers working on islands, ecological planning, political economy, development, land, tourism, resilience, and heterodox economic thought. Participants will be selected through a competitive call and will present their ongoing research under the proposed workshop themes.

The Philippines offers a particularly rich setting for rethinking the relationship between ecology, planning, and economic development. Its archipelagic geography makes small islands more than geographical units. They are bounded but highly connected spaces where land, livelihoods, tourism, climate vulnerability, public infrastructure, ecological limits, and economic policy meet in immediate and visible ways. Islands reveal, often with exceptional clarity, the central question that animates this workshop: what does development actually cost, ecologically, historically, socially, and economically, and who bears that cost?

The workshop approaches islands as laboratories not in a narrow experimental sense, but as living social, ecological, and economic spaces where inherited development models are tested, contested, and reworked. It asks how small island economies can pursue sustainable development without reproducing extractive forms of growth, ecological degradation, social displacement, or tourism-dependent vulnerability. It also asks what mainstream economic analysis often misses when it treats land, coastlines, ecosystems, labour, culture, and community life as separate variables rather than as interdependent conditions of survival and development.

The workshop is located at the intersection of three broad intellectual concerns. First, it draws on urban and regional planning, small island studies, and ecotourism to understand the concrete spatial and ecological realities of Philippine islands. Second, it brings in heterodox and post-Keynesian approaches to economic growth, resilience, demand, distribution, and development policy. Third, it situates land, property, value, and social policy within a longer history of economic thought, asking how islands and island ecologies have been valued, undervalued, or misvalued within development discourse.

Venue

The workshop will take place at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, hosted in collaboration with the Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning

This venue is especially appropriate for the workshop theme, given its strong connection to environment and community resource management/ planning, natural resources conservation, ecological planning, and sustainable development. Locating the workshop at UP Los Baños will allow discussions on island ecologies, land, livelihoods, spatial planning, and heterodox economic thought to be grounded in an institution deeply engaged with environmental and developmental questions.

Proposed Themes

We invite papers that engage with one or more of the following themes, but not limited to.

1. Small Islands, Planning, and Sustainable Development

Papers may examine island-based urban and regional planning, spatial governance, land-use change, infrastructure, local institutions, coastal settlements, disaster risk, and the limits of conventional development planning in archipelagic settings.

2. Ecotourism, Livelihoods, and Local Economies

We welcome work on ecotourism, community-based tourism, livelihood diversification, informal economies, cultural economies, and the tensions between tourism-led development, ecological protection, and local autonomy.

3. Land, Property, and Ecological Valuation

Papers may explore how land, coastlines, forests, fisheries, commons, and ecosystems are valued in policy, law, markets, and community life. Contributions may also examine compensation, displacement, enclosure, land conversion, and the social function of property in island contexts.

4. Heterodox Economics and Island Development

We invite papers using post-Keynesian, institutional, ecological, feminist, Marxian, dependency, structuralist, or other heterodox approaches to study economic resilience, public investment, distribution, employment, industrial policy, climate finance, and development constraints in small island economies.

5. Climate Vulnerability, Resilience, and Public Policy

Papers may address climate adaptation, disaster preparedness, sea-level rise, food and water security, ecological restoration, public finance, local governance, and the political economy of resilience in island communities.

6. History of Economic Thought and Archipelagic Development

We encourage papers that revisit classical, institutional, heterodox, or Global South traditions in economic thought to rethink the conceptualisation of islands, land, nature, value, scarcity, and development.

7. Smart Cities, Technology, and Appropriate Innovation in Island Contexts

Contributions may examine whether smart city frameworks, digital tools, renewable energy systems, grassroots innovations, or appropriate technologies can support sustainable island development, and under what institutional and social conditions.

8. Comparative Island and Archipelagic Perspectives

While the workshop is grounded in the Philippine archipelago, comparative papers from Southeast Asia, the Pacific, South Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America are welcome, especially where they help clarify broader questions of island political economy, ecological planning, and sustainable development.

Key Questions

The workshop will be organised around the following guiding questions but not limited to:

1. How should sustainable development be reimagined when the ecological limits of small islands are taken seriously?
2. What do small islands reveal about the limitations of mainstream economic planning and growth models?
3. How are land, ecology, labour, culture, and community life valued or devalued in small island development?
4. Can ecotourism, smart development planning, and green investment avoid reproducing extractive development models?
5. What can heterodox economics contribute to the study of island resilience, public policy, and ecological transition?
6. How can small islands become sites of democratic planning, social justice, and ecological repair rather than merely spaces for tourism, real estate, or climate experimentation?

Who Can Apply

Applications are invited from young scholars, including doctoral researchers, advanced master’s students working on thesis projects, early-career researchers, young faculty members, and policy researchers or practitioners with a strong research orientation.

We especially encourage applications from scholars based in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

Format of the Workshop

The workshop will be held over two days. Selected participants will present their papers or extended research proposals in thematic sessions. Each presentation will receive comments from senior scholars and peer participants. 

Participants are expected to read selected papers in advance and actively contribute to discussions across the two days.

Submission Guidelines

Applicants should submit the following:

1. Title of the proposed paper
2. Abstract of 300–500 words
3. Short biographical note of 100–150 words
4. Institutional affiliation and contact details
5. Draft paper at a later stage

Abstracts should clearly indicate the research question, theoretical approach, empirical case or material, and how the paper speaks to the workshop theme.

Important Dates

Deadline for abstract submission: 15 October 2026
Notification of acceptance: 30 October 2026
Submission of draft papers or extended notes: 30 October 2026
Workshop dates: 7-9 December 2026
Venue: University of the Philippines Los Baños, Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning

Organising Team

The workshop will be organised by the History of Economic Thought Working Group and the East Asia Working Group of Young Scholars Initiative, INET, in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Los Baños, Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning.

The workshop will receive intellectual guidance from scholars working across urban and regional planning (environmental planning), small island studies, ecotourism, heterodox economics, land policy, political economy, and the history of economic thought.