The following conference/call for papers may well be of interest to ESA
members. Apologies for cross-posting.
Damian White
International Sociological Association RC24 Environment and Society
INTERIM CONFERENCE
TECHNONATURES III
Environments, Technologies, Spaces and Places in the Twenty First Century
37th World Congress of the
International Institute of Sociology
Stockholm, Sweden
July 6th -9th 2005
CALL FOR PAPERS
In an era marked by accelerating environmental change and deepening
battles over eco-technological and biotechnological transformations, the
nature of ‘Nature’ and the politics of n/Nature are increasingly up for
grabs. Technonatures is an onrunning series of conferences and symposia
concerned with investigating the ‘power geometries’ of emerging hybrid
worlds and discussing future trajectories and possibilites.
Technonatures III is organised as an interim conference at the World
Congress of Sociology in association with Research Committee 24
(Environment and Society) of the International Sociological Association.
In this meeting, we would like to draw environmental sociology, into
conversation with urban political ecology, STS, environmental
geography/anthropology, advocates of cyborg studies/ANT and the new
political economy of networks, flows and mobilites. The aim will be to
grapple with the dilemmas posed by ‘technonatural times’ and to reflect on
the possibilites that exist for supporting socially and environmentally
just productions of social and techno-natures. We are interested in
hearing from colleagues who could present papers in the following areas:
Theme I : Technonatural Political Economies and Political Ecologies
Damian White, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison
University, USA
How can we understand the relationship between new political economies of
scapes, flows, mobilities and ‘Empire’; emerging industries such as
biotechnology, information technology, industrial ecology and
environmental change? How are accelerated capital accumulation, policy
developments, technological and social change affecting the
contemporary ‘production of nature’, ecological modernising projects, the
development of hybrid forms and the spaces and places of diverse
ecologies? How can we generate more productive engagements between
political economy, political ecology, ‘new ecology’ and STS to understand
emerging ‘hybrid natures’, ‘social natures’ and ‘technonatures’? One page
abstracts should be sent to Damian White [log in to unmask] by November 30,
2004. Deadline to send full paper: May 1st 2005
Theme II : Technonatural Bodies, Subjectivites and Cultures
Co-Ordinator:
Chris Wilbert Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic University, UK
Fletcher Linder Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison
University, USA
How are modern bodies, subjectivities and cultures being constituted,
produced and transformed in technonatural times? To what extent and in
what ways are bodies taking on hybrid and cyborg forms? Are such
developments generating new subjectivities and/or opening up new
possibilities for colonization, patenting, surveillance and
commodification? Are the relationship between humans and other species or
humans and other machines becoming less clear? How are perceptions,
experiences and cultures of ‘nature’ being altered in media saturated
societies? Is the search for hybridity a empirical endeavor? An ethically
inflected political strategy? An aesthetic obsession? In this session, we
would like to hear from colleagues interested in mapping and debating the
transformations of bodies, subjectivities and cultures occuring in
technonatural worlds. One page abstracts to be sent to [log in to unmask]
and [log in to unmask] by November 30, 2004. Deadline to send full paper:
June 1st 2005
Theme III : Technonatural Urban Worlds/Sustainable Urban Futures?
Damian White, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison
University, USA
Chris Wilbert Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic University, UK
How are urban worlds being affected by rapid environmental and
technological change? How are diverse urban natures, spaces and places
being transformed to meet the challenge/rhetoric(?) of ‘sustainability’?
Do projects espousing ‘sustainable urbanism’, green architecture, ‘cyborgs
urbanism’ and green cities provide the basis for alternative
urban ‘productions of nature’? Can approaches to the city which view the
urban through discourses of networks, flows, scapes and mobilities
generate more productive understandings of environmental displacement and
environmental (in)justice? Alternatively, could cities and ‘the urban’
offer ‘spaces of hope’ for alternative technonatural worlds? One page
abstracts should be sent to [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by
November 30, 2004. Deadline to send full paper: May 1st 2005.
Theme IV: Environmental Politics in Technonatural Times: Exhaustion or
Renewal?
Damian White, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison
University, USA
Chris Wilbert Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic University, UK
How is socio-technological change affecting environmental social
movements, their political cultures, ethical commitments and discursive
strategies? To what extent do digital media, industrial ecology and other
diverse information/green technologies open up possibilities for new forms
of social movement mobilisation? To what extent does the rise
of ‘technonatural times’ indicate that many forms of environmentalism are
presently in deep intellectual/political crisis? To what extent can
literatures on the ‘production of nature’, ‘social
nature’, ‘technonatures’ allow for a more productive reframing of
political and ethical questions?
One page abstracts should be sent to [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask] by November 30, 2004. Deadline to send full paper: May
1st 2005.
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