CFP: Critical Rural Geographies of Agrarian Change and Rural Restructuring
Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Los Angeles
(April 9-13, 2013)
In this time of economic crisis and social upheaval, critiques of the
ways in which capital has restructured rural space become increasingly
important. Emerging critical rural geographies, characterized by a
focus on racial and gendered agrarian capitalism, rural restructuring,
rural inequality and poverty, crises of capital, resistance movements
and the formation of alternative livelihood strategies carry on a Left
tradition of empirically-minded and theoretically rich work. For
example, Clyde Woods (2007) work on the legacy of plantation
capitalism in the southern United States points to the ways in which
racial capitalism in the agrarian south has provided both the
epistemological foundation of neoliberalism as well as that of its
possible undoing. Such a critical rural geography aids in an
understanding of how rural spaces are transformed by capital, as well
as the ways in which agrarian relations and regional rural political
and ideological blocs operate at different scales. In addition,
critical rural geographies must engage simultaneously with rural
landscapes and social relations including their material and
ideological legacies with consideration of both historical and
contemporary processes of restructuring.
The overall aim of this session is to explore new trends in critical
rural geography, by advancing a critique of capitalist restructuring
in rural places across distance and scale. In particular, we seek to
bring together the diverse traditions of rural geography, peasant
studies, and scholarship on agrarian change.
Possible paper themes may include (but are not limited to):
Theoretical interventions in rural geography that draw upon a wide
variety of critical theoretical frameworks
Theoretical interventions critically assessing the trajectories of
agrarian political economy
Theoretical interventions that address the role of rural social
relations in the formation and reproduction of gendered and racial
capitalism
Case studies of the transformation of rural places through the
reorganization of capital
Case studies of agrarian relations and rural class formation
Studies of the impact of the financial crisis on rural spaces
Studies of changing patterns of rural infrastructural development in
the context of capitalist crisis and/or economic restructuring
The role of rural-urban migrations, and urban-rural migrations, in
contemporary and historical capitalist relations in rural areas and
beyond
Historical case studies of agrarian social relations in the context
of capitalist development in particular regional contexts
The commodification of nature in rural space, and the
characteristics and impacts of global rural amenity migration
Resistance strategies and the politics of peasant movements
Critically-informed perspectives on alternative livelihood
strategies, such as fair trade networks, organic agriculture, etc.
Proposed paper abstracts should be emailed to both Jack Norton
([log in to unmask]) and Renata Blumberg ([log in to unmask]) no
later than October 15th, 2012.
Abstracts must correspond to AAG submission guidelines in terms of
author details, spacing, formatting, word length and keywords. Further
guidelines can be found at:
http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/call_for_papers/abstract_guidelines.
Authors of accepted abstracts must register for the conference and
provide the session organizers PIN numbers when requested and no later
than October 15th, 2012.
Works Cited
Woods, C. (2007). Sittin on Top of the World: The Challenges of Blues
and Hip Hop Geography. In McKittrick, K, and Woods, C. Black
Geographies and the Politics of Place. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
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