Call for papers: RGS (with the IBG) 2018
Geographies and landscapes of civil society
Jesse Heley, Rhys Jones, Rhys Dafydd Jones and Mike Woods (all at Aberystwyth University and all a part of the WISERD Research Centre on Civil Society)
The session will bring together authors who are interested in examining the spaces, scales, landscapes and politics of civil society. Civil society has been a key object of enquiry within academia for many years, being conceived of as the arena that exists beyond both the state and the market. Its character, origin and evolution have increasingly been problematised, with many authors (including geographers) examining:
1. The many scales of civil society, with geographical imaginations that have implicitly foregrounded the national scale being augmented by studies that highlight the local, global and multi-scalar contexts within which civil society is articulated;
2. The changing and fluid socio-political relationships between states, markets and civil society, often conceptualised in relation to ideas such as the shadow state;
3. The many geographical variations that exist in the meanings and practices of civil society (North/South, capitalist as opposed to post-socialist contexts, devolved contexts and in relation to a rural/urban divide);
4. The connections between civil society and the promotion of new forms of political subjectivity and practice, drawing in notions of active citizenship;
5. The way in which the (almost wholly) positive normative views of civil society can be complicated through reference to certain forms of political activism and extremism;
6. The contemporary challenges to notions of civil society as a result of large-scale migration, austerity and other global challenges;
7. The ‘landscapes’ of civil society and their implicit power relations, including the visible or hidden presence of civil society in cities, towns and communities and patterns of geographical unevenness in civil society activities and inequalities in access to civil society activity;
8. The extension of civil society into new socio-political realms, such as the non-human.
We welcome papers on any of these themes and, indeed, from others that seek to engage with the notion of civil society in creative ways. We are particularly interested in papers bringing a mix of theoretical engagement and empirical enquiry. We would also be delighted to welcome papers from individuals working with the notion of civil society within policy contexts (e.g. working within NGOs and governments of different kinds).
Please submit a title and abstract of no more than 250 words to either Jesse Heley ([log in to unmask]), Rhys Jones ([log in to unmask]), Rhys Dafydd Jones ([log in to unmask]) or Mike Woods ([log in to unmask]) by Friday, 2 February 2018.
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