Gender, Institutions and Fragility
30 September – 1 October 2025
Berlin, Germany
Every year, Fragile Lives convenes international experts from academia, policy, and practice on the use of rigorous, scientific evidence to study the drivers, dynamics, and impacts of poly-crises, spanning violent conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and the climate crisis. As was the case in 2024, Fragile Lives will partner with the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) to host the HiCN Annual Workshop. Since 2005, HiCN has fostered academic research and discussion on the micro-level experiences and consequences of violent conflict in its annual workshops.
Hosted by Humboldt-University of Berlin and its partners on 30 September – 1 October 2025, Fragile Lives 2025 and the 21st HiCN Annual Workshop will review the role of gender and institutions in the formation, functioning and impacts of fragility, insecurity, conflict and emergency. Gender is a key lens to understand how heterogeneous such experiences can be while also recognizing that gender interacts with other identities, such as age, ability, displacement status, or ethnicity.
Our keynote speakers will be Professor Patricia Justino, Deputy Director of the United Nations World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland, and Professor Amber Peterman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Co-Lead of the Cash Transfer and Intimate Partner Violence Research Collaborative in the United States.
As in previous annual workshops, we invite papers and panels that analyse causes, dynamics and consequences of insecurity and violent conflict around the world. We welcome any paper focusing on lives, livelihoods, farming, migration, forced displacement, poverty, inequality, political behaviour, attitudes, peacebuilding, food security, nutrition, demography, mental health, climate change, shocks, coping strategies, or the impacts of policies and programs in fragile contexts from a micro-perspective.
Priority consideration will be given to micro-level, quantitative papers that incorporate a gender lens. Papers dealing with this subject matter within the context of a poly-crisis — that is, the interaction of several distinct crises, such as violent conflict, humanitarian emergencies, and the climate crisis — are particularly welcome.
We also welcome submissions of entire sessions designating a chair, three speakers, and discussants. We value diversity in experiences and voices within panels. If you are interested in organising such a session, please reach out directly to Dorian Lötzer via loetzer@isdc.org.
Full drafts of unpublished papers need to be submitted via the submission form. The call for papers will close on 6 April 2025. We aim to inform the authors of selected papers by 23 May 2025. Successful presenters will be asked to cover their own travel expenses and conference costs of €160. Participants pursuing their PhD will be asked to contribute a reduced fee of €100. Fragile Lives 2025 will take place in the city center of Berlin, Germany; participation will be in person only.
Fragile Lives 2025 is hosted by the Zero Hunger Lab of Humboldt University of Berlin and is organized jointly with Leibniz Institute of Vegetables and Ornamental Crops (IGZ), and ISDC – International Security and Development Center.