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*Call for Papers: Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, 29 March – 2 April 2016, San Francisco*

Narrating displacement: Lived experiences of urban social and spatial exclusion 

Session Convenors: Jacob Lind (Malmö University, Sweden); Emil Pull (Malmö University, Sweden; Roskilde University, Denmark); Ioanna Tsoni (Malmö University, Sweden)

From the ghastly spectacle of the refugees’ plight along the shores of the Mediterranean, to the myriad of imperceptible and often veiled injustices suffered by residual urban dwellers, the landscape of exclusion today unfolds into a fluctuating, yet solid, web of physical, discursive and cognitive lines of differentiation and control.

In the wake of such an era of extensive and intensive proliferation of (im)material boundaries the draconian measures that have been taken to erect barriers and assert control over certain bodies gives rise to manifold and often brutal conflicts around the construction, enactment and contestation of spaces. Exclusionary practices span scales from the global to the local, down to lines of distinction inscribed upon the ‘geography closest in’ – the body. 

In this light, this session seeks to ethnographically approach the dynamic practices of emplacement and displacement today, as well as illuminate the technologies and tactics permeating a multitude of current exclusionary policies and measures. We wish to identify today’s ‘undesirables’ –with a special focus on those found in urban settings– and foreground their narratives and lived experiences. As migrants, refugees, ‘Travelers’, people of color, the homeless, children, and the urban poor –among others- struggle to take space and make place for themselves under the pressures and paradoxes of uneven urban geographies, they claim the centre ground and threaten, even if imperceptibly, social hierarchies impinged on space. 

Two questions thus emerge: what commonalities and shared logics can be revealed through the study of narratives and the lived experiences of people subjected to a range of different social and spatial exclusionary processes; and how do the everyday practices of various actors produce, reproduce, sustain or contest these contemporary exclusionary dynamics?

The session’s theme is designed to be inclusive enough to solicit a wide range of applicants. Researchers are invited to submit abstracts that broadly serve to feed into the discussion of narratives and lived experiences of social and spatial exclusions, such as, but not limited to:

• -       Narratives of emplacement and displacement
• -       Intersecting inequalities: Gender, class, ethnic, and spatial dynamics in cities that contribute to urban exclusion
• -       Contestations over place and space
• -       The sense of border between self and ‘other’
• -       (Im)material urban boundaries and frontiers
• -       Lived experiences of exclusion and marginalization
• -       Strategies and technologies of forced relocation
• -       The commodification and marketable representation of the urban poor and their spaces
• -       The growing dissociation between border functions and border locations
• -       The murky backside of gentrification
• -       Renovation and eviction processes
• -       Social categories/mechanisms by which inequalities are constituted, legitimized, questioned, and tackled in diverse societies
• -       Political subjectivity and contestation in urban settings.

Paper Submissions:

To submit a paper proposal, please submit the following, in the order listed below, all in a single Microsoft word file or pdf document, by Thursday October 15th 2015:

1. Applicant’s name, affiliation, and contact information.

2. Paper abstract of no more than 250 words.

3. Brief bio-sketch of 200-300 words.

Please email complete applications to Emil Pull at [log in to unmask]. Questions or clarifications prior to abstract submission should be directed to the same email address.

Successful applicants will be contacted by the 20th of October 2015 and will be expected to pay the registration fee and submit their abstracts online at the AAG website by October 29th 2015.

Context and host

The session will take place at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in San Francisco from March 29 until April 2 2016, which brings together leading scholars, experts and researchers in geography, GIS, environmental science, sustainability and relevant fields.

Submission Timeline

• 15 October 2015:         Deadline for submission of abstracts.

• 20 October 2015:         Notification of acceptance decisions sent out to applicants.

• 29 October 2015:         Deadline for AAG Annual Meeting registration and fee payment.

Registration

All conference presenters must register for the conference. For more information on how to register please visit the conference website: http://www.aag.org/annualmeeting

Travel expenses and fees

No support will be available from the session convenors towards the cost of accommodation and/or travel and the conference fee.

Session Convenors

The organizers are PhD students within the research environments ‘Migration, Urbanisation and Societal Change’ (MUSA) and ‘Critical Urban Sustainability Hub’ (CRUSH) at Malmö University (SE) and Roskilde University (DK).