FINAL CFP: RGS-IBG ANNUAL CONFERENCE, 26-29 AUGUST 2014
Ad Hoc Geographies
Convenors: Mia Hunt and Philip Crang (Royal Holloway, University of London)
In 2013 Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver’s cult design manifesto Adhocism: The Case for Improvisation was updated and republished for the first time since 1972. Written originally as a reaction to the totalising forces of modernism, its re-publication is testament to how the ad hoc is back as a contemporary structure of feeling. This session proposes to investigate the returns of the ad hoc, promoting critical discussion of ‘adhocism’ across a range of substantive fields.
Ad hoc -- “for this” -- suggests a one-off solution for a task at hand. The ad hoc is equally an approach, a process, and a product. It emerges as a spontaneous co-production of materials, will and inspiration. The ad hoc is found in our cities and homes, in social movements and relationships, and in cultural production. In most cases it is makeshift and everyday, immediate and improvised. The product of ad hoc practices is seldom seamless but heterogeneous, visibly made up. For some, including Jencks and Silver, the ad hoc works against persuasive social and cultural forces that homogenise, pre-meditate, universalise, and design life from the top down. In the face of powerful forces of spatial and affective engineering, it hails pluralism and ingenuity. For others, the ad hoc is also at play in the work of the powerful, as strategies, policies and products are assembled on the hoof to seize moments of opportunity. The politics of adhocism, then, complicate the well-worn dichotomy of strategic designs and tactical uses.
In focusing on the ad hoc, this session will offer a particular material and practical inflection to wider thematics such as improvisation, play, vernacular creativities, tactical urbanism, experimentation, mending and sustainable consumption, and participatory design. Importantly, we seek contributors working in a variety of settings, both in the Global South and the Global North.
Broad questions to be addressed might include:
• Why is there a renewed interest in the ad hoc and what are the politics of ‘adhocism’?
• How do necessity and play interact in the ad hoc?
• How does attention to the ad hoc inform our understanding of material design, production and consumption?
• How are places made ad hoc?
• What forms of co-production are implicated in the ad hoc?
Please send a paper title, an abstract of c. 150 words and full contact details / affiliation to both convenors by January 31st 2014; Mia Hunt ([log in to unmask]) and Philip Crang ([log in to unmask])
Philip Crang
Professor of Cultural Geography
Social and Cultural Geography Research Group
Department of Geography
Royal Holloway University of London
Egham
Surrey
TW20 0EX
UK
Twitter: @PhilipCrang
INTRODUCING HUMAN GEOGRAPHIES THIRD EDITION NOW OUT: http://tinyurl.com/nklw4b5
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