Apologies for cross-posting 

Please see below a call for papers for the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2013 (28th-30th August 2013):

Faith, Space and Youth: Young People Negotiating the Geographies of Spirituality

Organisers: Ruth Judge (University College London, UK), Dr Claire Dwyer (University College London, UK)

Sponsored by: Children, Youth and Families Research Group (confirmed), Geographies of Religion, Spirituality and Faith Working Group (TBC)

Call for Papers:

This session links the well established field of children’s and youth geographies and the emerging interest in the role of faith and spirituality in shaping social and spatial relations.

Recent work has explored the role of faith-based spaces, institutions, discourses, and embodied spiritual practices in shaping young peoples identities and subjectivities. Work by Baillie Smith et al. (2012), Hopkins ( 2011) and Olsen (2012) illustrates how young people engage with, adopt and transform, or resist such spaces, discourses and practices in the negotiation of their everyday lives and emphasises the intersectionality of spiritual identities with other social identities. Interest in the role of spirituality in social life also speaks to the recognition of the role of emotion and affect in social relations.

We are seeking papers which take these questions further. Themes could include, but are not limited to:

• Intersections between faith and other social identities in young people's subjectivities

• Faith and young people's creation of space

• The emotive and affective power of spirituality in young people's lives

• Faith and young people's cosmopolitan imaginations and/or transnational action

• Young people, faith and spaces of hospitality, conviviality and community

• Young peoples’ transformations or subversions of ‘traditional’ faith practices and spaces

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Ruth Judge ([log in to unmask]) or Claire Dwyer ([log in to unmask]) by 11^th February 2013