The following may be of interest.Apologies for cross posting.
All the best,
Damian White
Dr Damian White
Assistant Professor of Sociology,
Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
James Madison University,
Sheldon Hall, Harrisonburg, Virginia
VA 22801; USA
Phone: 540 568 6423
Fax:540.568 6112
www.jmu.edu/sociology
International Sociological Association RC24 Environment and
Society
INTERIM CONFERENCE
TECHNONATURES III
Environments, Technologies, Spaces and Places in the Twenty
First Century
37th World Congress of the
International Institute of Sociology
Stockholm, Sweden, July 6th -9th 2005
CALL FOR PAPERS
In an era marked by accelerating environmental change and
deepening battles over eco-technological and
biotechnological transformations, the nature of ‘Nature’ and
the politics of n/Nature are increasingly up for grabs.
Technonatures is an onrunning series of conferences and
symposia concerned with investigating the ‘power geometries’
of emerging hybrid worlds and discussing future trajectories
and possibilites.
Technonatures III is organised as an interim conference at
the World Congress of Sociology in association with Research
Committee 24 (Environment and Society) of the International
Sociological Association. In this meeting, we would like to
draw environmental sociology, into conversation with urban
political ecology, STS, environmental
geography/anthropology, advocates of cyborg studies/ANT and
the new political economy of networks, flows and mobilites.
The aim will be to grapple with the dilemmas posed
by ‘technonatural times’ and to reflect on the possibilites
that exist for supporting socially and environmentally just
futures. We are interested in hearing from colleagues who
could present papers in the following areas:
Theme I : Technonatural Political Economies and Political
Ecologies
Damian White, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
James Madison University, USA
How can we understand the relationship between new political
economies of scapes, flows, mobilities and ‘Empire’;
emerging industries such as biotechnology, information
technology, industrial ecology and environmental change? How
are accelerated capital accumulation, policy developments,
technological and social change affecting the
contemporary ‘production of nature’, ecological modernising
projects, the development of hybrid forms and the spaces and
places of diverse ecologies? How can we generate more
productive engagements between political economy, political
ecology, ‘new ecology’ and STS to understand
emerging ‘hybrid natures’, ‘social natures’
and ‘technonatures’? One page abstracts should be sent to
Damian White [log in to unmask] by November 30, 2004. Deadline
to send full paper: May 1st 2005
Theme II : Technonatural Bodies, Subjectivites and Cultures
Co-Ordinator:
Chris Wilbert Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic
University, UK
Fletcher Linder Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
James Madison University, USA
How are modern bodies, subjectivities and cultures being
constituted, produced and transformed in technonatural
times? To what extent and in what ways are bodies taking on
hybrid and cyborg forms? Are such developments generating
new subjectivities and/or opening up new possibilities for
colonization, patenting, surveillance and commodification?
Are the relationship between humans and other species or
humans and other machines becoming less clear? How are
perceptions, experiences and cultures of ‘nature’ being
altered in media saturated societies? Is the search for
hybridity a empirical endeavor? An ethically inflected
political strategy? An aesthetic obsession? In this session,
we would like to hear from colleagues interested in mapping
and debating the transformations of bodies, subjectivities
and cultures occuring in technonatural worlds. One page
abstracts to be sent to [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask] by November 30, 2004. Deadline to send full
paper: June 1st 2005
Theme III : Technonatural Urban Worlds/Sustainable Urban
Futures?
Damian White, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
James Madison University, USA
Chris Wilbert Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic
University, UK
How are urban worlds being affected by rapid environmental
and technological change? How are diverse urban natures,
spaces and places being transformed to meet the
challenge/rhetoric(?) of ‘sustainability’? Do projects
espousing ‘sustainable urbanism’, green
architecture, ‘cyborgs urbanism’ and green cities provide
the basis for alternative urban ‘productions of nature’? Can
approaches to the city which view the urban through
discourses of networks, flows, scapes and mobilities
generate more productive understandings of environmental
displacement and environmental (in)justice? Alternatively,
could cities and ‘the urban’ offer ‘spaces of hope’ for
alternative technonatural worlds? One page abstracts should
be sent to [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by June
30, 2004. Deadline to send full paper: June 1st 2005.
Theme IV: Environmental Politics in Technonatural Times:
Exhaustion or Renewal?
Damian White, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
James Madison University, USA
Chris Wilbert Dept of Planning, Anglia Polytechnic
University, UK
How is socio-technological change affecting environmental
social movements, their political cultures, ethical
commitments and discursive strategies? To what extent do
digital media, industrial ecology and other diverse
information/green technologies open up possibilities for new
forms of social movement mobilisation? To what extent does
the rise of 'technonatural times' indicate that many forms
of environmentalism are presently in deep
intellectual/political crisis? To what extent can
literatures on the 'production of nature', 'social
nature', 'post/transhumanism', 'the democratisation of
technology', ‘cosmopolitics’, 'viridian ecology/design' or
debates about ‘open source/activist technology' reframe
technonatural political/ethical questions. One page
abstracts should be sent to [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask] by November 30, 2004. Deadline to send
full paper: June 1st 2005. Damian White
One page abstracts should be sent to [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask] by November 30, 2004. Deadline to send
full paper: June 1st 2005.
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