Dear All,
Apologies for the blanket email and cross postings, but we are looking for one more paper to appear in a couple of sessions on the topic/CFP outlined below: if anyone might be in a position to join us on this, then please email the three of us before the AAG deadline of 14th November. Yes, I know, very soon.
Best wishes
Gordon
Geoffrey DeVerteuil ([log in to unmask])
Joshua Evans ([log in to unmask]) and
Gordon MacLeod ([log in to unmask])
Call for Papers: Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting 2013, Los Angeles April 9-13th.
Session Title:
Between the Punitive and the Supportive: Urban Social Policy’s ‘Messy Middle Ground’
Organizers:
Geoffrey DeVerteuil, Geography & Environment, University of Southampton UK
Joshua Evans, Centre for Social Sciences, Athabasca University Canada
Gordon MacLeod, Geography, Durham University UK
Session overview:
Inspired by one of the signature themes of the 2013 AAG Annual Meeting – “Beyond the Los Angeles School” and, in particular, its purported focus on a dystopian urban landscape – this session aims to provide an opportunity for urban scholars, practitioners and activists to critically interrogate recent conceptual approaches to the study of urban social policy. In particular, it encourages delegates to (re)evaluate the respective merits and shortcomings of both (1) punitive, revanchist and post-justice perspectives, which highlight the extent to which the local state and its parallel organizations appear to be engaging primarily in a ‘post-welfarist’ policing and spatial governmentality of poorer urban communities, and (2) those which – even amid an era of local fiscal austerity – seem to be uncovering considerable commitment to a relatively supportive, caring and compassionate infrastructure for urban communities that are experiencing conditions of poverty and an under-provision of vital services (Cloke et al 2010). In this sense, the session is looking to cultivate a more expansive and temperate approach to the investigation of urban social policies, enabling an examination of both strands, but also their interaction - the balance between punitive and supportive, how certain punitive measures might co-exist with and even depend upon the more supportive currents within urban space, and perhaps even vice-versa.
Key topics/questions could include:
• Considering the emergence of a distinctly Post-Revanchist City: As harm reduction and housing first policy models rapidly circulate around a mobile urban world, are we seeing the outlines of a more tolerant, compassionate city?
• Interpreting urban welfare: Geographies of welfare have been coloured by a liberal view of the state vis-a-vis its distinctiveness from civil society; how does the ‘shadow state’ enable us to interpret the messy middle between punitive and supportive? And might governmentality approaches offer insights here while also challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about the state, thereby inviting us to think about welfare geographies differently, as ‘assemblages’? In this sense, what might welfare geographies look like through the lens of assemblage theory? Can assemblage be integrated with ‘political economy’ approaches?
• The Hybridization of Urban Social Welfare: Social welfare formations have long been hybrids combining aspects of the state, market, informal community and civic society. What can we make of this 'messy middle ground' in cities past and present?
• To what extent is the growing populist acknowledgement of the ‘triumph of the city’ – e.g. new urbanism, anti-sprawl ‘smart’ and ‘creative’ urban policies, of what urban life offers in terms of economic, social and cultural capital - seeing a (re)commitment to urban policies for health and welfare? How might we interpret the commodification and de- or re-commodification of welfare and ‘collective consumption’?
• What are limits to voluntarism? To what extent can the urban spectacle and mega-events play a crucial role in enabling a culture of voluntarism and support?