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Call for Papers: Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL, April 8-12th – 2014 Session: Science, Politics and Conflict in Aquatic Environments: From Restoration to Intervention? Organizers: Chris Sneddon (Department of Geography/Environmental Studies Program, Dartmouth College)* Frank Magilligan (Department of Geography, Dartmouth College) Coleen Fox (Department of Geography, Dartmouth College) As government agencies and environmental organizations in the United States and elsewhere have forged ahead with efforts to repair or restore altered and degraded aquatic environments over the past several decades, these initiatives have met with a perhaps surprising degree of conflict emanating from a variety of community-based social actors. These conflicts over “restoration” of aquatic environments raise a host of interrelated questions ranging from the ontological and epistemological (e.g., what counts as “nature” and how is it defined) to the political and economic (e.g., who pays for restoration and whose voices are heard in the process). Meanwhile, such questions are also reflected in recent debates within the ecological sciences over the continuing efficacy of conventional approaches to restoration ecology and conservation biology, and have fueled interest in intervention ecology. Proponents of this “new ecology” recognize the salience if not dominance of human drivers of ecological transformation—within a planetary time period increasingly characterized as the Anthropocene—and argue the need for a fundamental re-thinking of how science contributes to debates over human-environment relations. These issues also argue the need for a fundamentally different, or differently cast, form and understanding of politics. Conflicts over repair or restoration of (or intervention in) ecological systems also intersect with recent debates in geography over the politics of scale, the political ecology of the cultural landscape, and science and technology studies. We are particularly interested in theoretical- or empirically-driven papers dealing with the following themes within struggles over restoration/intervention pertaining to aquatic environments: • river/riparian and coastal restoration/intervention (including dam removals, wetland interventions, coastal barrages and similar processes); • the role of scientific knowledge and technical expertise in generating, mitigating or exacerbating conflicts over restoration/intervention; • how place-based meanings and values influence conflicts; • novel conceptual understandings of ecological conflicts and/or ecological restoration; • understanding the role that scale-making projects and scalar categorizations play within conflicts over restoration/intervention. We are hoping for a wide theoretical and geographical range of submissions including (potentially) case studies from all parts of the world where the restoration of or interventions in wetlands, lakes, rivers and other water bodies is being contemplated, contested and carried out. Registration for the conference must be completed via the AAG Annual Meeting online submission portal by Tuesday, 3 December 2013 in order to receive the early bird discount on registration fees. Given this, please send us an abstract or paper idea—along with your registration PIN for the paper—by the latest on Friday, 27 November 2013 to [log in to unmask]