>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:37:21 -0000
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>Sender: The Area Studies Network List
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>From: Kath Browne <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: [AREA-STUDIES-NETWORK] Geographies of Sex CFP
>
>CFP: Geographies of sex itself
>
>Apologies for cross posting- please distribute widely.
>
>RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2007
>'Sustainability and Quality of Life'
>28th - 31st August 2007, at the Royal Geographical Society with IBG,
>London.
>
>Convenors: Gavin Brown and Kath Browne
>
>Sponsored by: the Space, Sexualities and Queer Working Group
>
>It is more than two decades since McNee (1984) first identified
>Geography's 'squeamishness' around sex and sexuality, and over ten years
>since Bell (1995) and Binnie (1997) noted that, despite the
>proliferation of studies of sexual identity and sexualised spaces,
>meaningful considerations of sex itself had not yet emerged within
>geographic scholarship. The situation has not changed significantly in
>the intervening period.
>The influence of queer theory within Geography has challenged the easy
>alignment of biological sex, gender, sexual identity and sexual
>practises, and yet, work from within this theoretical perspective
>continues largely to focus on the spatial construction of gender and
>sexual identity, rather than engaging with the spaces of sexual
>activity. Similarly, the embodied practices of sex have so far not been
>examined by researchers working within a more-than-representational
>framework, despite the obvious potential for this mode of theory to
>engage with such practices and performances.
>There would seem to be much potential for relational, hybrid geographies
>of sex that engage with the non-human objects and environments that are
>enrolled in and co-constitute the act of sex - whether those be beds and
>bed sheets, items of clothing, condoms, sex toys, the material fabric of
>a darkened alley or a wooded glade. This session will both interrogate
>this continuing silence in Geography and consider geographies of sex
>itself.
>Papers might consider (but should not be limited by) the following
>topics:
>* The spatial relationship between sexual difference, gender and
>sexual practice
>* Culturally and situationally specific definitions of sex
>* Non-representational geographies of sexual encounters
>* Sex and sexual citizenship
>* Spaces of celibacy
>* The spatial practices of monogamy or polyamory
>* Hybrid geographies of the sites where sex takes place
>* The enrolment of non-human objects in sexual acts
>* Sex, feminism and the persistence of masculinist approaches to
>geographic research
>* The ethics of researching sex
>* Embarrassment, fear and shame in sex research and writing about
>sex
>
>
>Abstracts of not more than 200 words should be submitted to
>[log in to unmask]@brighton.ac.uk by 15th January 2007.
>
>The Area Studies Network list is run by the Subject Centre for Languages,
>Linguistics and Area Studies, www.llas.ac.uk. LLAS is now a Subject Centre
>of the Higher Education Academy, www.heacademy.ac.uk
------------
Norman Stockman
Honorary Senior Lecturer in Sociology
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen AB24 3QY
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/socsci/staff/details.php?id=42
Honorary Secretary, British Association for Chinese Studies
http://www.bacsuk.org.uk/
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