**** Apologies for cross posting ****

 

FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS – PLEASE NOTE REVISED DEADLINE

 

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2007 'Sustainability and Quality of Life'

28th - 31st August 2007, at the Royal Geographical Society with IBG, London.

 

Call for papers: Children, young people and 'disability'

Sponsored by the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Working Group

 

Convenors: Michelle Pyer, Sara Ryan, Faith Tucker, John Horton and Peter Kraftl

 

In the last two decades, Geographers have contributed importantly to understandings of the social, spatial and environmental barriers experienced by people with 'disabilities', impairments and mental health issues. However, within this body of work, the geographies of children and young people remain relatively marginalised. Presently, there is a particularly pressing need for better understandings of these too-often neglected geographies in at least three senses.

 

• First, there is growing awareness that Social Scientific research regarding children and young people - under the rubric of 'Children's Geographies', for example - has too-often failed to consider the experiences, issues and needs of children and young people with 'mind-body-emotional differences' (Holt, 2004). Thus there is a need for a much wider spectrum of research and enquiry, to begin to attend to the diverse experiences, geographies and 'differences' in existence.
• Second, a raft of recent legislative interventions - such as the UK's Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001) - demand better understandings of, and new modes of practice and engagement with, younger disabled people. In addition, there is thus a need for reflection upon relationships between policy, practice and academic enquiry in this field.
• Third, diverse work by 'disability' activists and practitioners has successfully articulated a range of profound methodological, philosophical, and empirical challenges for academic researchers. Thus there is a need for innovative methods, concepts, ethics and participatory mechanisms which facilitate and enhance current and future empirical research and practice, particularly with the diversity of individual experience in mind.

 

This session thus seeks to draw together, and reflect upon, the widest possible range of recent/ongoing research, practice and theory regarding geographies of children and young people with 'disabilities', impairments and/or 'mind-body-emotional differences'. In particular, we encourage submissions relating to the following themes.

 

• 'Disability', childhood and youth in diverse geographical contexts (past and present)
• 'Disability' and younger people's autonomy, choice and accessibility
• 'Disability' and younger peoples mobilities
• 'Disability' and early childhood
• 'Disability', youth cultures and identity
• 'Disability', 'family' life, and the 'home'
• Social/cultural geographies of 'difference' and disability
• Designing inclusive environments for children and young people with 'disabilities'
• Theorising 'mind-body-emotional differences'
• Embodiment and disabled (young) people
• 'Disability' and 'growing up'
• 'Disability' and emotional/affective geographies of childhood and youth
• Methodological and ethical issues in research with younger 'disabled' people
• Developing innovative participatory/collaborative research and practice between policy-makers, practitioners and academic enquiry

 

Please submit abstracts (Max. 200 words) to [log in to unmask]

 

Michelle Pyer

Centre for Children and Youth,

Knowledge Exchange,

The University of Northampton,

Boughton Green Road,

Northampton,

NN2 7AL

 

The revised deadline for abstract submissions is 31^st January 2006.