The Rise and Fall of Cheap Natures

THE RISE AND FALL OF CHEAP NATURES

CALL FOR PAPERS

Paper session: The Rise and Fall of Cheap Natures

For the Annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, 29 March-3 April 2016

Capitalism’s greatest strength – and the source of its most pressing problems today – has been its capacity to create Cheap Natures: labor, food, energy, and raw materials. That capacity is now in question. In these sessions, we explore the manifold geographies of environmental change and capital accumulation through state-, imperial-, and capital-centered projects to appropriate natures – including human natures – as cheaply as possible.

These explorations may engage the creation – or destruction – of Cheap Natures across the spectrum of scalar and geographical emphases: regions of the Global South and Global North, from the body to the biosphere. We welcome papers encompassing (but not limited to) historical and contemporary transformations of social reproduction, commodity frontiers, hegemonic projects, scientific regimes, imperial power, and capital accumulation on a world-scale.

We especially welcome proposals that seek to transcend Nature/Society dualisms in the pursuit of new syntheses of “ecological” and “capitalist” crisis.

Deadline 16 November.

Contact: Jay Bolthouse (jebbolt@gmail.com) and Christopher Cox (crc42@uw.edu).

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Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

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The Mont Pelerin Plague? Revisiting and Rethinking Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

THE MONT PELERIN PLAGUE? REVISITING AND RETHINKING NEOLIBERALISM

Call for Papers

Association of American Geographers Conference

2016

San Francisco, 29 March – 2 April 2016

 

The Mont Pelerin Plague? Revisiting and Rethinking Neoliberalism

Organizers

Kean Birch (York University, Canada)

Simon Springer (University of Victoria, Canada)

 

Outline

From its initial conceptualization in Mont Pelerin in 1947, neoliberalism has now become a ubiquitous term. In geography, and elsewhere, it is used to theorize everything from the development of ecosystem services through urban regeneration to financialization (Springer, Birch & MacLeavy 2016). Across a range of disciplines it is conceptualized in various ways as, for example, a geographical process; a form of governmentality; the restoration of elite class power; a discourse; a political project of institutional change; a set of transformative ideas; a development policy paradigm; a radical political slogan; an epistemic community or thought collective; an economic ideology or doctrine; a particular form of violence; and so on. Such variety and diversity in intellectual analysis (i.e. an explanatory framework) and substantive topic (i.e. a thing to explain) have produced a glut of concepts, theories, and analyses. While this medley might be seen as a necessary – and fruitful – outcome of such a hybrid and heterogeneous process, it also has the potential side-effect of leaving us more confused than enlightened. It is increasingly difficult, on the one hand, to parse or synthesize this intellectual (yet often contradictory) abundance and, on the other hand, to apply it to policy or practical issues facing diverse communities, societies, organizations and individuals around the world. It also risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, where despite our hesitancies, we come to believe that there really is no alternative. A body of literature is emerging that is critical of current conceptions and understandings of neoliberalism, highlighting these issues (e.g. Boas & Gans-Morse 2009; Barnett 2009; Weller and O’Neill 2014; Flew 2014; Birch 2015; Venugopal 2015).

 

Questions

It is time to take stock of what we are left with by adopting neoliberalism as a key spanner in our analytical toolkit. Consequently, the aim of this session is to revisit and rethink neoliberalism as an abstract concept and as an empirical object. We invite contributors to critically revisit dominant conceptions of neoliberalism, to rethink how we use neoliberalism as an analytical and methodological framework, and to offer new ideas about how to productively (re)conceptualize neoliberalism. Below we outline some broad questions that contributors might like to consider engaging, although others are welcome:

1. How conceptually useful has neoliberalism been in geography?
2. How has the concept of neoliberalism evolved over the last two decades?
3. How are we plagued by neoliberalism, or are we plagued by its ongoing prioritization?
4. Does neoliberalism represent the most useful or critical way of understanding the current state of the world?
5. Does neoliberalism need updating as a critical concept in ways that take us beyond hybridity and variegation?
6. What is missing from debates on neoliberalism in contemporary geographical scholarship?
7. What makes neoliberalism such a popular analytical framework in geography?
8. Are there alternative ways to conceptualize neoliberalism?
9. Are we in need of finding alternative conceptions that break with the language of ‘neoliberalism’ altogether?
10. What might new visions beyond neoliberalism yield in terms of our collective political future?

 

Abstract Submission

If you would like to participate in the session, please submit an abstract (250 words max) by 19 October 2015 to bothkean@yorku.ca and springer@uvic.ca. If you would like to participate in other ways (e.g. discussant) then please feel free to contact us as well.

