Dear all,
Deadline for abstracts is this Friday - Apologies for cross-posting...
Final Call for Papers
Royal Geographical Society - Institute of British Geographers Conference, 1st-
3rd September 2010, London.
Geographies of Black Internationalism
The study of black internationalism examines the critical historical engagement
of black thinkers and actors with global politics, and the often international
channels through which such engagements have taken place. Scholarship has
explored how black internationalism has functioned through movements as
diverse as pan-Africanism, Négritude, Communism, Surrealism, Liberalism and
differing religious movements, to name only some examples (Patterson and
Kelley, 2000). We can thus conceptualise multiple black internationalisms,
articulated in diverse historical and geographical settings (West, Martin and
Wilkins, 2009). Particular attention has been given both to the constructed
nature of racial communities and identities within black internationalism, and
also the gendered and class-stratified nature such constructions have taken
(Edwards, 2003; Stephens: 2005). Such work has opened a space for debate
over the meanings of both ‘blackness’ and ‘internationalism’ within global
cultures and politics.
The study of black internationalism offers considerable opportunities
for geographers working on the spatialities of anticolonialism, political activism,
the (historical) geographies of social movements, and the relationship between
space and politics. However, at present it remains the terrain primarily of
historians and literary critics. Indeed, debates around political geography and
nationalism have been accused of remaining ‘woefully ignorant of … African
diasporic movements’ (Tyner, 2004: 343). This session will explore the
historical and political geographies of these movements in order to think more
deeply about the relationship between space and the heterogeneous politics
of black internationalism. Topics for discussion might include, but are not
restricted to, the following:
· The ‘imaginative geographies’ of black internationalism;
· Black internationalism and the spaces of print or public culture;
· Place-based articulations of black internationalism;
· The relationship between black internationalism and other political or
cultural movements;
· The gendering of black internationalist discourse and practice;
· Geographical conceptualisations and contestations of ‘black’
and/or ‘internationalism’;
· Black internationalism’s historical geographies;
· Spatialities of black internationalism today;
· Methodological reflections on researching black internationalisms.
Proposed papers, in the form of an abstract (max. 250 words), should be
submitted to Daniel Whittall at [log in to unmask] by Friday 12 February
2010.
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