Final Call for Papers: Session at the Royal Geographical Society Annual conference, London, 27-29 August 2014

Military mobilities

Convened by Peter Merriman and Kimberley Peters (Aberystwyth University, UK)

Sponsored by the Political Geography Research Group, Social and Cultural Geography Research Group, and Historical Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG

“Military geographies may be everywhere, but they are often subtle, hidden, concealed, or unidentified” (Woodward 2005, 719). In recent years geographers have paid increasing attention to military spaces and practices – from the scale of the body to global geopolitical strategies and military operations – but few studies have explicitly focussed on military movements and mobilities. For this session we invite contributions from scholars working across a range of disciplines and sub-disciplines in order to facilitate a critical dialogue about military mobilities and immobilities in the past, present and future. We invite papers which address a range of topics, in any time period, including (but not limited to) the following:

· Secret and covert mobilities – e.g. special forces operations, extraordinary rendition, mass evacuations

· Strategic mobilities – military tactics, logistics etc.

· Infrastructures underpinning and enabling military mobilities

· Mobilities afforded by distinctive technologies such as the submarine, drone, stealth bomber, bomb disposal robot, motor car, space shuttle, helicopter, horse, trench, tunnel, and tank.

· Relationship between military and non-military/civilian mobilities – e.g. use of civilian guides and translators, private security forces, civilian public transport, etc.

· Simulation of military mobilities for operations or entertainment – military logistics, military strategies, computer games, etc.

· Role of strategic sites as bases or control centres for military mobilities (e.g. Diego Garcia, Gibraltar, Guam, Northwood, Pearl Harbor, and the Pentagon)

· International Defence Training – mobilities associated with international training sites; multi-national war gaming exercises.

· Role of military mobilities in international policing of seas

· Experiences and accounts of travel in the military

· Social, cultural, political and economic geographies created by military mobilities, including studies of military communities, commodity circulations, etc.

· Mobilities of military families

· Mobilities of peoples displaced by military activities, ranging from refugees created by war and conflict, to those evicted from land to build military bases, airfields and training grounds.

· Mobilities of the militarised body and the injured body.

· Histories of military mobilities and empire.

Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to BOTH convenors by Friday 7 February.

Dr Peter Merriman, Aberystwyth University, UK: [log in to unmask]; Dr Kimberley Peters, Aberystwyth University, UK: [log in to unmask]

Further details on the RGS Annual Conference are available at:

http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Annual+international+conference.htm

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Dr Peter Merriman

Reader in Human Geography,

Department of Geography and Earth Sciences,

Aberystwyth University,

Aberystwyth,

Ceredigion,

SY23 3DB

Telephone (Direct): +44 (0) 1970 622574

Telephone (Secretary) +44 (0) 1970 622606

Fax: +44 (0) 1970 622659

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Dr Peter Merriman,

Darllenydd mewn Daearyddiaeth Dynol,

Adran Daearyddiaeth a Gwyddorau Daear,

Prifysgol Aberystwyth,

Aberystwyth,

Ceredigion,

SY23 3DB,

Ffôn: +44 (0) 1970 622574

Ffôn: +44 (0) 1970 622606

Ffacs: +44 (0) 1970 622659