Dear all,
(Attached is a workshop cfp poster. Alternatively please read below for more details.)
There are still a couple of places left for the following workshop (taking place at the Metropolis
Conference in Lisbon, Oct. 2-6, 2006)
Apologies for the (very tight) deadline for short abstracts: 7 Sept.
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Queer Cosmopolitanism and Changing Cities
(A workshop at the 11th International Metropolis Conference in Lisbon, 2-6 Oct.2006 - “Paths &
Crossroads: Moving People, Changing Places)
This workshop aims to provide a timely and unique opportunity to assess the state of academic
attention on contemporary urban queer cultures and diasporas and to set an agenda of research,
debate and intervention.
Urban policy and practitioner circles are desperately trying to understand their cities’ human queer
diasporas (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities migrating to urban areas
because of various pull-factors, such as “gay quarters”) and imaginative queer diasporas (i.e.
cosmopolitan queer flows of ideas, images, economies and politics). The workshop therefore
brings together analyses of such flows from case studies in many cities (see below). But what
marks this workshop’s attention on cities, is not just an analysis of cultural, social and political
experiences from some academic “ivory tower”; rather papers have been carefully selected for
their presentation and analysis of empirical research into the experiences of citizens and
consumers (through attention to urban identity politics and post-state negotiations of migration
politics), policy makers (through presentations of analyses on policy and practice) and,
importantly, civil society (through attention to NGOs and related organisations’ attempts to
accommodate changing guest-host urban relationships).
Both qualitative and quantitative analyses will be offered to compare experiences of queer
cosmopolitanism across an outstanding range of cities. Moreover, such comparisons will focus on
the different urban citizenship, civil society and consumer practices of various special-interest and
identity collectives. Given the focus on cosmopolitanism, the workshop will hear and discuss
examples from these various cities, collectives and across wide-ranging scales exploring flows
and experiences at various spatialities (from globe to region, trans-nation to nation, state to body,
etc.).
The workshop will take a panel-form, in which each participant will be given approx. 20mins to
present their analysis/experience/points for discussion; followed by a round-table discussion.
Please email [log in to unmask] with SHORT abstracts by Thursday 7th September.
Dr Fernando Garcia
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Social & Cultural Geography Group
Department of Geography
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK
Principal Investigator:
Café Culture: Creating Convivial Cities (ESRC, 2006)
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