FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS:
Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute
of British Geographers
London, 1st-3rd September 2010
www.rgs.org/AC2010
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'Places without a place': The geographies of ships
Convened by William Hasty (University of Glasgow) and Kimberley Peters
(Royal Holloway University of London)
Sponsored by the Historical Geography Research Group and the Social and
Cultural Geography Research Group
Discussant: Dr. David Lambert (Royal Holloway University of London)
'...the ship is a piece of floating space, a placeless place, that lives
by its own devices, that is self-enclosed and, at the same time,
delivered over to the boundless expanse of the ocean, and that goes from
port to port, from watch to watch, from brothel to brothel, all the way
to the colonies in search of the most precious treasures that lie in
wait in their gardens, you see why for our civilisation, from the
sixteenth century up to our time, the ship has been at the same time not
only the greatest instrument of economic development but the greatest
reservoir of imagination.' (Foucault 1998)
Despite being the 'most ancient and most modern of spaces' (Casarino
2002), the ship has received surprisingly little attention from
geographers. The work of some historians and social theorists,
particularly Dening (1992), Gilroy (1993) and Rediker (2004; 2007), and
the recent maritime shift in historical, social and cultural geography
has however highlighted the potential for geographies of the ship.
Lambert, Martins and Ogborn (2006) insist that 'Other ships are other
spaces. Pirate ships, slave vessels, canoes, rafts, ocean liners, tramp
steamers, destroyers and submarines are all open to the investigation of
the making of social and cultural differences'. In addition, the 'new
mobilities paradigm' (Sheller and Urry 2006), which has traditionally
paid most attention to the plane, train and automobile, has lately begun
to examine the possibilities which may be unearthed through geographies
of the ship (see Cresswell 2006, Stanley 2008).
This session aims to explore the geographies of ships, providing a
platform for critical engagement with ongoing debates and a forum for
presenting new perspectives on matters empirical, theoretical and
methodological, taking a historical or contemporary focus. These papers
could address, but need not be limited to, some of the following topics:
- The ship as a place which disrupts notions of place
- The ship as an 'other' space
- Ships and the global world
- The social and cultural geographies of life on-board ships
- The mobility of ships
- Practices of power; domination, resistance and ships
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Abstracts (250 words maximum) should be submitted to William Hasty
([log in to unmask]) and Kimberley Peters ([log in to unmask])
by February 19th 2010, including the following information: name,
affiliation, contact email, and technical requirements (data projector,
audio equipment, etc...).
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