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AAG 2006 Call for Papers The Politics of Social Reproduction Convenors: Helen Jarvis, University of Newcastle, UK [log in to unmask] Rosie Cox, Berkbeck, ADD affiliation [log in to unmask] Conference details: Chicago, 7-11 March 2006 http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/index.cfm Session abstract: There is growing interest in the geography of social reproduction. This is a welcome development, credited largely to feminist scholars who stress that the personal is political. Previously, those aspects of daily life not assigned a monetary 'productive' value were rendered invisible, 'informal', private or taken-for-granted. Today, while renewed interest in social reproduction is encouraging, it rarely goes far enough. This is because attention focuses on isolated individual activities of unpaid work at home (cooking, cleaning and caring) rather than making explicit the true breadth of social reproduction and the complex interdependencies relating these local practices to geo-politically uneven patterns of livelihood. The aim of this session then is two-fold. On the one hand the intention is to account more systematically for the myriad non-financial assets of social reproduction which are currently neither measured nor valued - recognising, for instance, that households have unequal access to time, personnel, health, social capital and transport as well as income. On the other hand the session intends to bring social reproduction in from the margins and position it more centrally within an understanding of exploitative capital relations and uneven development. Thus the politics of social reproduction are broadly conceived here as the relations of power which are manifest either explicitly through violence and indentured labour or implicitly through race, class, gender and generation. It has recently been acknowledged, for instance, that without the unconditional and unpaid social reproduction work of grandparents (estimated in the UK to perform one billion pounds worth of childcare annually) the formal capital economy would collapse. The same can be said of the contribution of unprotected migrant domestic workers. Papers might consider, but not be limited to, the following broad themes: * The integrated nature of social reproduction (whether locally embedded or globally driven) such as the 'chain' of trips linking home, childcare, school choice, journey to work, shopping and the like; or 'chains' of globally connected childcare providers. * How the routine employment of cleaners, consumption of ready-prepared meals, shopping via the Internet and the like feed into existing patterns of livelihood and uneven development. * New multiple forms of social reproduction commodification. * Critically examine notions of 'deficit' in social reproduction. If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit a title and short abstract (must not exceed 250 words) to either of the organizers by 30 September 2005.