Misc. AAG CFPs
30 September 2008
See more for further details…
CFP AAG Las Vegas, March 22-27, 2009
*“Developments in Latin America: Regions, States and Civil Societies”*
Organizer: Sonja Pieck, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Program, Bates College
Since the 1980s, Latin American governments have been struggling to advance development frameworks for the region while negotiating political and economic pressures from the US and Europe. Today, a patchwork of initiatives exists across the region. All projects attempt to achieve some version of “development” yet are often differently articulated and based on a diversity of approaches. Some plans are still only inchoate visions, while others are materializing on the ground. Some are articulated within a neoliberal framework and supported by US and European governments, and some are explicitly directed against it. Examples include: ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), MERCOSUR (Southern Market), IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America), the Andean Community (formerly the Andean Pact), and the Plan Puebla-Panamá. While lauded by their proponents as pathways to progress, prosperity and economic independence, civil society actors are pointing to the negative environmental and social impacts these initiatives can have (and are already having) on the region’s landscapes and peoples.
Papers for this session could approach these “developments” from any number of angles: focusing on governance, territorialization and statecraft; examining the discourses of regionalism, neoliberalism and alternative platforms; and reading various civil society and social movement responses to any of the initiatives, by analyzing the processes of acquiescence, negotiation or resistance. I am particularly interested in hearing from political and cultural geographers, political ecologists (within and outside of geography), and social movement scholars. The papers may form the basis for an edited volume on the topic.
Please e-mail expressions of interest, along with a draft abstract, to me at spieck@bates.edu by Wednesday, October 8. If you cannot present a paper but would consider serving as discussant for this panel, please let me know.
Thanks,
Sonja
Call for Papers: Spatializing State Theory
Annual Conference of the AAG, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 22-27, 2009
Organizers: Matt Mitchelson, University of Georgia & Stijn Oosterlynck, K.U.
Leuven (Belgium)
Sponsored by: The Political Geography Specialty Group and the Urban
Geography Specialty Group
* *
“The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from without”
(Engels [1884] 1986, p. 208).
* *
Geographers have recently explored the changing spatiality of statehood in
response to globalisation and the crisis of the national state space
(Brenner, 2004, Brenner et al., 2003, Jones, 1997). Their analysis of the
‘relocation’ of the processes of statehood has stimulated a flurry of
empirical research and theoretical contributions. However, these popular
accounts of the rescaling of state space have been criticised on two
accounts. Firstly, some have argued that current accounts of state spatial
restructuring are overly structuralist and stylised and that they reduce the
regulatory problems which state rescaling addresses to those emerging
directly from the processes of accumulation (Hay, 2004, Le Galès, 2006). Not
enough attention is paid to political agency and struggle, to the manifold
sources of social antagonisms of which it springs and to the empirical
complexity this brings to state spatial restructuring. Secondly, others have
criticised these accounts for the presumed ontological priority they give to
scale as the dominant socio-spatial principle structuring the state’s
spatiality (Marston et al., 2005).
They propose to abandon the hierarchical notions implicit in scalar thinking
and suggest a flat ontology of temporary ’sites’ composed by ‘localized and
non-localized event relations’.
This paper session is conceived as a means of addressing these issues. If
spatial strategies and projects of statehood are generative of new state
spaces, where are these strategies and projects located? By which kind of
actors are they pursued? What are their geographical bases of action and
support? Which kind of social contradictions are they addressing and/or
embodying? What kind of spatialities are mobilised in these spatial
strategies or in resistance to it? How can we conceive state spatial
restructuring through the prism of sites and event-relations? How can the
latter be articulated with scale-based approaches?
Possible subjects encouraged for submission include: neoliberal governance;
‘Marxist’ theories of the state; theorizations of scale; theories and practices
of resistance; and the ethical implications of ontological statements.
These subjects are only intended as possible starting points. Other subjects,
related to the two central themes of political struggle and the spatiality of
state theory are welcomed and encouraged.
If interested, please submit an abstract for consideration (following
standard AAG submission guidelines) to Matt Mitchelson (mmitchel@uga.edu)
and Stijn Oosterlynck (stijn.oosterlynck@asro.kuleuven.be) no later than
October 9, 2008. Meantime, feel free to contact us with any questions or
for more details.
