CALL FOR PAPERS
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) 2008 Annual
Conference, London, August 27-29
Where Species Meet and Mingle: Remaking and Tracing Biogeographies
Gail Davies (UCL) and Jamie Lorimer (OUCE)
This session explores the geographical dimensions
to the production and understanding of our
multispecies world. Space is critically
intertwined with the emergence and definition of
species. Spatial parameters of proximity and
distance influence species evolution;
geographical relationships with the environment
shape plant and animal distributions; whilst
certain spaces, such as museums, zoos, field
centres and laboratories have been central to
understanding the relations between species and
the spatial. Yet, as a variety of agricultural,
biotechnological, cultural, economic and
political process reconfigure environments,
organisms and the spaces that link them, these
biogeographies and the techniques through which
they are produced and understood are
shifting. On the one hand, new connections are
accompanied by a loss of diversity, to be
countered through spatial technologies of
bio-security and conservation. Yet at the same
time, the production and opening up of new spaces
is revealing and producing new organisms, new
understandings and new forms of life, whether in
the wild, field, city, home or
laboratory. Bringing these two strands together
we seek to explore the ways the intersection of
human beings, animals and other organisms,
landscapes, and technologies might be producing
distinctly new biogeographies. We seek to
reflect on what these processes mean for our
understandings of the ‘bio’, biodiversity and
biogeography; our concepts of species and species
integrity, including our own (post-human) species
being; the different temporalities embedded
within different spaces/topologies and the
spatial processes involved in remaking and tracing biogeographies.
We welcome a broad range of responses to this
theme from those whose interest is both empirical
and/or theoretical. Papers might include, but are
not limited to, the following arenas and themes.
Arenas:
* Conservation biodiversity, rewilding,
restoration/recombination, adaptation to climate change, invasives
* Animal geographies welfare, transgenics, urban natures
* Animal behaviour field and laboratory ethology
* Environmental history, palaeontology, evolutionary biology
* Environmental philosophy, biophilosophy,
posthumanism/more-than-human geographies
* Climate change, the anthropocene and future natures
Themes:
* The political economy of multispecies
mixings and the unequal production/erasure of difference
* Cosmopolitics of difference and differentiation
* Inter- and intra-disciplinary biogeographies and methodologies
* Ethics and animal welfare
* Taxonomy and the classification and
ordering of blurred species identities
* The status of chimeras and hybrids
* Viral and microbial ecologies
* Risk, doom, hope and hyperbole
We welcome early enquiries and expressions of
interest to either Gail Davies
([log in to unmask]) or Jamie Lorimer
([log in to unmask]). We are looking to
assemble the list of contributors, titles and
abstracts by 14th January 2007. The final
deadline for the submission of paper and sessions
abstracts to the RGS-IBG is 22 February 2008.
Dr. Gail Davies
UCL Department of Geography
Room G19, Pearson Building
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
extension: 30508
phone: +44 (0)20 7679 0508
fax: +44 (0)20 7679 0565
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~gdavies/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/locating-technoscience/
P Before you print think about the ENVIRONMENT
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Dr Brian Balmer
Department of Science & Technology Studies
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Tel: 0207-679-3924
Fax: 0207-916-2425
Web: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/
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