Please note: once you have submitted an abstract to us, you will also need to register AND submit an abstract on the AAG website. The AAG abstract deadline is 29 October 2015 to: http://www.aag.org/cs/http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/how_to_submit_an_abstract

 

See: http://www.politicalgeography.org/2015/09/24/cfp-aag-2016-the-mont-pelerin-plague-revisiting-and-rethinking-neoliberalism/

 

Neoliberalism

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/

UNICONFLICTS

Education Crisis

UNICONFLICTS

UNICONFLICTS In Spaces of Crisis: Critical Approaches In, Against and Beyond the University

International Open Gathering

11–14 June 2015

At the Department of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Encounters and Conflicts in the City

Details: http://urbanconflicts.wordpress.com/

 

Calling

The group “Encounters and Conflicts in the City” calls radical research groups, critical workshops and researchers, students and collectives that are placed in, against and beyond the neoliberal university in an open gathering on the 11-14th June 2015 at the Department of Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Through this gathering, we aim to create a public space of dialogue transcending divisions among academic and scientific disciplines and to critically approach the urban issues of the era of crisis, through a dialectic, intersectional and postcolonial approach.

The central questions that we wish to raise are two:

1. What is the role of knowledge, of the university and of researchers in the era of crisis?
2. What are the critical epistemological and methodological tools for studying the spatial expressions of the ongoing crisis at multiple scales?

Within this context, we seek to examine the ongoing crisis not just as an over-accumulation crisis but also as a crisis of social disobedience and of the inability of the circulation of capital, patriarchy and nationalism. Moving against the mystification of the crisis, we are interested in critical approaches that focus on the spatialization of social relations and examine the spaces of dissent. Particularly, we wish to examine the articulations, the limits, the contradictions and the dialectic relation of commons, enclosures, inclusion, exclusion, insurgency and counter-insurgency as well as their hybrid intermediate forms, which emerge in and through physical space, modes of communication and the constitution of communities. Overall, we aim to break the North/South or East/West dichotomies and to focus on the fields of gender, race, class and culture.

Building on the critical evaluation of social relations, the circulation of social struggles and subjects and communities in motion, we search for their contentious spaces and their spatial transformations, limits, possibilities and contradictions in the era of crisis. Moreover, understanding education as a unity of theory and practice, we seek these epistemological and methodological tools that emerge from and aim to the deepening and the circulation of social struggles and social movements. In the context of today’s global and local crisis, we note that while a plethora of social struggles and insurgencies emerge, the academic research often appropriates and commercializes their ideas. It is exactly here that we identify the dead-end.

Hence, we seek to surpass the so called academic activism and to set as a main target of this open gathering the critical examination of the following:

A. The role of knowledge and of researchers in the university and in social movements

The neoliberal University and the educational system constitute strategic mechanisms for the production and reproduction of social relations. In particular, within a dynamic process of neoliberalization, the university studies are intensified and are linked more and more to the labour market. Within this context, we wish to examine issues such as the production of knowledge, knowledge as a common, the neoliberalization of the University, the new educational enclosures and the concept of Anti-university.

The transformation of knowledge into private property and consequently into a commodity creates new enclosures in the field of knowledge. These new enclosures in neoliberal education are expressed both through the commodification of the physical space of the universities and through the objectification of human abilities. Some indicative examples are the increase of studying costs, the studying loans, the control of access to information, the commercialization of academic papers and books, the securitization of the University space, the criminalization and the rhetoric against student mobilizations, the suppression of the struggles of university employees and the restriction of the freedom of speech.

However, since 1960s and 1970s, the universities are spaces of collective emancipatory movements, of social struggles and of radical experiments of self-organization for the production of knowledge. As a response to these movements, since 1980s, a number of educational reforms have been introduced. These reforms seek to promote the marketization of the university, aiming to produce the appropriate competitive workforce and to supress student movements.

Yet, during the last decade, many dynamic student movements have emerged in France (2006), Greece (2006-2007), the USA (2009-2010), the UK (2010), Italy (2010-2011) and so on, which targeted the enclosure of knowledge and were connected and inspired many other urban social movements.

