Call for Papers for RGS Conference, August 26-29, 2014

Session Title: Citizenship and Belonging in the UK: Co-Producing the Civic

 

Abstract: This paper session seeks papers on civic identity, civic duty and civic pride in the context of citizenship and belonging in the UK.  Recent work on citizenship has looked at the spatial operations of promoting and resisting ideas of citizenship and belonging at a variety scales, from local, to regional, to national, across a variety of political domains.   The complex geographies associated with the civic – as a real and symbolic space of feeling and acting as a citizen of place - pose some interesting questions on identity, duty and pride in light of recent political anxiety over the nature of these terms and the legal and affective structures which shape them.  Co-producing the civic involves a multi-scalar understanding of identity, duty and pride and examining the specific actors, institutions and policies which frame these ideas.  We invite papers on any issues covering the above, which may include topics such as:

 

-city and community pride

-nationalism and the role of the state

-insider/outsider debates of citizenship and belonging at different spatial scales

-classical versus modern interpretations of citizen rights and responsibilities

-the history and geography of civic spaces and their role in producing and mediating competing discourses of power   

 

Session format:

5x 15mins presentations with 5mins each for questions

 

Instructions For Authors:

Please send abstracts (of up to 200 words) to both convenors by the 31^st of January

Session Convenors:

Tom Collins, School of Geography, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT [log in to unmask]

Kate Kipling, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Ls2 9JT [log in to unmask]