Hi there EGRG are organising a number of sessions at the 2003 IBG conference in London. This is a call for papers for one of those sessions, regards Paul. "In celebration of the ordinary region" Call for papers, RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2003 Venue: The RGS-IBG, 1 Kensington Gore, London Date: Wednesday 3 - Friday 5 September One of the consequences of the resurgence of the region in economic geography in the last two decades has been a huge amount of attention being paid to successful and exemplar regions. This has skewed the way that the idea of the region has developed, both in terms of the consolidation of regional development theory but also the way 'regional units' are regarded by policy makers. This phenomenon is at its most common in policy discourses, with the rise of 'Silicon Valley fever' the most obvious manifestation of this. Equally, theoretical developments have wrestled with the thorny issue of meaningfully explaining uneven regional development in terms of observations derived from the best regions. In this session, jointly organised with the Regional Studies Association, we highlight the ideographic diversity and relative autonomy in the way key actors in peripheral regions develop. For this session, we specifically seek papers which critically explore, critique and deconstruct accepted theories and conceptualisations in contemporary economic geography which situate the subaltern region as an actor with agency within a radical geographical political economy. We welcome all papers in economic and regional development geography which take decentred or non-deterministic approaches to understanding processes of regional development and socio-economic change, highlighting their linkages to and anchors in global processes. We particularly welcome papers building commonalities between core and peripheral regions at any scale, to address three questions:- . How are places building resistance to neoliberalising projects and coalitions with other similar spaces? . How resilient are these spaces of dependence, and how successfully can they support regional economic development? And . How - as geographers - can we conceptualise and theoretically affirm these counter-hegemonic spaces? Further information on the session is available at... http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/p.s.benneworth/ibg-03.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Paul Benneworth ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow CURDS Newcastle University E-mail [log in to unmask] Newcastle upon Tyne Office (0191) 222 8015 NE1 7RU Home (0191) 258 7437 Mobile: 0780 1538 758 ------------------------------------------------------------ 'http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/p.s.benneworth/fellow.htm ------------------------------------------------------------