(Apologies for cross postings)

 

Connecting People, Participation and Place

 

An international conference of participatory geographies

 

University College, Durham University

14th and 15th January 2008

 

Organised by the Social Well-Being and Spatial Justice research cluster at Durham

and

the Participatory Geographies Working Group of the RGS/IBG

 

First announcement

 

Confirmed speakers:

Sara Kindon (Victoria University of Wellington) - keynote

Caitlin Cahill (University of Utah)

Gaby Kitoko (African Community Advice North East)

Giles Mohan (Open University)

Babette Resureccion (Asian Institute of Technology)

Paul Routledge (Glasgow University)

Jasber Singh (Independent participatory researcher, UK)

 

Participatory approaches to research, learning, action and change have in some ways become a new orthodoxy in social and environmental science disciplines, voluntary sectors, statutory agencies and community-led organisations across the world. The development of conceptual insights, creative techniques and radical practices is exploding. At the same time participatory approaches are highly contested and debated, and are profoundly affected by environments, settings and institutional webs they occupy.

 

This conference will showcase original and collaboratively produced contributions to theory, practice and social change which focus on the relations between people and places. The themes are

 

  1. The difference participation makes to understanding, investigating and acing upon issues connecting people and places

 

  1. Charting the geographies of participation: settings, scales and spatialities

 

The conference will coincide with the publication of a Routledge text of the same name (eds Sara Kindon, Rachel Pain and Mike Kesby).

 

The conference aims to:

 

  • Be open to anyone with an interest in participatory methods and approaches for research, learning, action and change

 

  • Encourage discussion and debates around the conference themes between academics, practitioners, and all those in between

 

  • Include a range of different forms of participation, papers, workshops, performances and technologies

 

  • Consist of invited papers and workshops (Day 1), and an open space format (Day 2) where content and format are decided by participants through email/web/live discussions before and during the conference.

 

A small fee will be payable to cover registration, tea, coffee and lunch over the two days. The conference will be held in the 1000 year old Castle in the heart of beautiful and historic Durham. A range of reasonable bed and breakfast accommodation will be available close by.

Durham is well served by high speed mainline rail services from the major UK cities (under 3 hours from London). Newcastle and Durham Tees Valley airports are within 30-40 minutes drive with frequent connections to major London airports. Ferry services link the River Tyne to ports in Scandinavia, The Netherlands and Germany.

A full call for papers and registration details will be circulated in May 2007.

Enquiries and suggestions at this stage to [log in to unmask].

 

Conference website http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/Conf/Default.aspx?alias=www.geography.dur.ac.uk/conf/cppp

 

Organising committee:

Catherine Alexander, Kye Askins, Natalie Beale, Caitlin Cahill, Paul Chatterton, Christine Dunn, Duncan Fuller, Peter Hopkins, Roy Huijsmans, Kathrin Horschelmann, Sara Kindon, Sara McKian, Julia McMillan, Rachel Pain, Jonathan Rigg, Paul Routledge, Nadine Shafer, Divya Tolia-Kelly, Louise Waite, Friederike Ziegler

 

 

Dr Rachel Pain
Department of Geography
University of Durham
Durham DH1 3LE
England    +44 (0)191 3341876

 

Social Well-Being and Spatial Justice research cluster
http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/Clusters/Default.aspx?alias=www.geography.dur.ac.uk/clusters/swsj
Editor: ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies
http://www.acme-journal.org
Participatory Geographies Working Group
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/