Call for Papers
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ICARUS 4th Global Meeting
ICARUS IV
"Causes of Vulnerability and Livelihoods of the Poor"
May 7-9, 2015 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Abstracts Due by 30 January 2015
Mark your calendars. Start writing those abstracts! ICARUS – the Initiative on Climate
Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences – will hold its
fourth global meeting from 7 to 9 May 2015 at the University of Illinois in UrbanaChampaign. We are inviting research and policy papers from investigators worldwide on
two interlinked climate-change themes: Causes of Vulnerability and Livelihoods of the
Poor. The deadline for submitting a 150 word abstract is January 30, 2015. Interested
participants should submit their abstracts on the ICARUS website at the following
address: http://www.icarus.info/. We will inform successful paper presenters of
selection by February 15, 2015 and provide letters of invitation to facilitate visa
applications as needed.
Theme 1: Causes of Vulnerability
Climate-related human disasters occur at the intersection of biophysical hazard and
human vulnerability. Both hazards and vulnerabilities have causes. Understanding these
causes helps us to assess the probability of crisis and to identify entry points for risk
reduction. In order to understand the full set of causal factors that produce the
precarity of the poor, how do we identify, model and employ cause on the social
vulnerability side of the climate-risk equation? Despite that vulnerability studies is a
well-developed field, formal modeling of the causes of vulnerability in climate-risk are
far behind the hazards-style models used to predict the probability of climate disasters.
Yet without vulnerability hazard is nil, so to be meaningful, models of climate crisis need
to account for vulnerability. This theme focuses on a series of questions. First, what
kinds of causal models of vulnerability are available that could be productively used in
climate risk-models. Second, how do existing models of climate risk integrate the social
sciences and what kinds of assumptions do they rely on? Third, how do the assumptions
now embedded in climate models shape the kinds of predictions these models make
and the kinds of solutions they might point to? Fourth, what are the policy strengths
and limits to causal analysis of vulnerability? In this theme of the meeting we hope to
have case studies of vulnerability and its causes as well as case studies of models and
modelers treatment of vulnerability.
Theme 2: Climate and Livelihoods of the Poor
This theme focuses attention on how risks and losses owed to climate variability and
change affect the livelihoods of the poor? Some risks threaten the poor directly such as
through disasters; others undermine means of livelihoods and subsistence. All climate
risks make more precarious the well being of the poor, balanced as their lives are at the
edge of hunger, deprivation and homelessness. We invite papers that focus in particular
on the interactions between climate risks and livelihoods, as also on the forms of
responses to such risks that poor households adopt and adapt. Some illustrative areas of
work under this theme may be “livelihoods in marginal environments,” “resource
dependence and the poor,” “social safety nets and climate risks,” but the call is not
limited to these subthemes. Comparative studies, those building on available or newly
collected evidence, advances in methods, and proposals for new solution concepts or
frameworks for thought and criticism are welcome in particular.
Themes 1 & 2: Integrative Papers
Themes one and two are, of course, intertwined. We encourage papers that integrate
research on the causes of vulnerability with proactive analysis of livelihoods, especially
livelihoods at risk. How can a better understanding of vulnerability and its causes shape
livelihoods strategies and adaptation practices and politics? How are livelihoods and
adaptations embedded in social and political -economic relations that limit or enable
adjustment? Integrative papers will explore the origins and deployment of the resources
that vulnerable individuals and groups bring to their everyday strategies of security and
betterment.
We are planning for a small, tightly knit group of participants who will be able to
participate in all presentations and discussions. We expect the resulting synergies to be
expressed through both a stronger collective and concrete products.
To make ICARUS sustainable, we are instituting a modest registration fee of $100.
There will be a reduced fee of $50 for students. Registration fees include conference
coffees, lunches and a banquet dinner.
A small amount of funding is available to reimburse the costs of participation for paper
presenters from low-income countries (up to $1500), and for university students
elsewhere (up to $400 from the United States and Canada, and up to $800 from Europe,
Japan, and Australia). After abstracts are accepted we will request applications for
registration waivers and financial support.
For more information on conference location and logistics please see our web
page http://www.icarus.info/. If you have any questions about abstract submission or
conference logistics, please write us at icarus.iv.sdep@gmail.com.
ICARUS is an initiative of the Columbia University, University of Michigan and the
University of Illinois
Founded and Organized by
Arun Agrawal, Maria-Carmen Lemos, Ben Orlove and Jesse Ribot
Co-Sponsors:
International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) of the University of Michigan
The School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Michigan –
Ann Arbor
The Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science (GGIS) at the University
of Illinois
The School of Earth, Society and Environment (SESE) at the University of Illinois
The Beckman Institute for Advanced Technology and Science of the University of Illinois
The Center for African Studies (CAS) of the University of Illinois
Women and Gender in Global Perspective (WGGP) program of the University of
Illinois
Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment (iSEE) of the University of
Illinois
ICAURS IV is organized by the Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy (SDEP) Program
at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: http://sdep.beckman.illinois.edu/