 

Axes of Discussion

A.1 Social education and emancipatory movements in the universities

-Student movements: limits and contradictions, connection with other urban movements, confrontation of their suppression and criminalization

-Perspectives of a radical pedagogy towards the knowledge as common

-Ideas and practices of free–‐autonomous universities beyond the education of the neoliberal university

A.2 Control and commodification of knowledge

-Public, state and private education in the neoliberal era

-Politics of knowledge enclosures and copyrights

-The suppression of academic freedom and of the freedom of speech

-Knowledge as private property and commodity for the production of value and surplus value

-Student loans and study costs as mechanisms of disciplining

-The cultural politics of the neoliberal university

-Paid and unpaid work at the University

A.3 The role of the researcher

-Lifelong education, competitiveness and the precarious status of the researcher

-The researcher as producer of dominant discourses and her/his role in the reproduction of power

-Competitiveness, academic carrie and academic divisions and hierarchies

-The biopolitical character of the neoliberal education and the construction of new identities

-Education as praxis, understood as a unity of theory and practice

-Researchers, networks and groups against and beyond the neoliberal university

 

B. Critical epistemological and methodological tools for the study of the crisis’s spatial expressions at multiple scales

Against the privatization and commodification of the academic knowledge and the intended hegemony of the neoliberal perspectives, we seek those critical epistemological tools of knowledge production that encourage social emancipation.

During the last years, urban movements and a plethora of visible and invisible practices of resistance and emancipation offer a variety of tools for the destabilization of the dominant ideologies, ways of disaggregation of power, negotiation of contradictions and visibility of differences. In parallel, today there is the urgent need for the promotion, circulation and deepening of these critical perspectives and their linking to social struggles. Thus, we aim to discuss epistemological and methodological tools, such as the following:

B1. Dialectic critical urban theory

Which are those critical approaches that assist us to perceive and examine the multiple dimensions of urban space? How do dialectic approaches and critical urban theory contribute to the understanding of the spaces of social movements and the spaces of capital, racism and patriarchy?

B2. Intersectionality and urban space in the era of crisis

How does intersectionality contribute to the study of the urban space? Which are the intersectional crossings of the multiple systems of domination, oppression and discrimination such as race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, dis/ability, age, cast, language, culture, body size, education level or citizenship?

B3. Cultural and postcolonial approaches

How do cultural and postcolonial studies contribute to the understanding of urban space and the conceptualization of body, identity and modes of communication. How does the criminalization and the suppression of alternative modes of culture, information and lifestyle operate as mechanisms of control, disciplining and normalization? What is the role of social media in the communication of social struggles? We seek the expression of the ongoing crisis through the spaces of architecture, art, media, and internet.

 

Within the above context, we call critical research groups, workshops, collectives and individuals to participate in a gathering during 11-14 June 2015. If you would like to participate, please provide us with your abstract (300 words) by 1 March 2015 at the latest, to the following e-mail: urbanconflicts@gmail.com

Participation is free and we will try to provide accommodation for as many participants as possible.

 

“Encounters and conflicts in the city” group

Costas Athanasiou, Eleni Vasdeki, Elina Kapetanaki, Maria Karagianni, Matina Kapsali, Vaso

Makrygianni, Foteini Mamali, Orestis Pangalos, Haris Tsavdaroglou

Thessaloniki

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 Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Crisis

Marxism and International Relations: Quo Vadis?

We Are the Crisis

MARXISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: QUO VADIS?

Call for Papers

Marxism and International Relations Theory: Quo Vadis?

Call for papers for the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations

23–26 September 2015, Giardini Naxos, Italy

Marxist thought, along with other dissident approaches, has long constituted a critical source from which crucial interventions into the mainstream theorising in International Relations (IR) have been launched. While in recent years, significant theoretical contributions—ranging from the discussions of ‘new imperialism’ to uneven development and financialisation—have reinforced Marxist frameworks with a broader analytical palette, the disciplinary position of ‘Marxist IR’ as a sub-configuration of IR theory has been challenged by a number of internal critics. Contesting the status of Marxist IR as an antidote to the shortcomings of the mainstream approaches, these sympathetic critics have argued that Marxist IR has failed ‘to develop any adequate critical theory of the political’ (Davenport 2013: 28) and is need of ‘a realist moment’ to bolster its explanatory power (Callinicos 2007: 542). Similarly, some of the most important recent attempts at theorising ‘the international’ have been shaped by a tendency to engage with and adopt the parameters in which neorealism defines the conditions for a unified international theory (Rosenberg 2013). Others, while recognising the contributions of the strong infusion between Marxist IR and historical sociology, have challenged the tendency to focus ‘on the importance in and of themselves of the historical antecedents of contemporary societies’ and tasked the scholars with interrogating ‘the way in which contemporary societies bear the imprint of such historical developments’ (Bruff 2010: 621).

The panel aims to provide a space to engage with these issues, take stock with contemporary theorising in Marxist IR and discuss new research avenues. Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• The role of the Marxist critique in IR and the relationship between Marxism and the mainstream approaches.
• The promises and limits of the emergent theoretical developments in Marxist IR, such as Political Marxism, Marxist Geopolitics and Uneven and Combined Development.
• The interactions between Marxism(s) and feminist, postcolonial and anarchist approaches in IR.

