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From Adam Bledsoe ************************ Call for Papers: "Race, Space, and Struggle" Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), February 24-28, New York, 2012 The late Clyde Woods posed an extremely challenging question to geographers regarding racialized populations: “Does our research in any way reflect the experiences, viewpoints, and needs of the residents of these dying [racialized] communities? On the other hand, is the patient really dead?” This session will seek to take up this challenge, by foregrounding explorations into the diverse responses of racialized communities to their marginalization. Paying close attention to the social realities of racialization, it seeks to place the intersection of resistance and race at the center of our conversation, but in a way that encompasses the broad array of everyday practices, artistic expressions of resistance, and everyday forms of cooperation and creativity, alongside more traditional forms of organized interventions. Ruthie Gilmore argues that, “By centering attention on those most vulnerable to the fatal couplings of power and difference signified by racism, we will develop richer analyses of how it is that radical activism might most productively exploit crisis for liberatory ends.” Given our current crisis: How can our research bring attention to the stark realities of racialization without erasing the always already existing practices of resistance? Description: We seek proposals that address this issue at a variety of scales and locations: global/national/regional/urban/local/the body. Studies that focus on cases both within and outside the United States are welcome. Topics of interest are numerous and include (but are not limited to) the ways in which racialization intersects with: • radical political organizing • mass incarceration, deportation, and policing • artistic and other creative expressions of resistance • forms of survival and quotidian practices (informal economy, migrant networks, etc.) that often go ignored by an exclusive focus on more traditional organized modes of resistance • multicultural white supremacy and Obama • crisis and exacerbated inequality • historical and contemporary Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native American movements We ask: What are the material realities and theoretical possibilities for the emergence and sustainability of new practices that challenge the status quo forms of oppression as they manifest themselves racially in our contemporary crisis? How are communities in all parts of the world, addressing their respective forms of racialized subjugation? What is the importance of the concepts and practices of space, place and territory to theoretical and practical forms of political intervention? The aim is a paper session with a discussant that brings together themes of geography, race, and responses to racialization—continuing an important discussion in the discipline while laying the groundwork for future conversations. For those wishing to participate in this session, please submit a copy of your title, abstract, and presenter identification number (PIN) to: Adam Bledsoe ([log in to unmask]), Orlando Serrano ([log in to unmask]), and Yousuf Al-Bulushi ([log in to unmask]) by September 25. -- Sara H. Smith Assistant Professor Geography University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ________________________________