We wish to bring this final call for papers to your attention:

RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2011
Location: RGS-IBG London
Date: August 31st – September 2nd 2011
Conference Theme: Geographical Imaginations

Session Title:
Intersecting Geographical Imaginations: Social Geography and Deaf Studies

Acknowledging notable exceptions such as of the work of Valentine and Skelton (2003 and 2007) and Batterbury et al. (2007), social geography has largely yet to engage in an evolved dialogue with Deaf Studies. This is surprising, as at the intersection of human, social, cultural geographies and Deaf Studies we find exciting potential to think about spatiality, language, citizenship, education, and identity, as well as a myriad of further themes of interest to the social geographer, in new ways. From within Deaf Studies, for example, Emery has pertinently identified ‘...the ways in which Deaf citizens are excluded from citizenship, namely, due to citizenship being phonocentric, [and] social policy being audist’ (2009: 42). Engaging with such discourses can lead to a broadening of the geographical imagination by highlighting the subtle biases with which our research and philosophical perspectives can become, often unknowingly, inflected.

Academic discourses around d/Deafness have served to perpetuate constructions of the Deaf figure as ‘other’ in social thought. Perceived as a markedly different identity, considerations of d/Deafness have been disproportionately informed by a disability-led understanding, which has undermined and critically neglected the understanding of Deaf culturo-linguistic identity. As Obasi posits; ‘[t]he myopia of this perspective prevents us from looking beyond audiology to see the fuller picture of visual and linguistic plenitude identified from within Deaf cultural theorizing’ (Obasi, 2008: 458). Using these lenses, we begin to deconstruct traditional discourses around the social construction of place. Critical perspectives from scholarly work in both Deaf studies and social geography will contest and negotiate the threshold existing at the interface of both disciplines.

We invite contributions from those whose work intertwines with the themes and concepts detailed here, as well as related trajectories. The overall aims of the session are
-      to draw focus to discourses that are of shared mutual interest to social geography and Deaf Studies;
-      to revisit, deconstruct, challenge and destabilise hitherto accepted ideologies in light of this engagement;
-      to generate and develop understandings of how such inter-disciplinary conversations can enrich both.
In doing so, this session seeks to overturn audist perspectives and present new opportunities to rethink identity and conceptualise space as shaped by the mosaic of difference.

Abstracts for papers should be 200-250 words in length. Please forward your submissions and any queries to the session organisers:

Gill Harold, University College Cork ([log in to unmask])
and
Mary Beth Kitzel, University of Sussex ([log in to unmask])

Closing date for submissions: Tuesday 15th February 2011

References
Batterbury, S.C.E. et al, (2007) ‘Sign Language Peoples as indigenous minorities: implications for research and policy.’ Environment and Planning A 39: 2899-2915.
Emery, S.D. (February 2009) ‘In space no one can see you waving your hands: making citizenship meaningful to Deaf worlds.’ Citizenship Studies 13(1): 31-44.
Obasi, C. (Fall 2008) ‘Seeing the Deaf in “Deafness”.’ Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 13(4):455-465.
Skelton, T. and Valentine, G. (2003) ‘ ‘It feels like being Deaf is normal’: an exploration into the complexities of defining D/deafness and young D/deaf people’s identities’ The Canadian Geographer, 47 (4): 451-466.
Valentine, G. and Skelton, T. (2003) 'Living on the edge: the marginalisation and 'resistance' of D/deaf youth'. Environment and Planning A, 35: 301-321.
Valentine, G. and Skelton, T. (2007) ‘The right to be heard: Citizenship and language’, Political Geography, 26: 121-140.