AAG 2009, Call for Papers: Geographies of Extraction, the State, and Development in Africa.
Session Organizers: Rohit Negi, Ohio State University and Tomas Frederiksen, University of Manchester.
Recent analyses, and media interest in the rise of Asian investment flows around the world, have drawn attention to the role of extractive industries in shaping the political and physical landscapes of African countries (Bond 2006, Ferguson 2005, Watts 2004). More than any other sector, the space economy of African countries has been conditioned by shifting patterns of extractive industries, and the ongoing boom has further reinforced the centrality of extraction to the African political economy.
This session seeks to explore these shifting geographies of resource extraction, the state and development in Africa in the light of recent developments in geographical theory around the themes of the political ecology of extractive industries (Peet and Watts 2004, Prudham 2005), their linkages with the broader political economy, in particular the neoliberalizing tendencies (Castree 2006, Mansfield 2007) of African states, and the relationships between state power/craft and resource extraction (McCarthy 2007, Coronil 1997, Watts 2004) across various scales. This session seeks to engage these developments in the context of resource extraction in Africa.
Papers for this session might therefore address (but are not restricted to) the following questions:
- What are the relationships between specific forms of governance/governmentality and resource extraction in Africa?
- What are the geographies and spatialities of extraction being (re)configured today?
- In what ways is the current expansion comparable to or distinct from other historical moments in the development of extractive industries in Africa?
- What are the implications for development of specific state-extractive industry configurations?
Please send an abstract by 5th October, 2008 to negi.2@osu.edu or Tomas.Frederiksen@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
Call for Papers: Conflict in Xinjiang, The Uighur Autonomous Region
AAG, Las Vegas 22-27, 2009
Organizer: Tamar Mayer (Colgate University and Middlebury College)
Tension and conflict in Xinjiang, between police and the Uighurs, are not new. Yet, these tensions have increased dramatically in the months leading to the 2008 Beijing, Olympic Games, and during the Games, they became ever more violent. As police and local government have attempted to restrict the Uighurs’ mobility and expressions of their identity, some Uighurs responded with violence, which, in turn, led to further restrictions to be placed on them. Although some of these restrictions have now been lifted, the nature of the grievances and the level of animosity between the sides have not changed much. These grievances have focused mostly, but not exclusively, on issues like territory and identity, sacred spaces, language policies, accessibility to resources, and religious expression, to name a few.
This session aims at providing a geographical perspective to some of these tensions. If you are interested in participating in the session please contact Timi Mayer either at tmayer@colgate.edu
or mayer@middlebury.edu
Please send abstracts and AAG registration number by October 8th.
Thanks,
Timi Mayer
Call for papers: Militarization in Practice: Constructing and Representing Militarism
AAG Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, USA, March 22-27, 2009
Session organizers: Richelle Bernazolli, University of Illinois; Elizabeth Lee, University of British Columbia
In order for militarism to take root within a society and produce outcomes such as military ascendancy in foreign and domestic policy, and ultimately war, processes of militarization must be successful and justified to members of that society. The papers in this session would analyze the manifold ways in which actors and institutions at all levels—and in both the formal and informal spheres of politics and culture—construct, represent and/or justify militarism and militarization within societies and communities, effectively producing public acquiescence to militarized places and policies, as well as military action. This may include any number of approaches, such as (but not limited to) policy documents, state/national security, social construction of militarized places, embodied figures of the citizen-soldier, notions of militarized citizenship and belonging, and popular representations of militarism within political rhetoric, the media, the arts, and education; in other words, from the elite to the everyday. Examples from outside the United States, and in previous time periods, are welcome along with contemporary discussions of the War on Terrorism.
If you are interested in participating in the panel, please send title and paper abstracts, along with your AAG ID number to Richelle Bernazzoli (rbernaz2@illinois.edu) AND Elizabeth Lee (liz_lee@geog.ubc.ca) by October 3, 2008.
