Apologies for cross-posting but this call should be of interest to many of
the list members
Regards
Maureen


__________________________________________
Dr Maureen Fordham
Programme Leader, MSc in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development.
University of Northumbria, Divisions of Geography & Environmental
Management, Ellison Building, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST. Telephone: +44
(0)191 227  3757 | Fax: +44 (0)191 227 4715 | Email:
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
| Internet: <http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/ddc>  | International Journal of
Mass Emergencies and Disasters: <http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/ijmed> |
Gender and Disaster Network
<http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/geography_research/gdn/>  | Radix - Radical
Interpretations of Disaster
<http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/geography_research/radix/> | Backup email:
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>

-----Original Message-----
From: Women and Geography Study Group Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tracey Skelton
Sent: 12 December 2005 04:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: call for papers RGS conference 2006

Apologies for cross-posting.

Call for Papers: Young People's and Children's Engagements and Connections
with Environmental Sustainability and Processes of Social Justice

Study Group Sponsor: Women and Geography Study Group

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2006, 'Global social justice and
environmental sustainability', 30th August - 1st September 2006, Royal
Geographical Society, London.

Convenor: Tracey Skelton, Dept. of Geography, Loughborough University,
Loughborough, LEICs, LE11 3TU, UK.
Email: [log in to unmask]

These two sessions are designed to bring together geographers and social
scientists who have a focus on children/ young people (and gender), the
environment and/or social justice. The central aim is to consider the
various ways in which processes of social justice and environmentalism have
either marginalised children and young people, or directly engaged with this
particular social grouping. However, even where children are included in
campaigns, activities, developments and/or initiatives related to the
environment and/or social justice, such 'inclusion' is often done from an
adultist perspective.

This is problematic in terms of social justice and potentially in relation
to environmental sustainability.  Children and young people experience, and
are affected by, environmental changes in different ways to adults. Their
lived geographies often take them into different environments (social or
natural) from those that adults enter, but also, even when with adults,
children and young people often utilise, experience and imagine the
environment in different ways.  Children and young people often feel the
loss and destruction of environments very keenly and lose the security of
spaces within which to map and play out their childhoods. Hence
environmental change, exclusion and destruction have a profound effect on
social justice. This can become particularly acute at times of natural
disasters when children are extremely vulnerable during a disaster and in
the post-disaster processes of 'recovery'. The inequalities which pre-exist
natural disasters are invariably exacerbated afterwards and children (and
women) are often pushed into deeper states of insecurity.

The protection of environments is often linked to social justice, and
rhetoric invariably talks of 'saving' the environment for 'the children'. 
This session will interrogate this assumption and examine the following
questions, among others:
*	To what extent are children and young people active social
participants in
fights for social justice related to the environment?
*	Are children and young people included as part of the theoretical,
cultural and political conceptualisations of environmental sustainability
and social justice?
*	In what ways does environmental neglect impact upon young people's
and
children's lives and how is this related to social justice?
*	What happens to children, young people and social justice in the
context
of natural disasters?
*	Is it possible to challenge adultist perspectives around
environmental
sustainability and social justice?

This session seeks papers which focus on children and young people and which
critically examine the ways in which social power is played out through the
wider contexts of social justice and environmentalism. The focus should also
broaden out beyond children and young people to include the family,
households, inter-generational relations and gender relations.

Abstracts (of no more than 200 words) should be submitted to Tracey Skelton
at [log in to unmask] by 30th January 2006.
It is important that proposed abstracts are submitted on the appropriate
forms as outlined below and which are also accessible via the RGS/IBG
website: http://www.rgs.org/category.php?page=AC2006 where you will find the
following details:
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM (doc)
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM (pdf)

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