2012 Dubrovnik conference, Croatia

Final report on the Meeting of the IGU Commission on Globalization, marginalization, and local and regional response C08-27, Dubrovnik (Croatia)

19 – 24 August 2012

The 2012 conference was organized by Prof. Borna Fuerst-Bjelis, Department of Geography, University of Zagreb (Croatia). The venue was the Centre for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS), an institution founded by Zagreb University. The conference topic had been chosen with reference to the karst region of Dalmatia: “Geographies of marginality: The realities of physically marginalised areas.” The meeting was set around one full-day and two half-day field trips in the Dubrovnik region and along the Dalmatian coast.


Participant countries

There were participants from following countries:

  • Austria

  • Czech Republic

  • Finland

  • India

  • Israel

  • Japan

  • Kyrgyz Republic

  • Malaysia

  • Nepal

  • Qatar

  • Scotland

  • Switzerland

  • United States

Programme

Altogether 31 papers were delivered, apart from various introductory and concluding ad-dresses.

The conference was divided into the following sessions:

Monday, August 20

• Inaugural session

• Session 1: Marginality: theory and indicators

• Session 2: Mountains

Wednesday, August 22

• Session 3: Environmental issues

• Session 4: Social issues I

Thursday, August 23

• Session 5: Social issues II

• Session 6: Economic issues I

• Session 7: Economic issues II

• Business meeting

Field trips

The conference included three field trips:

- A half-day tour presented the city of Dubrovnik and her immediate surroundings.

- A full-day trip took participants into the Neretva valley and delta.

- A half-day trip by boat introduced the participants to the Dalmatian islands off the Croatian coast.

Business meeting

The Business Meeting was held after the conference on Friday, August 23, 2012, 16.00 – 17.00 hrs. It was attended by all 15 participants to the trip and chaired by the Commission secretary, Prof. Walter Leimgruber. He replaced the Commission chair Prof. Etienne Nel who was retained in New Zealand for professional reasons.

Publications

· No news so far about the publication of the 2008 conference in Barcelona have been received.

· The book with the 2009 papers is in the production process and should be available before the IGU Regional Conference in Santiago de Chile.

· Two publishers in Delhi have manifested their interest to publish the proceedings of the 2011 conference.

· A research note on marginality for publication in a journal is currently under preparation. It is intended to sum up the findings of our work to-date and widen the circle of debate beyond the members of the commission.

IGU-matters

The IGU is organizing annual regional conferences. The next dates and places are as follows:

· 2012 Cologne (Germany), regular IGC

· 2013 Kyoto (Japan)

· 2014 Krakow (Poland)

· 2015 Moscow (Russia)

· 2016 Beijing (China), regular IGC

Renewal of the Commission 2012

The proposal for the continuation of the work of commission in the period 2012-2016 has been submitted on time and the decision about that is supposed to be taken at the Congress in Köln.


The business meeting closed with a vote of thanks to the conference organizer, prof. Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš and her staff.