The Nordic Geographers' Meeting
takes place in Reykjavik from 11-14 June 2013. Please find
below our CFP. Closing date for abstract submissions is 31
January 2013 (http://conference.hi.is/ngm2013/call-for-papers/).
However, we would like to encourage potential contributors to
contact the session organisers before 20 December 2012 (email
to [log in to unmask]).
Session 21 – Invasive life and biosecurity conflict
The globalized and interconnected world has necessarily brought once
separated lifeforms into contact at an accelerated pace. Many plant
and animal species are now found in places where they have appeared
only recently. Some of these new ecologies have their own nonhuman
history, many others have grown out of decidedly human interference.
Only half a century ago, plants and animals were deliberately
brought to new places in order to improve the existing environment,
to make it more useful or less vulnerable to physical or chemical
forces. Other species were introduced for the pure joy of having
them to look at. Nowadays, these changes are seen as problematic.
Many countries and supranational political bodies such as the EU
have their own regulations and institutions in dealing with invasive
life, often related to the notion of biosecurity (Barker 2008;
Everts & Füller 2011). At the same time, the managing and often
killing of once welcomed species is increasingly challenged by
interest groups and ordinary people alike. These conflicts over
space and the right to certain territories/ecologies provide a key
lens to moral problems stemming from global interconnectedness.
For this session, we invite papers that deal empirically and/or
theoretically with the aforementioned issues, the conflicts and
controversies over biosecurity interventions into invasive life very
broadly defined, the moral dilemma posed by the mobilities of
bacteria, fungi, plants or animals or any other form of life.
Session organisers:
Jonathan Everts, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Karl Benediktsson, University of Iceland