RGS/IBG Conference, 31st August - 2nd September 2005 London
CFP: Nature and health: geographies, relations and bodies
This session is intended to bring together social, cultural, health and historical geographers amongst others to discuss the relational geographies between nature and health. The problematic association between culture and nature has long preoccupied cultural geographers as they have sought to challenge essentialisms and deconstruct dichotomies, although questions of heath have been only partially addressed in this context. Health and medical geographers have understood nature in particular ways: as a mappable locale for the cause of disease and its distributions, and latterly, as a therapeutic resource, culturally constructed and socially experienced. Beyond these disciplinary boundaries multiple facets of embodiment and nature are being currently reconsidered and reworked. Building on these (inter)disciplinary histories, but also critiquing them, this sessions aims to bring into focus the contingent entities of nature and health and map the relations that lie between them both theoretically and empirically. In particular, we call for papers from both established researchers and postgraduates that address the following themes:
· The historical geographies of healthy natures
· The healthy/unhealthy relationships between places and nature
· The political economic relations with/between nature and health
· Embodiment, nature and health
· Futures of health and nature relations
And questions:
How might we think about healthy natures?
What and where are unhealthy natures?
How do humans draw on the healthy properties of nature in different times and places?
How are properties of health and nature innovatively combined in contemporary cities?
How do people use, occupy and embody nature to gain health?
How might nature be consumed in ways that promote health?
What are the political contexts to the relations between health and nature?
What and where are nature's healthy powers?
What are the futures of health and nature relations?
Possible topics
Food, health and nature
Cultivating nature for health
Leisure and health in natural landscapes
Therapeutic landscapes
Health technologies, institutions and natural environments
Forests, water, mountains and health
Wild nature and healthy bodies
Animal health and human health
Governing healthy natures
Rural/urban natures and health
Children, health and nature
Embodied emotions, health and nature
Sponsored by the Social and Cultural, Geographies of Health and Historical Research Groups of the RGS/IBG. Please send abstracts (circa 250 words) to either Hayden Lorimer [log in to unmask] Christine Milligan [log in to unmask] or Hester Parr [log in to unmask] by 15th Jan, 2005.
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