Dr Rita Gardner, Director, RGS-IBG Morning Chair:   

Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State Department for Energy and Climate

Water: Professor Nigel Arnell, Director Walker Institute, Reading University 

Food: Dr David Barling, Reader in Food Policy, City University London 

Energy:

This workshop will take place at Newcastle University, 6-7^th January, 2011 and will include;

- plenary sessions with Louise Amoore, Alan Ingram and Rhys Jones

- reading groups on recently-published papers

- two postgrad/postdoc research paper sessions

- a session on teaching political geographies 

The workshop is free to attend and there will be plenty of space for discussion at every stage.
DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO ATTEND – 30th NOVEMBER
 
Please use the following weblink to register for this event and for the workshop dinner.
 

http://webstore.ncl.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&prodid=38&deptid=9&catid=52

For more information contact Alison Williams (alison.williams1@ncl.ac.uk)

Information on registration will be made available nearer the time: at this stage, please make a note in your diaries.

The organisers are inviting submissions for two sessions.

1) Teaching political geography.
Does the way we teach political geography matter? The revival of political geography as a research theme is increasingly reflected in the provision of undergraduate courses. To assess the state of teaching in the field, and to share experience and good practice, short presentations are invited on any related theme. These may include: new technologies and innovative methods; fieldtrips; using print, film and on-line resources (including textbooks); postgraduate teaching/ demonstrating; lectures/seminars; course structures/progression through degree programme; dissemination of techniques; dissertations, etc

2) Emerging research – postgraduate and postdoctoral research papers.
To engage with the mushrooming of research in the field, abstracts for research papers by postgraduate or postdoctoral researchers are invited. Submissions on any topic germane to the field are welcome. The organisers would hope to be able to provide a certain number of travel bursaries.

(Supervisors/mentors: please pass this on to relevant students/mentees).

For ‘teaching political geography’ please submit abstracts to Alison Williams (alison.williams1@ncl.ac.uk) or Nick Megoran (nick.megoran@ncl.ac.uk) . For ‘emerging research’ please submit abstracts to Fiona McConnell (Fiona.mcconnell@ncl.ac.uk) .

In Capital I, Marx describes primitive accumulation succinctly as
“…the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of
production” (875). More recently, David Harvey has broadened the
concept to facilitate its deployment to understand processes like the
neoliberal relaxation of trade legislations, large-scale privatization
of state-enterprises, and the widespread ‘SEZing’ of lands. In short,
Marx’s historical/conceptual concept has witnessed an academic revival
in the last few years. Several theorists, including geographers, have
gone back to primitive accumulation to explain certain tendencies and
movements of contemporary capitalism, not only in the Third World, but
also, and following Harvey, within advanced capitalism in the North.
In this session we seek interventions that assess the relevance of
primitive accumulation, evaluate its recent academic revival, and/or
use the concept to grasp geographic realities in various contexts,
including the implications of primitive accumulation for uneven
development and practices like migratory labor.

Please send abstracts to negi.2@osu.edu or auerbach.9@osu.edu before 5th October.

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Educating the cosmopolitan national: Negotiating memory and conflict in making democratic citizens

The negotiation of belonging, the designation of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, and the manipulation of citizenship and nationhood refract conflict and political struggles within states around the world. These practices emphasize the need to develop citizens who uphold ideals of democracy and nationhood, particularly in states that are negotiating histories of inequality, oppression and conflict. Education programs and policies provide one avenue through which government can directly affect citizenship formation and the development of values, skills and dispositions associated with the ‘good’ citizen. However, the pedagogy of post-conflict nations is difficult, as governments try to present narratives of national histories and character without inflaming (sometimes quite recent) conflicts. One strategy has been to promote a version of citizenship that negotiates cosmopolitan ideals and national histories.

This session will examine the ways in which states seek to negotiate tensions between cosmopolitan citizenship and national histories in citizenship education programs. It asks:  How do governments and elites attempt to overcome histories of conflict in re-building nations? How are policies of nation-building and citizenship-making negotiated and transformed in their implementation? What happens when these policies seem to limit the possibilities for reconciliation by glossing over historical “truths”?  What happens when national policies are deemed inappropriate to the local context in which they are implemented?