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About the project

The research project Dynamic Territory (DynamiTE) will develop a normative framework for territory in a world with rising sea levels, desertification, droughts, crop failure, floods and extreme weather events.

Landscape with sand meeting the sky. One person riding a bicycle with four wheeles. Photo.
Photo: "Hydrologies", William Lamson, 2014

Climate change will disrupt current political, societal and economic paradigms.

  • How should we approach a fair territorial arrangement for countries that will partially or completely disappear due to sea level rise or whose main productive activities, like farming, will be lost due to changed weather patterns?
  • How will we consider locals and migrants in a world where climate refugees are estimated to reach up to one billion by 2050?
  • How should Global Systemic Resources like rainforests be governed to guarantee their maintenance?

Three transversal themes

Dynamic Territory (DynamiTE) conceptualises territory as dynamic, and integrates environmental studies, geography and international law into political philosophy, to examine three transversal themes through five work packages:

  1. People in flux 
  2. Distribution of land and resource use 
  3. Governance of Global Systemic Resources

Purpose

DynamiTE aims to provide normative criteria to solve conflicts of interest around land and natural resources. The project will develop a novel framework for territory on a global scale, and reassess the traditional rights and duties associated with the ownership of land and natural resources.

While current normative theories of territory rely on the stability and predictability of the climate, geography and demographics, DynamiTE theorises territory amidst instability and unpredictability.

While current theories rely on certain normative assumptions, e.g., that property rights over land and natural resources secure justice, DynamiTE questions their adequacy now and in the future.

Duration

From 01.01.2021 to 31.12.2025

Financing

EU logo with 13 yellow stars in a circle on a blue background. And ERC logo with the letters ERC and orange points in a circle.

Dynamic Territory is funded by the European Research Council under agreement no. 948964 (ERC Starting Grant 2020).

Published Sep. 17, 2020 2:05 PM - Last modified Dec. 14, 2023 1:53 PM