Please submit your abstracts (max. 300 words) to Sébastien Rioux(rioux.sebastien@gmail.com) and Cemal Burak Tansel(burak.tansel@nottingham.ac.uk) by 7 January 2015.

For more information, please visitwww.paneuropeanconference.org.

References

Bruff, I. (2010) ‘European Varieties of Capitalism and the International’,European Journal of International Relations, 16(4): 615–638.

Callinicos, A. (2007) ‘Does Capitalism Need the State System?’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 20(4): 533–549.

Davenport, A. (2013) ‘Marxism in IR: Condemned to a Realist Fate?’, European Journal of International Relations, 19(1): 27–48.

Rosenberg, J. (2013) ‘Kenneth Waltz and Leon Trotsky: Anarchy in the Mirror of Uneven and Combined Development’, International Politics, 50(2): 183–230.

 

**END**

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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The Anthropocene: Architecture, Cities, Politics, Law as Geological Agents

2001

THE ANTHROPOCENE: ARCHITECTURE, CITIES, POLITICS, LAW AS GEOLOGICAL AGENTS

The Centre for the Study of Democracy invites you to a panel discussion on The Anthropocene: Architecture, Cities, Politics, Law as Geological Agents25 November 2014, 17.00 – 19.00, followed by a drinks reception, Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

The Anthropocene has been posited as a new geologic epoch, defined by unprecedented human disturbance of the earth’s ecosystems. Buildings and cities, politics and law come into view as geological agents mobilising earth materials, minerals and energies, with unintended consequences becoming increasingly palpable. For some, the anthropocene signals the final enclosure of politics and culture within ecology; for others it calls for more rationality, planning and management; for others, the unitary ‘human’ of the anthropocene hides political difference and elevates a particular kind of consumer into a motor of history.

Chair: Roland Dannreuther, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Humanities
Panel Members: Lucy Bond, Lecturer in English Literature. David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, Jon Goodbun, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Tony Lloyd Jones, Reader in Planning and Sustainable Development, Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Professor of Law & Theory
Discussant: Lindsay Bremner, Director of Architectural Research, University of Westminster

More information available here:  http://bit.ly/1wWEld4

David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW. Tel: ++44 (0)776 525 3073.

Journal Editor, Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/resi20

Amazon books page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Chandler/e/B001HCXV7Y/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Personal website: http://www.davidchandler.org/
Twitter: @DavidCh27992090

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.co.uk

 

Glenn Rikowski’s latest paper, Crises in Education, Crises of Education – can now be found at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/8953489/Crises_in_Education_Crises_of_Education

Glenn Rikowski’s article, Education, Capital and the Transhuman – can also now be found at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/9033532/Education_Capital_and_the_Transhuman

Housing: Critical Futures

Modernism

HOUSING: CRITICAL FUTURES

Housing – Critical Futures – an international program of conferences and events is launched for 2015-16.

AN OPEN CALL for two Inaugural Events:

CONFERENCE – OPEN CALL: http://architecturemps.com/housing-critical-perspective/

08-09 April 2015

FILM SCREENINGS & DEBATE: http://architecturemps.com/h-cfl-filmdebate/

10 January 2015

EVENTS involve:
Patrick Keiler. Independent Filmmaker. Dilapidated Dwelling – film screening.
Avi Friedman. Architect / Housing Specialist. TBC. McGill University, Canada.
Loretta Lees. Human Geographer. University of Leicester
Luciana Berger, MP. Shadow Minister for Public Health, UK.

PRESENTATION Options:
1. Conference Presentations (20 minutes)
2. Written Papers (3,000 words for e-book; 5,000 for journal publication and print) *
3. Alternatives – Pecha Kucha talks; short film screenings; photographic essays etc.
4. In-person and virtual presentations (via Skype, etc.) are welcome.

CONFERENCE Key Dates:
12 December 2014: Abstract Submissions
20 December 2014: Abstract Feedback
20 March 2015: Full Paper Submissions (where applicable)
08-09 April 2015. Conference

OVERALL PROGRAM: http://architecturemps.com/housing-critical-futures/

 

**END**

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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.co.uk

 

Glenn Rikowski’s latest paper, Crises in Education, Crises of Education – can now be found at Academia: http://www.academia.edu/8953489/Crises_in_Education_Crises_of_Education

 

Glenn Rikowski’s article, Education, Capital and the Transhuman – can also now be found at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/9033532/Education_Capital_and_the_Transhuman