Second Call for Papers
Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting Las Vegas, NV March 22 – 27
Proposed Session:
Local Government Boundary Change
This session is interested in examining the spatial implications and theoretical challenges confronting local government boundary change. Local government boundary change can take the form of annexation, consolidation/merger, secession, the formation of special districts, and incorporation. Each of these types of boundary change can have dramatic impacts on the urban and political geography of cities regarding tax rates, land use patterns, school districts, and the provision of municipal services. Additionally, boundary change can contribute to the balkanization of metropolitan regions through incorporations, secessions, and the formation of special districts or unify urban landscapes through annexations and consolidations/mergers. Surprisingly, boundary change as an area of research has historically been somewhat overlooked by geographers. However, this session will focus attention on boundary change as a legitimate area of research and provide needed discourse on current research endeavors in the field.
For further information please contact Russ Smith at smithrm@wssu.edu.
CFP: AAG Annual Meeting, March 22-27, 2009 in Las Vegas
Session Organizers: Francis Harvey (Univ. of Minnesota) and Corey Johnson (Univ. of North Carolina-Greensboro)
Whither Central and Eastern Europe? Contemporary dynamics in an elusive region
Recent events—from Russian revanchism to the go-ahead on a missile defense shield—would seem to confirm the relevance of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Meanwhile, European Union eastward expansion brings abundant change in the day-to-day lives of the area’s inhabitants. Are we returning to images of a region that is paradoxically both a buffer zone between West and East and a bridge between Western European countries, Russia, and even Asia? Or are we seeing the creation of a region of increasing economic and political relevance in its own right. From Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s recently proposed “Eastern Partnership” and renewed talk of NATO expansion, to pipeline construction, scandals and controversy tied to EU funds, and the so-called “eastern promise” of expanding economic opportunities, the dynamics in this region raise a number of interesting questions for geographers, among them: How has the distribution of EU support funds impacted this region? How are states and cultures in CEE responding to ongoing economic changes? How are recent assertions of influence by Russia and the EU in eastern Europe playing out? Is CEE still the periphery of Western Europe or a nascent center? What new interactions are opening up for the region’s industry, agriculture and services? Even the age-old question of where Europe’s eastern boundary lies can be a touchstone in considering different perspectives. We seek a diverse set of contributors to this session with the overarching theme of placing Central and Europe and assessing the contemporary geographical significance of an elusive region. Proposed abstracts may be sent to Francis Harvey (fharvey@umn.edu) or Corey Johnson (corey_johnson@uncg.edu) by Friday, October 3rd.
Call for Papers
Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, www.aag.org, Las Vegas, March 22-27, 2009
Critical perspectives on disaster relief
How do we define disasters and what does it mean to provide relief? In this session we investigate how the defining of disasters and the performance of relief produces place and constructs subjects – as agents and as victims; as local, national or global; as providers and as receivers and so on. The session presents ethnographic and fieldwork based perspectives on disaster relief that reveal relief work and relief sites (camps) as spaces where subjectivities are dismantled, reproduced, and reconstructed; where international aid and local politics intersect; and where numerous discourses surrounding disasters and developments circulate and find roots. The idea is to go beyond a purely economic analysis of disaster relief and take the vulnerability analysis a step further to understand disasters and relief as socio-cultural and political processes.
Contact: Anu Sabhlok
anu.sabhlok@louisville.edu
Political Geographies of the American South
Co-Organizers: Jonathan Leib, Old Dominion University
Thomas Chapman, Georgia Southern University
Co-Sponsors: Study of the American South Specialty Group
Political Geography Specialty Group
We are seeking papers for sessions that promote the study of the social,
political, cultural, and economic aspects of the American South. We
envision this call broadly, to include a range of topics that provide
critical reflection on the issues, processes, intrinsic qualities, and
interconnections that shape the American South and its landscapes. Examples
of research consist of a range of themes that incorporate (but are not
limited to) electoral studies within the region, the American South’s
political economy, public policy issues, social justice studies, and
geographies of identity, public memory and landscape. We would also welcome
inquiries from anyone wishing to act as a chair or discussant in a session.
To present a paper you must do the following before October 16, 2008:
1. Compose an abstract following the AAG guidelines
2. Register online with the AAG to obtain a personal ID number
3. Email Presenter Identification Number (PIN) and abstract before October
16, 2008 to Jonathan Leib (jleib@odu.edu).
For further information please contact:
Jonathan Leib (jleib@odu.edu)
Thomas Chapman (tchapman@georgiasouthern.edu)
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