Upcoming Conference: Whose Land, Whose Home, Whose Rent? Assembling property in Switzerland
The 2-day workshop to take place 8-9th October 2026 in Zurich seeks to connect researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds (e.g., geographers, sociologists, economists, lawyers, environmental scholars, planners, and anthropologists), practitioners, and civil actors / activists to examine how property operates in Switzerland. The registration deadline is the 30th September 2026.
Property fundamentally shapes how societies operate, organize space, use and allocate resources, and distribute privileges and rights. Property thus holds significant political and socio-economic importance, influencing economic incentives, and shaping societal power in decision-making. Considering land and housing in Switzerland and beyond, property rights are among the best protected legal rights.
Yet despite this societal importance, systematic, comparative, and multidisciplinary knowledge about Swiss property – for housing, real estate, and land – remains surprisingly limited and fragmented. Scholars, practitioners, and civil society actors / activists working in Switzerland’s different geographical regions, disciplinary fields and institutional contexts rarely dialogue about this topic. The obscurity of property data as well as differences in its availability, handling, and processing in different Swiss municipalities intensifies this knowledge fragmentation, with crucial consequences, for instance, for preventing economic crimes, such as money laundering or tax avoidance.
This fragmentation and obscurity of property knowledge matter particularly in the intersecting crisis of housing and climate, because property shapes both possible responses to these crises and socio-spatial inequalities. Consider, for instance, debates on the reduction of land consumption or on the implementation of climate adaptation measures on Swiss private property. That Switzerland is confronted with an intensifying housing crisis, exclusionary housing dynamics, and environmental challenges further intensify the urgent need for multidisciplinary exchange around property to support an understanding of how property functions in this context.
The 2-day workshop “Whose Land, Whose Home, Whose Rent – Assembling property in Switzerland” seeks to address this need for connecting researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds (e.g., geographers, sociologists, economists, lawyers, environmental scholars, planners, and anthropologists), practitioners, and civil actors / activists to examine how property operates in Switzerland. As part of the SNSF-funded project “the responsible city” this gathering will offer presentations as well as more interactive workshops.
Date of the event and venue: October 8-9, 2026, Zurich
Organizers: This workshop is jointly organized by Gabriela Debrunner (UNIL, Institute of Geography and Sustainability, PLANH Research Group), Ifigeneia Dimitrakou (UZH, SURB Research Group), Hanna Hilbrandt (UZH, SURB Research Group) as part of the SNSF funded project The Responsible City.
To allow for conversations between across the Swiss linguistic communities English will be the main language of the conference. Please approach us about possibilities of translation, if you would like to participate but find English to be a hurdle. If you wish to sign up for the conference as a part of the audience, please enter your registration in the form below.
To allow for conversations between across the Swiss linguistic communities English will be the main language of the conference. Please approach us about possibilities of translation, if you would like to participate but find English to be a hurdle. If you wish to sign up for the conference as a part of the audience, please enter your registration in the form below.
Registration deadline: 30th September 2026
Registration and more information here
Poster and Program (PDF, 226 KB)
Picture: Capture: Logo of the Property Conference 2026 / Credits: Responsible City