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Dear Jenny: I attach an abstract for your session. This has been on ice for a while until I returned from Asia. By the way, many thanks for the calender...it's fab! best Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pickerill, Dr J." <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 1:46 PM Subject: CFP AAG: Activism, autonomy, and alternatives: Putting theory into practice and practice into theory CALL FOR PAPERS Association of American Geographers Annual Conference, San Francisco, 17th - 21st April 2006 Paper session: Activism, autonomy, and alternatives: Putting theory into practice and practice into theory The growing influence of global corporations and international capital over national government, and the emerging threats of environmental crisis (such as Peak Oil, climate change), appears to go hand-in-hand with a significant disenfranchisement and apathy amongst the electorate in western democracies. When we look beyond formal political arenas, however, we can see that different spaces of activism are being invented and used by individuals and collectives (for example, social centres, direct action camps, community organising). Yet how do practical attempts to 'do' 'autonomous projects', 'sustainable development', 'green living', or 'anti-capitalism' connect with the more abstract ideas that seek to define, and perhaps even motivate, them? How are utopian visions put into practice and how are the contradictions of daily living overcome? Through critically reflecting on the experiences of political projects that seek to offer alternative possibilities to the capitalist organisation of society, and the conceptual ideas that underpin them, this session seeks to create a constructive dialogue between theory and practice which can help to better understand and implement alternative politics in the contemporary world. Thus just some of the questions we are asking include: How self-legislating must you be to be 'autonomous'? How green is a 'real' environmentalist? How anti-capital are anti-capitalists? What is 'good enough'? How should we consider the relations and importance of outcome vis-à-vis process? Theory and practice? Attempt and success? Multiplicity and integrity? Overall, how can we understand conceptual ideas such as 'autonomy' and 'green living' as relations rather than ultimate goals, acknowledging their unobtainability while retaining their power as utopian stimuli? We would be interested in papers which critically reflect upon activist practices, experiments and spaces of resistance. If you would be interested in participating in this paper session, please send a short abstract (no longer than 250 words) to the organisers by 13th October 2006. Organisers: Jon Anderson, School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, UK ([log in to unmask]) Jenny Pickerill, Department of Geography, Leicester University, UK ([log in to unmask]) ------------------------------- Dr Jenny Pickerill Lecturer in Human Geography Department of Geography University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH UK work: +44 (0)116 252 3836 fax: +44 (0)116 252 3854 email: [log in to unmask] web: www.jennypickerill.info Anti-war activism project: www.antiwarresearch.info Autonomous Geographies project: www.autonomousgeographies.org Lammas low impact settlement project: www.lammas.org.uk --------------------------