Call for papers

Inheritance and Dynamics of Administrative-Territorial Structures: from Modern Europe to the Present

4TH – 5TH NOVEMBER 2025

Deadline: 10/05/2025

Venue: Faculty of Arts and Humanities of University of Porto (FLUP), Transdisciplinary Research Center for Culture, Space and Memory (CITCEM)

We hereby invite all academics and researchers working in the fields of history, geography, the history of institutions and law or related areas, in relation to the scope detailed below, to submit their proposals for the Congress, which will take place at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of University of Porto on 4 and 5 November 2025.

SCOPE

Understanding institutions and the current territorial division requires an in-depth knowledge of their history, as well as the factors and agents that have contributed to their configuration, modification and replacement over the centuries. The main aim of this initiative is to investigate the common origins of European territorial institutions, as well as their differences and the factors that determine both.

The claim inherent in the nature of every institution to endure, its quest for “immutability” and “permanence”, comes into constant conflict with the mutability of anthropic activity in its community, political, economic or ideological relations, with its consequent projection onto the territory.

The outcome of this struggle requires a proportionate research effort to understand the interacting factors and agents, as well as the result of their interaction, which, in their development, tend to supplant and leave behind some ultimate reasons; these are essential to recover so that they can be taken into account in practical application in current debates on restructuring and rationalising the territory.

The aim of this initiative is to build bridges between areas of knowledge that have remained distant and sometimes disconnected due to structural reasons in the areas of knowledge and centres of scientific production, helping to blur the intermediate chronological bands of change, and therefore the most crucial ones, making it difficult to understand land use planning and its evolution, not only in its territorial aspect, but also in its institutional forms.

The main theme of this conference will be to address continuity and discontinuity in the institutional and territorial configuration of continental and overseas European states, starting with the various institutions that were set up in the Modern Age: municipalities, jurisdictions, corregidorships, superior audiences and fiscal institutions and demarcations.

In line with the main theme, the congress is open to and interested in receiving proposals from the scientific areas indicated, which contribute to a better understanding of the evolution and formation of internal institutions and their territorial demarcations, favouring a critical and transversal vision of territorial delimitations and the institutions that give rise to them.

ORGANISATION

• Carla Sequeira ◊ CITCEM – FLUP
• Rodrigo Pousa Diéguez ◊ IDEGA – Univ. de Santiago de Compostela

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

• Rubén Camilo Lois ◊ dir. Instituto de Desenvolvemento de Galicia
• Inês Amorim ◊ coord. CITCEM – FLUP
• Ana M. Coll ◊ Univ. Illes Balears
• Juan M. Trillo Santamaría ◊ Univ. de Santiago de Compostela
• Sara Pinto ◊ CITCEM – FLUP
• Nuria González Alonso ◊ CIESE Fundación Comillas

TIMETABLE

Deadline for proposal submission: 10th May 2025

Information on acceptance of the proposal: by 10 June 2025

Commitment to participate in the publication: 1 October 2025

Submission of presentation materials: 15 October 2025

Communication at the congress: 4-5 November 2025

Delivery of final texts: 5th January 2026

PROPOSALS

Proposals should be sent to the following e-mail address in .docx or .odt format: estruturas.adm.territoriais@gmail.com 

The language of the proposal may be Portuguese, Spanish or English (other proposals may be evaluated by the organisation).

—Author(s)
—Affiliation
—E-mail
—Phone number
— Method of participation [in person or online]
— Intention to participate in the publication (modifiable up to 10/25)

— Abstract: Max. 5000 characters, indicating objectives, sources and methodology used.

COMMUNICATIONS

Communications should not exceed 25 minutes (no exceptions).

RESULTS & PUBLICATION

The papers submitted will be blindly reviewed by two referees, in accordance with CITCEM’s open science policy, and will be published in a volume in digital format, available online and in open access, and in printed format by the publisher of the University of Santiago de Compostela.

Texts should not exceed a maximum length of 12,000 words (including bibliography). The rest of the guidelines for writing the text will be provided once the paper has been accepted.