Critical Spaces: Disorienting the Topological

Panopticon

CRITICAL SPACES: DISORIENTING THE TOPOLOGICAL

London Graduate School

Critical Spaces: Disorienting the Topological

A graduate conference in the critical humanities

Kingston University, London

Monday 5^th January 2015

 

Keynote Speakers:

Claire Colebrook

Eyal Weizman

Eleni Ikoniadou

Fred Botting

 

Call for Papers:

“The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space.” — Michel Foucault ‘Of Other Spaces’

“Oh God! I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.” — Hamlet

Foucault’s assertion that the present epoch will be one of space immediately evokes the temporal. Whether we consider our epoch as modern, postmodern, or as non-modern, the philosophical treatment of space has been subordinated to time. Elizabeth Grosz has suggested that philosophy could draw on architecture to consider itself as a form of building or dwelling rather than as reflection of thought, evoking the spatial already implied by Heidegger. Occupy Wall Street and other recent anti-establishment protests in Brazil and Istanbul have been defined by journalist Bernardo Gutierrez as forming ‘anew architecture of protest’, convened by networks of consensus rather than dominant groups and ideology. Current theories and practices surrounding geopolitics, metamodelling, neuroscience, cartography and choreography support this growing emphasis on spatiality – whether focusing on produced space, social space and spaces of resistance, imaginary and poetic space, psychoanalytical and embodied space, sovereign space, performative space, digital space and/or virtual space.

This conference invites interdisciplinary approaches to the spatial. In particular we are interested in how thinking spatially or spatial practices reveal and open up disruptive, subversive or minoritarian fields within already existing discourses, be they philosophical, political, cultural or aesthetic. As Foucault has done in defining heterotopias, and as Edward Soja shows us through the idea of ‘thirding as othering’, it aims to rupture not only the particularities of those discourses, but the very possibility of thought itself through challenging existing borders, boundaries, horizons, surfaces and planes. We welcome proposals from all approaches including but not limited to: New Materialisms, Non-philosophy, Philosophy and Praxis, Cultural Studies, Political Theory, Geography, Architecture, Postcolonial Theory, Feminist and Queer Theory, Literature, Visual Cultures, and Art Theory and Practice, which consider space in the broadest terms. We also welcome proposals for practice based approaches and interventions.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to: lgscriticalspaces@gmail.com  by Friday 31 October 2014

At The London Graduate School blog: http://www.thelondongraduateschool.co.uk/blog/call-for-papers-critical-spaces-disorienting-the-topological/

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Critical Geographies of Urban Infrastructure – Final Call for Contributions

Modernism

CRITICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE – FINAL CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

A two-day conference and open discussion organised by the Urban Geography Research Group (UGRG) of the RGS-IBG.

6-7 November 2014

The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London

 

Call for Contributions

This year’s UGRG Conference will explore the relationship between critical urban theory and infrastructure. Critical urbanism may be defined by Brenner et al (2009: 179) as concerned:

(a) to analyze the systemic, yet historically specific, intersections between capitalism and urbanization processes;

(b) to examine the changing balance of social forces, power relations, sociospatial inequalities and political-institutional arrangements;

(c) to expose marginalizations and injustices that are inscribed and naturalized within existing urban configurations;

(d) to decipher the contradictions, crisis tendencies and lines of potential or actual conflict within contemporary cities, and on this basis;

(e) to demarcate and to politicize possibilities for more progressive, socially just, emancipatory and sustainable formations of urban life.

 

Since the publication of Splintering Urbanism (Graham and Marvin, 2001), there has been a heightened focus on employing critical urbanist perspectives to study the fundamental issues of urban infrastructure, of who gets what infrastructure and where? This includes work on the assemblage and effects of different types of infrastructure including water, waste and other metabolic systems (Gandy 2002; Marvin and Medd 2006; Nikolas et al 2006), traffic and city streets (Hamilton-Baillie 2008; Buiter 2008) motorways and flyovers (Harris 2013; Merriman 2007; Norton 2008), various forms of public transportation (Butcher 2011), cycling (Aldred 2012) and airports (Guller and Guller 2003; McNeill 2010). Emerging research has highlighted the particular materialities of different infrastructure systems as they sustain and disrupt the circulations that constitute urban life (Amin and Thrift 2002; Gandy 2004; Latham and McCormack 2004; Hommels 2005). It has also examined practices of dwelling and experiences of inhabiting infrastructural systems as particular kinds of public spaces (Bissell 2010, 2014; Koch and Latham 2014; McIlvenny 2010; Sheller and Urry 2003; Wilson 2012).

Such work has demonstrated the exercise of social and political power through infrastructural provisioning, and the challenges of governance which might bring about more inclusive and democratic forms of urban infrastructure (Boudreau et al 2009; McFarlane and Rutherford 2008; Spinney 2010; Swyngedouw 2005).

