Apologies for cross-postings. Please forward to those who may be interested.

Dear All,

The Geographies of Age Research Group based at Swansea University is planning to organise a session at the RGS/IBG 2006 Annual Conference. As the process of setting up an RGS/IBG research group for children’s geographies/geographies of age is still on-going we plan to book a session/s as an independent research group at this stage. However, we hope this will strengthen the case for an RGS/IBG group.

Following the success of several recent conferences exploring Children’s Geographies, it is our intention to broaden the discussion and explore the linkages between Children’s Geographies, Geographies of Older People and Geographies of Adulthood. We feel that increased dialogue and collaboration between geographers exploring age related issues would be a progressive development and that a session at the RGS/IBG will help take this forward.

As we are an independent research group keen to work inclusively and collaboratively, we would like to have expressions of interest before submitting our final session proposal to the RGS/IBG. If you would be interested in submitting a paper, have any thoughts on this idea for a session or would like to become involved more broadly, please email us by 30^th October using the details below:

Larch Juckes Maxey: [log in to unmask]

Naomi Bushin: [log in to unmask]

Possible themes for papers include:

-         Migration and mobility

-         Identity

-         Power

-         Exclusionary spatial practices from macro-micro scales

-         Use/misuse of space

-         Methodological papers, focused on ways of engaging children, adults, elderly people in geographical research.

-         Participatory methods

-         The links between research with elderly populations and children

-         Critical reviews of age related research in Geography

-         Reflective papers on Geographies of Age

-         Interrogations of (invisible) ‘adults’ who are neither ‘children’ nor ‘older’

Both Majority World and Minority World focussed papers would be welcomed, as would empirically and theoretically based papers.

Many thanks,

Larch Juckes-Maxey, Naomi Bushin, Rob Stacey, Pete Mackie, Keith Halfacree

Geographies of Age Research Group Swansea (GOARGS)