CDES 2018 Innsruck

Call for Papers

As intertwined processes of globalization, digitalisation, environmental challenges and the search for sustainable development continue, rural and urban areas around the world become more and more interconnected – and interdependent. To a strong degree the rural population still commutes or migrates to the urban centres and depends on their workplaces, infrastructure or market access while the recreation of urban citizens happens in rural areas. Beside these “usual” connections in which the balance of power is shifting in favour of the “urban” far more complex phenomena are visible around the world.

A rural transformation is ongoing where some authors detect a ‘rural renaissance’ for businesses or place rural areas in the centre of sustainability transitions. In combination with (counter-)urbanisation processes a new creative industry, cross-sectoral linkages or new arrangements for sustainable food systems arise. We observe similar lifestyles in both rural and urban areas. The rural is „coming into town“ with things like urban gardening. Spill-over and spill-in effects take place through new coalitions and networks of residents and newcomers. On the one side, these new linkages challenge the dominant regime and create new opportunities. On the other hand, they also tighten the interdependencies of rural and urban to provide a range of goods and services.

This year’s IGU- Mini-Conference in Innsbruck therefore seeks to advance our knowledge on this new rural-urban web. As the topic in general is still quite broad, we particularly invite contributions that challenge the rural-urban dichotomy from an economic geography perspective or a related field

• new theoretical and methodological approaches to study the linkages
• (global) production networks and value chains,
• new business models and labour markets
• rural-urban innovations,
• spatial flows of products, services and information
• urban-rural partnerships for e.g. sustainable tourism,
• food systems,
• ecological economics in rural-urban linkages,
• urban consume – rural sink: winners and loosers