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RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Manchester: 26-28 August 2009 (www.rgs.org/AC2009)

Call for Papers: Geographies of Sexual Lives

The question of where sexual life matters might provokes a host of questions, including, in which places and spaces sexual life matters; but also at what scales, or even in which social fields does sexual life matters? Thinking about how sexual life matters in different social fields can illuminate the diversity of phenomena that might fall within the rubric ‘sexual life’. Within the sub-discipline of ‘geographies of sexualities’ (or ‘sexual geographies’), much work has focused on the lives, experiences and identities of sexual minorities, especially those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or queer. While some geographers have called for more attention to be paid to the actual sexual lives of sexual minorities, much of the research conducted in geographies of sexualities considers the relationships between the identities and practices of sexual minorities and how they face persecution, discrimination and (consequently) marginalisation from heteronormative society.

The sex that is considered, celebrated and debated within geographies of sexualities and queer geographies tends to be the unusual, the resistant, the ‘abnormal’, such that hetero/homonormative practices go unquestioned, notably in feminist/gender geographies. The place of the normative is key to engaging with sexual lives that are ‘everywhere’ and so taken-for-granted that they become invisible and unremarked.

The focus on sex in sexual life runs the risk of overlooking how sexual lives may not consist of sex itself but intimacy, kinship and diverse relationship forms that are not premised on erotics, desire and (sexual) attraction. In these contexts when sexual life matters may vary not only spatially but also temporally over the lifecourse. The question then is whether sexual life is necessarily premised on sex? And, if so, what counts as sex?

We are seeking empirical and theoretical contributions that might consider:

· When and where does sexual life matter?

· Intimacy and sexual life; intimacy beyond sexual life.

· Boredom in/and sexual life.

· Why are geographers (still) so reticent to talk about sex?

· Knowledge, society and sexual life.

· Sexual life and the family home.

· Feminism and sexual life

· Queering sexual life; decolonising sexual life

· More-than-representational approaches to sexual life.

· Public sexual lives.

· Rethinking normative sexual lives.

· The temporalities of sexual life.

· Health geographies and sexual life

· Asexual lives

· Sexual lives and lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or trans identities

· Heterosexuality and sexual lives

Contributions are welcomed that explore these and other relevant issues.

Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words or expressions of interest to either Gavin Brown ([log in to unmask]) or Kath Browne ([log in to unmask]) by the 20th of January, 2009.

Dr. Kath Browne,

Senior Lecturer,

School of the Environment,

Cockcroft Building,

Lewes Road,

Brighton,

BN2 4GJ,

England.

Tel: +44 1273 642377

Email: [log in to unmask]

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Geographies of Sexualities (Browne, K, Lim, J. and Brown G. eds)