Much work remains, however, in exploring the key dynamics through which infrastructure structures and restructures urban spaces. In particular, the UGRG is keen to hear from scholars working on topics and theoretical perspectives which include (but are not limited to) the following:

• state versus private provision, management and maintenance of infrastructure
• dynamics of access and exclusion
• privatization of key urban infrastructure
• Global North and Global South standards and models of infrastructure provision
• comparative studies of infrastructural provision and innovation
• policy mobility and the circulation of ‘best practice’
• dwelling and inhabitation within infrastructural spaces
• new imperatives of sustainability, austerity and resilience agendas
• innovations ranging from micro-scale to regional master-planning

Papers are welcom from researchers at any stage of their careers (including doctoral students). We will also be holding a ‘pecha-kucha’ session as we did in 2012.

Abstracts of approx 200 words should be emailed to ugrg2014@gmail.com  by Friday 19 September 2014 (tomorrow).

Please contact Luke Binns (luke.binns@gmail.com) and Gabriel Silvestre (gabriel.silvestre.11@ucl.ac.uk) if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Critical Geographies of Urban Infrastructure

Modernism

CRITICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE

The Urban Geography Research Group (RGS-IBG) invites papers and proposals for its upcoming annual conference: November 5-6, London. Please see below for details:

CRITICAL GEOGRAPHIES OF URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE

A two-day conference and open discussion organised by the Urban Geography Research Group (UGRG) of the RGS-IBG.

6-7^th November 2014  The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London

Call for Contributions

This year’s UGRG Conference will explore the relationship between critical urban theory and infrastructure. Critical urbanism may be defined by Brenner et al (2009: 179) as concerned:

(a) To analyze the systemic, yet historically specific, intersections between capitalism and urbanization processes;

(b) To examine the changing balance of social forces, power relations, sociospatial inequalities and political-institutional arrangements;

(c) To expose marginalizations and injustices that are inscribed and naturalized within existing urban configurations;

(d) To decipher the contradictions, crisis tendencies and lines of potential or actual conflict within contemporary cities, and on this basis;

(e) To demarcate and to politicize possibilities for more progressive, socially just, emancipatory and sustainable formations of urban life.

Since the publication of Splintering Urbanism (Graham and Marvin, 2001), there has been a heightened focus on employing critical urbanist perspectives to study the fundamental issues of urban infrastructure, of who gets what infrastructure and where? This includes work on the assemblage and effects of different types of infrastructure including water, waste and other metabolic systems (Gandy 2002; Marvin and Medd 2006; Nikolas et al 2006), traffic and city streets (Hamilton-Baillie 2008; Buiter 2008) motorways and flyovers (Harris 2013; Merriman 2007; Norton 2008), various forms of public transportation (Butcher 2011), cycling (Aldred 2012) and airports (Guller and Guller 2003; McNeill 2010).

Emerging research has highlighted the particular materialities of different infrastructure systems as they sustain and disrupt the circulations that constitute urban life (Amin and Thrift 2002; Gandy 2004; Latham and McCormack 2004; Hommels 2005). It has also examined practices of dwelling and experiences of inhabiting infrastructural systems as particular kinds of public spaces (Bissell 2010, 2014; Koch and Latham 2014; McIlvenny 2010; Sheller and Urry 2003; Wilson 2012).

Such work has demonstrated the exercise of social and political power through infrastructural provisioning, and the challenges of governance which might bring about more inclusive and democratic forms of urban infrastructure (Boudreau et al 2009; McFarlane and Rutherford 2008; Spinney 2010; Swyngedouw 2005).

Much work remains, however, in exploring the key dynamics through which infrastructure structures and restructures urban spaces. In particular, the UGRG is keen to hear from scholars working on topics and theoretical perspectives which include (but are not limited to) the following:

• state versus private provision, management and maintenance of infrastructure
• dynamics of access and exclusion
• privatization of key urban infrastructure
• Global North and Global South standards and models of infrastructure provision
• comparative studies of infrastructural provision and innovation
• policy mobility and the circulation of ‘best practice’
• dwelling and inhabitation within infrastructural spaces
• new imperatives of sustainability, austerity and resilience agendas
• innovations ranging from micro-scale to regional master-planning

Papers are welcomed from researchers at any stage of their careers (including doctoral students). We will also be holding a ‘pecha-kucha’ session as we did in 2012.

The deadline for 200 word abstracts is Friday, 5 September 2014; abstracts should be submitted to the official UGRG conference email ugrg2014@gmail.com

Please contact Luke Binns (luke.binns@gmail.com) and Gabriel Silvestre (gabriel.silvestre.11@ucl.ac.uk) if you have any questions. Well look forward to hearing from you!

