ABOUT

The Political Economy of the (European) Peripheries Summer School 2026 is the third summer school launched by the Portuguese Association for Political Economy (EcPol). This edition is a collaboration of the EcPol with the School of Arts and Design (ESAD.CR) of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria.

The 2026 edition of the summer school has as its topic “Peripheries and/in the new world order?”. The aim is to collect and inquiry empirical and theoretical insights into the implication of the present global conjuncture for the trajectories of peripheries, in Europe and beyond. What are the implications of the shifting global geopolitics for historical trajectories of uneven and combined development? How do persistent, historical and new inequalities clash with the shifting terrain of (post-)globalisation and economic restructuring? What is the past, present and future of peripherality in light of the collapse of multilateral institutions? These are some of the questions that the summer school wishes to debate.

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Theoretically, the school combines a dual and comprehensive approach. First, it seeks to widen the perspective on addressing issues such as uneven development processes, persistent geographical inequalities, and peripheralisation in light of the present conjuncture. Additionally, it endorses the possibility of re-evaluating the peripheries as places entailing several potentialities by rejecting the central-homogeneous view of global peripheries as backward places.

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​Indeed, we hypothesize that those potentialities may be the key to questioning some core notions of the ongoing stage of capitalism, namely i) its accelerated temporal dimension, or even a perception of suppression of temporality, ii) its exploitative character and iii) individualization and alienation. The objective is, after all, to endorse a critical debate about the conditions and possibilities for promoting the existing resources of those peripheral territories in a shifting world order.

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We wish to discuss these ample and complex field by fruitful discussions between established scholars and ongoing early-career projects in all disciplinary and inter-disciplinary areas of interest for political economy – including, but not limited to, economy, geography, sociology, anthropology, urban studies, gender studies, cultural studies.

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The Summer School is aimed at Master’s and PhD students and Early Researchers (maximum of 5 years after obtaining their PhD). Participants will be able to engage with leading scholars and peers through group work and discussion and present and discuss their research and papers. Informal moments of conversation will be promoted. Theoretical lectures will be followed by labs and methodological workshops. The working language of the Summer School is English.

A cultural and artistic programme is also part of the Summer School.

Master’s and PhD students must submit an abstract of their project (maximum 800 words). Early Researchers must submit an extended abstract of their paper (maximum 1000 words). 

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The Political Economy of the (European) Peripheries Summer School 2026 – Peripheries and/in the new world order? will take place in Caldas da Reinha, in the West of Portugal, from July 12 to July 16.