From: CUHI [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: January 12, 2006 12:02 PM
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Subject: Spaces of Participation - Request for submissions

Spaces of participation

Convenors: Mike Kesby (St Andrews), Duncan Fuller (Northumbria),
Larch Maxey  (Sansea), Dorothea Kleine (London School of Economics)

'Participation' is gaining increasing prominence in social research and social policy. But what are the spatial dimensions of participation - what difference does geography make to our understandings and experiences of participation (Cornwall 2004; Kesby 2005)? Interest in these questions is   growing outside human geography, and while our discipline as a whole is   rather late in turning its focus towards participation, geographers are well  placed to make an important contribution to the debate. This session encourages the exploration of approaches, styles and technologies (including  participation via webconference) aimed to widen and deepen participation   within the fora of international conferences. In this session we are interested to address questions of how space, spatiality, context and scale  affect participatory practice.  We want to discuss how a sensitivity to   geographical issues better helps explain how, why and were participationworks and/or fails, and to identify a geographical perspective might help  surmount existing limitations and improve participatory praxis.  Finally we  are interested to explore how geographical concerns be brought into
participatory work and how geographical analysis might be cultivated amongst  participants themselves.

Papers are therefore welcomed from all parts of the academy, and/or from  those actively involved in the creation of participatory spaces and futures,in whatever form. Participants might like to consider the following question   and themes:

7          How do participatory spaces, places, contexts and arenas work, and how can we make them work better?

7          Participation is increasingly becoming institutionalised.   What are the new institutionalised spaces of participation like and what have their effects been?

7          How might participation best be conceptualised in spatial terms?

7          To what extent are participatory approaches embedded in space and place, how does that affect the sustainability of participation and how can we facilitate the distanciation of participatory praxis beyond the boundaries of carefully managed participatory arenas?

7          To what extent and with what consequences, are particular participatory events/processes situated and located within particular institutional and social contexts?

7          To what extend is PAR space 'paradoxical', i.e. beyond the dominant powers that constitute everyday spaces, so enabling impossible behaviours and unthinkable thoughts, yet at the same time itself constituted by potentially dominating powers?

7          Does "The new tyranny" critique mean that participatory spaces are inevitably spaces of externally imposed discipline and power and even if they are, does this necessarily mean that they can never be spaces for empowerment, consciencisation or action?

7          Does the recently proposed taxonomy of 'invited' versus 'popular' participatory spaces provide a useful way to conceptualize different kinds of participatory arenas?

7          How can various new and old arenas of participation be linked and connected in productive ways and how might this address the critiques that accuse advocates of participation of limiting themselves to the local scale?

7          Geographers believe that spatiality and politics of scale are tremendously important issues for social analysis, but how can be bring these and other geographical concepts into participatory projects with which we are involved in ways that make sense and have utility for ordinary people?

7           How can conferences (like the RGS-IBG Annual Conf.) become more inclusive? What roles (if any) can new information and communication technologies play in broadening participation to those who cannot attend in person? Could conferences be structured, timed, located, and otherwise organised in ways which increase participation?

Please send expressions of interest, or abstracts to any or all of the session convenors by 24th January 2006:

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Dr Duncan Fuller
Programme Leader, BA Geography
Division of Geography
Ellison Building D Block
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST

Direct Tel - 0191 2273753
Fax - 0191 2274715
Divisional Office - 0191 2273428

PEANuT (Participatory Evaluation and Appraisal in Newcastle upon Tyne) -
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/peanut

Mapping Tranquillity -
http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/map_tranquil/?view=Standard

Exploring solutions to 'graffiti' in Newcastle upon Tyne -
http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/graffiti

'Local to me': Advancing Financial Inclusion in Newcastle upon Tyne
http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/local/?view=Standard

Participatory Geographies Working Group of the RGS/IBG (PyGyWG)-
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/

Geo-publishing.org - http://www.may.ie/nirsa/geo-pub/geo-pub.html

Radical Theory/Critical Praxis: Making a Difference Beyond the
Academy?
http://www.praxis-epress.org/availablebooks/radicaltheorycriticalpraxis.html