 

**END**

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Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

After 2015: Development and Its Alternatives

North Atlantic Oscillation

AFTER 2015: DEVELOPMENT AND ITS ALTERNATIVES

British Academy Conference, September 2014 – British Academy

10 & 11 September 2015

Convenor: Dr Clive Gabay, Queen Mary, University of London

James C Scott (Weapons of the Weak, Seeing like a State, The Art of not being Governed, Two Cheers for Anarchism), along with a number of other influential scholars and activists, will be addressing a conference in London on 10th and 11th September 2014. Further details of the conference and registration are here: http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/2014/After_2015_Development_and_its_Alternatives.cfm

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will expire in 2015, with mixed results. This conference takes a social and political perspective on why development fails, and how local knowledge might inform a post-MDG environment more sensitive to those structurally disadvantaged by the global economy. Within mainstream debates there has been little room for the developmental alternatives lived by people in conditions of poverty and thus no space for exploring more critical and alternative paradigms of development to the orthodox neoliberal-MDG paradigm. This conference brings together leading critical scholars on development, and activists from the global anti-poverty, buen vivir and degrowth movements.

Speakers include:

Dr Kate Bedford, University of Kent
Amitabh Behar, Global Call to Action Against Poverty
Dr Carl Death, University of Manchester
Professor David Hulme, University of Manchester
Dr Wendy Harcourt, International Institute for Social Studies
Dr Sophie Harman, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Nora Mckeon, Building Global Democracy
Professor Philip McMichael, Cornell University
Professor Ashwani Saith, International Institute for Social Studies
Professor James C Scott, Yale University
Professor Frances Stewart, University of Oxford
Bob Thomson, Degrowth/Decroissance Canada
Dr Karen Tucker, University of Bristol
Jan Vandemoortele, former director of the Poverty Group at the United Nations Development Programme
Dr Heloise Weber, University of Queensland
Dr Aram Ziai, University of Kessel
Carlos Zorrilla, Defensa y Conservacion Ecologica de Intag

Please click here for a copy of the current programme.

Catering

Refreshments and lunch will be provided on both days, together with conference documentation.
Vegetarian options will be provided for lunch. If you have any other special dietary requirements please contact us in advance on events@britac.ac.uk

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

Online Publications at The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

New Perspectives on the Problem of the Public

Socrates

NEW PERSDPECTIVES ON THE PROBLEM OF THE PUBLIC

A two day conference hosted by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster.

Dates: Thursday 15 and Friday 16 May 2014
Venue: Board Room, 309 Regent Street, London

This inter-disciplinary conference brings together researchers from media, technology studies, law, sociology, planning, geography and political theory to discuss the implications of the rise of new strands of pragmatist, complexity and new materialist approaches to democracy and the public sphere. We have five keynote presentations – from Clive Barnett, Andrew Barry, Jon Coaffee, John Law and Sarah Whatmore – and four panels, discussing new perspectives on the conceptualisation of public space, the construction and emergence of publics, and the relevance of post-human, actor-network and new materialist approaches to how we might rethink the spaces and practices of the public today.

Attendance is free and refreshments will be provided. If you wish to attend please register with Eventbrite here: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-perspectives-on-the-problem-of-the-public-tickets-10448111583?aff=eorg

Provisional Programme:

THURSDAY 15 MAY

9.00 REGISTRATION

9.30-10.45 – KEYNOTE

John Law (Professor of Sociology, Open University)
title to be confirmed

10.45-11.00 COFFEE

11.00-12.30 – PANEL 1 – PUBLIC SPACE

Regan Koch (Department of Geography, University College, London)
Justifications of public and private: Notes from the not-quite-public spaces of underground restaurants
Manuela Kölke (independent researcher)
Ontological registers as the medium of convergence between political theory and spatial disciplines
Antonia Layard (University of Bristol Law School)
The Legal Production of Public Space (or not)
Nikolai Roskamm (Institut für Stadt- und Regionalplanung, TU Berlin, Germany)
The in-between of public space: Sitting on the fence with Hannah Arendt

12.30-1.30 – LUNCH

1.30-2.45 – KEYNOTE

Clive Barnett (Professor of Geography and Social Theory, University of Exeter)
Emergent Publics

