Dear Colleagues
LANDSCAPES OF DEFENCE
The Urban Risk Group at Oxford Brookes University has been working on projects
connected with risk and the urban environment over the course of the last
three years. We are currently in the early stages of two further
initiatives. The first is a Conference planned for the early New Year on the
subject of Landscapes of Defence. The second, and the reason for this note,
is the possibility of running a series of linked and invited seminars, with
official funding, on the subject of `Landscapes of Defence'. These seminars
would run at three monthly intervals during 1998. It is envisaged that they
would draw participation from a multidisciplinary group of colleagues from
Britain and Western Europe, who share an interest in the relationship between
a contemporary society apparently dominated by risk and the production of
designed landscapes. Such a group would focus on issues of risk, conflict and
security in the formation, structure, design or iconography of urban and rural
landscapes. It is intended that this would draw an audience comprising both
academics (such as geographers, planners, urban designers and sociologists)
and practitioners from the finance sector and security industry.
At present, we envisage that such a series would contain four seminars, as
follows:
a. fear, surveillance and social control
surveillance technologies
personal security and defensible space
the law and public access
b. financial institutions and risk management
redlining
financial centres and terrorist threat
global deregulation and the built environment
c. enclosing private and public space
privatisation and public access
gated communities
town centre management
d. the iconography of conflict and security
place, conflict and social memory
heritage, identity and military landscapes
townscapes of deregulation
environmental conflict and the media
We are, however, happy to receive suggestions if there are other, related
themes that might have greater appeal.
Can we ask if you would be interested in participating in such an initiative?
Alternatively, if there is a colleague who would be more interested, please
feel free to pass this letter on to them. We look forward to hearing from
you.
************************
Professor John R. Gold,
Department of Geography,
Oxford Brookes University,
Gipsy Lane,
Headington,
Oxford, OX3 0BP,
England.
Tel: +44 (0)1865 483784
Fax: +44 (0)1865 483937
Email: [log in to unmask]
Jon Coaffee
The Urban Risk Group
Department of Geography
Oxford Brookes University
Tel: +44 (0)1865 484948
Email: [log in to unmask]
**************************************************
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|