With the usual apologies for cross-posting...
Call for papers: "Diverse Transitions"
Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers Annual
International Conference: 1st-3rd September 2010, London.
Session co-sponsored by the following RGS-IBG research groups: Planning and
Environment Research Group; Geographies of Children, Youth and Families
Research Group; Space, Sexualities and Queer Working Group; and the
Participatory Geographies Research Group.
Session convenors: Gavin Brown, Peter Kraftl, Jenny Pickerill and Caroline
Upton (all University of Leicester, UK)
The concept of 'transition' has acquired increasing prominence in recent years
amongst diverse constituencies of academics, policy makers and activists. The
term is, perhaps, currently being discussed most in relation to 'sustainability
transitions' (to a post-carbon society), particularly through engagements with
the Transition Towns movement that seeks to create resilient localised
economies as a grassroots response to climate change and peak oil. However,
geographers have also discussed transitions in many other contexts. These
include the management and planning of various processes of socio-technical
transitions (Smith 2007); the legacies of post-socialist transitions (Pickles and
Smith 1998; Bradshaw and Stenning 2004); young people's transitions to
adulthood (Valentine 2003); and the experiences of trans people 'transitioning'
from one gender identity to another (Lim and Browne 2009). In some of these
contexts geographers have celebrated the potential of 'transition' as a
process of progressive social change, while in others, geographers have done
much to challenge the notion that transition is a universally beneficial (or even
neutral) act. To date, little work has examined the inter-relationships between
these diverse concepts of and perspectives on transition, or sought to directly
compare different forms of transition and the distinct spatialities and
temporalities involved in them. Thus, despite the diverse scales, networks,
processes, communities and sites involved in contemporary transitions, there
has been little attention to the diverse geographies of transition. The
recognition that transitions can (and do) take many forms, prompts us to
question both the contemporary emphasis on 'sustainability transitions' at the
expense of other forms of transition, and the normative assumptions that are
frequently made in discussions about sustainability transitions about the
needs, interests and identities of the social actors involved.
Key to understanding diverse transitions is the notion of participation - who
participates, whose voices are heard, who is marginalised by certain processes
of transition? Moreover, such an approach requires us as geographers to get
involved, be participatory ourselves, to examine how processes of transition
actually operate, and in so doing enable our work, as geographers, to
contribute to others' endeavours to diversify transitions processes.
This session seeks to do two things:
* To initiate a dialogue between diverse theories and concepts of
transition
* To challenge the normative assumptions of many contemporary
movements for 'sustainability transitions' to consider how they might better
meet the needs of diverse publics (differentiated by age, class, dis/ability,
ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality etc.)
We welcome papers on a broad range of topics that address these themes
from diverse perspectives. We also welcome both theoretical and empirical
papers examining these themes.
Key words: transition, transformation, participation, diversity, sustainability
Please end abstracts of not more than 250 words to Gavin Brown at
[log in to unmask], by 12th February 2010.
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