COFFEE

3.00-4.30 – PANEL 2 – CONSTRUCTED AND EMERGENT PUBLICS

Nick Mahony and Hilde C. Stephansen (Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance, The Open University)
What’s at stake in Participation Now? Exploring emergent configurations of ‘the public’ in contemporary public participation
Helen Pallett (Science, Society & Sustainability group, University of East Anglia)  Producing the publics of UK science policy: public dialogue as a technology for representing, knowing and constructing publics
Yvonne Rydin and Lucy Natarajan (Bartlett School of Planning, University College, London)
Materialising public participation: community consultation within spatial planning for North Northamptonshire, England
Peer Schouten (School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
The infrastructural construction of publics: the Janus face of representation by international actors in Congo

4.30-4.45 BREAK

4.45-6.00 – KEYNOTE

Sarah Whatmore (Professor of Environment and Public Policy, University of Oxford)
Experimental Publics: Science, Democracy and the Redistribution of Expertise

RECEPTION & SPEAKERS DINNER

FRIDAY 16 MAY

10.00-11.15 KEYNOTE

Andrew Barry (Professor of Human Geography, University College, London)
Material Politics and the Reinvention of the Public

11.15-11.30 COFFEE

11.30-1.00 PANEL 3 – BEYOND THE SUBJECT

Andreas Birkbak (Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University, Denmark)
Facebook pages as ’demo versions’ of issue publics
Gwendolyn Blue (Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Canada)
Animal publics: Political subjectivity after the human subject
Ferenc Hammer (Institute for Art Theory and Media Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)
The Hungarian Roundabout and Further Settings for the Authoritarian Subject: Technologies of Self-Governance in Everyday Practices
Jonathan Metzger (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden)
Moose re:public – traversing the human/non-human divide in the politics of  transport infrastructure development

1.00-1.45 LUNCH

1.45-3.15 PANEL 4 – MATERIAL PUBLICS

Lindsay Bremner (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, University of Westminster) The Political Life of Rising Acid Mine Water
Ana Delgado and Blanca Callén (Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, Norway)
The making of obsolescence: how things become public in the age of precariousness
Michael Guggenheim, Joe Deville, Zuzana Hrdlickova (Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London)
The Megaphone and the Map: Assembling and Representing the Public in Disaster Exercises
Owain Jones (Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University)
Is My Flesh Not Public? Thinking of bodies and ‘the public’ through water

3.15-3.30 COFFEE

3.30-4.45 KEYNOTE

Jon Coaffee (Professor in Urban Geography, University of Warwick)
Citizenship and Democracy in the City 2.0: Balancing the Quest for Resilience and the Public Interest in Urban Development

4.45-5.00 BREAK

5.00-6.00 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster, 32-38 Wells Street, London, W1T 3UW. Tel: ++44 (0)776 525 3073.
Journal Editor, Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/resi20
Book series Editor, Routledge Studies in Intervention and Statebuilding: http://208.254.74.79/books/series/RSIS/

Book series Editor, Routledge Advances in Democratic Theory: http://www.routledge.com/books/series/RADT/
Amazon books page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Chandler/e/B001HCXV7Y/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Personal website: http://www.davidchandler.org/

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

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Glenn Rikowski at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

Island Cities and Urban Archipelagos

The Island

ISLAND CITIES AND URBAN ARCHIPELAGOS

21-25 October, 2014, Copenhagen, Denmark

www.islanddynamics.org/islandcities.html

This conference will consider cities located on islands, past and present — both cities based on small islands or archipelagos (New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Venice, Amsterdam, etc.) and major population centres of larger islands or archipelagos (Reykjavik, Taipei, Palermo, Havana, Honolulu, etc.). The conference will explore how island status influences urban development, common attributes of island cities worldwide, and the opportunities that islandness presents for developing urban cultures and economies. It will also consider how and why different island cities have developed in different ways.

Keynote Speakers: Saskia Sassen, Godfrey Baldacchino, Jon Pierre, Jonathan Pugh, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, and Christian Wichmann Matthiessen

Deadline for Abstracts: 30 April 2014

Please e-mail Adam Grydehøj at agrydehoj@islanddynamics.org for more information.

 

Jonathan Pugh

Senior Academic Fellow in Territorial Governance

Room 2.24a (4th FloorDayshBuilding)

Department of Geography

School of Geography, Politics and Sociology

NewcastleUniversity

Newcastle upon Tyne

Tyne and Wear

NE1 7RU

UK

Latest paper: Pugh J. Speaking Without Voice: Participatory Planning, Acknowledgment, and Latent Subjectivity in Barbados. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2013, 103(5), 1266-1281.

Latest book: Pugh J, ed. What is radical politics today?.Basingstoke: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2009.

“Jonathan Pugh gathers some of the most innovative and insightful voices from Britain and beyond to stage a series of debates on the central issues facing radical politics today. This collection is a model for the kinds of discussion we need to move forward.” (Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire).

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski at Academia: http://independent.academic.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskpoint.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk