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(apologies for cross-posting) CALL FOR PAPERS: ******************************** Kurdish Geographies of Space, Place, and Power Association of American Geographers Los Angeles, CA April 9-13, 2013 Session organizers: Jessie Clark, University of Oregon, and Christian Sinclair, University of Arizona Events unfolding across the Middle East over the past two years are lessons in geography; reminders that the ostensibly smooth cartographic renderings of the nation-state space little reflect grounded practice, desire, and identity. As boundaries shift, governments collapse, and the flow of goods, people, and ideas expand, alliances emerge that challenge our assumptions about the seamlessness of political power. Into the 21st century, no one group has more challenged the popular global imaginary than the Kurds, yet to date work on the Kurds remains sparse. Spread across several countries, the Kurds constitute perhaps the largest stateless nation in the world. Popular geopolitical narratives about the Kurds pivot around the collective experience with war, displacement, and imbalances of power. In reality, the Kurdish experience is anything but collective – defined by a range of national affiliations as well as linguistic, gendered, and ethnic identities. To this end, this session seeks papers that can contribute to the still small but growing body of work on the Kurds and Kurdayetî (Kurdishness) in a way that sheds light on the diverse Kurdish geographies of space, place, and power. A lack of institutional support in the US for Kurdish Studies has limited the number and size of forums for exchange among North American geographers (and scholars in general) about these issues. This panel session is a response to this void and hopes to initiate a fruitful dialogue on a people and place(s) often excluded from regional studies on the Middle East. Papers may address but are not limited to issues of: movement and mobility, conflict, nationalism, stateness, gender, language, and human rights. Please send an abstract of up to 250 words NO LATER THAN OCTOBER 5, 2012 to the session organizers: Jessie H. Clark ([log in to unmask]) and Christian Sinclair ([log in to unmask]). Details of the AAG conference can be found at: http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting. ********************************