The following may be of interest.Apologies for cross posting. 

All the best, 

Damian White
Dr Damian White
Assistant Professor of Sociology,
Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
James Madison University,
Sheldon Hall, Harrisonburg, Virginia
VA 22801; USA
Phone: 540 568 6423
Fax:540.568 6112
www.jmu.edu/sociology

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 
futures. 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 June 
30, 2004. Deadline to send full paper: June 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', 'post/transhumanism', 'the democratisation of 
technology', ‘cosmopolitics’, 'viridian ecology/design' or 
debates about ‘open source/activist technology' reframe 
technonatural political/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: June 1st 2005. Damian White

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: June 1st 2005. 



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