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*CALL FOR PAPERS: RGS-IBG INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, LONDON, AUGUST 26-29 2014* Session title: Gender, work and performance: new methods for a new economy? Session conveners: Sophie Cranston (University of Edinburgh) and Ealasaid Munro (University of Glasgow). In geography and related disciplines there is a renewed interest in researching 'bodies at work' (McDowell and Court 1994, McMorran 2012). This renewed interest is reflected in calls to develop the ways in which work could be considered a performance. To date, scholars of work have made extensive use of dramaturgical metaphors - understanding work as a performance, script, or 'dance', for example. This understanding of work reveals a need to further examine the embodied nature of work; recent scholarship has considered the body as a scale of analysis in its own right, in turn pointing towards the importance of exploring the affective component of work (or, indeed, unemployment) in a range of settings (Crang 1994, Erickson 2004). In this session, we take these understandings of work as a starting point, and invite papers that address the ways in which gender and gender relations find expression in the contemporary labour market. This call comes in recognition of the continuing precarity of the global labour market, and reflects our 'genuine desire to understand how people make a living amid shifting economic conditions, as well as a belief in the importance of place and space in determining labour geographies' (McMorran 2012 490). Current scholarship in this field argues that methodological innovation is required, such that academic investigations of work can keep pace with changing economic conditions (see Cranston, forthcoming). We therefore invite papers that explore alternative ways of 'doing' research on gender, and work. This includes research in which 'learning to labour' is used as a method in and of itself (McMorran 2012, Munro 2013), for example. In this session, we are also open to innovative ways of presenting research on gender and work (Pratt and Johnston 2013), hence we invite participants to think about alternative ways of presenting papers - such as through scripts or performances, sound or video - although of course we still welcome traditional papers. We invite papers that consider the full spectrum of gender identities, across all forms of contemporary work, including (but not restricted to) those that focus on: * Performance/performativity, gender and work * Embodied work/ embodied practices at work * The intersection of gender, class, 'race' and sexuality at work * Gender and 'worklessness', unemployment and welfare * The gendering of certain occupations, and the reification of gender categories at work Please send abstracts of <250 words to Sophie Cranston ([log in to unmask]) and Ealasaid Munro ([log in to unmask]) by Wednesday 12th February 2014. Please feel free to contact us with any queries you might have. Dr Ealasaid Munro, AHRC Postdoctoral research associate, University of Glasgow Centre for Cultural Policy Research, 13 Professor Square, G12 8QQ. Tel: 01413 302447 Mob: 07791 545 225