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CFP – Responding to responsibility: Critically exploring the spatialities of geographies of responsibility
RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2016
August 30-September 2, 2016
Session Sponsors: Participatory Geographies Research Group
Panel Co-Organizers: Jenny Pickerill, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield; and
Vanessa Sloan Morgan, Department of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada
Geographies of responsibility offer a means of understanding the spatiality of responsibility and the relational ethics involves within these dynamics (for instance: Popke, 2007; Raghuram,
Madge, & Noxolo, 2009). The intricacies of responsibility, however, cannot escape the place-based nature of what they are responding to, as Massey (2004, 2006) has reminded us; an
introspective politics of identity must be taken into account when space is being thought of relationally, and always in connection with histories in the construction of place. With responsibility implying entering into a relationship to respond, an ethical
disposition to respond – an obligation ‘to help’ – has transformed this relationality into what Noxolo, Raghuram & Madge have seen deny autonomy to (re)produce “an agency-less underprivileged other” when what is needed is a move “towards a more nuanced and
power-conscious analysis” (2011: 418; see also Spivak, 1994). Despite a paternalistic capacity to disempower relations, responsibility remains a way to, although delicately, think through the complex and
indeterminate inequalities and inadequacies in contemporary spatialities, including structural networks and social relations. With an ability to take account of such diverse and divergent power dynamics, responsibility offers a way to conceptually and actively
transcend such dynamics, but also outline why doing so is itself problematic. As Noxolo et al. remind us, “it is precisely because of these power differences that it is worth considering not only the possibilities of transcending these power differentials
[of responsibility] but also the problems associated with doing so” (2011: 419-420).
This session will be split between a panel discussion and a participatory, facilitated exercise. Taken up in the spirit of contributing to the already foundational work on responsibility that has been done in
the discipline of geography, the panel will firstly bring post-colonial, autonomous, anti-colonial, and critical geographers together to explore responsibility as a radically-relational and spatial way of thinking and acting. Panelists will explore responsibility
empirically, situationally, and theoretically by drawing upon their own action-oriented research to expand upon literature on responsibility in various contexts, including, but not limited to: research relationships and academe, spaces of solidarity and activist
organizing, morality, interpersonal relationships, and social change and social movements. Participants will then be invited to take part in an exercise that will be facilitated in small groups to explore their relationship to responsibility.
Panelists are invited to submit abstracts of 200 words to Vanessa Sloan Morgan ([log in to unmask])
and Jenny Pickerill ([log in to unmask]) by February 12, 2016. Please also include a brief (100 word) rationale for why
you would like to take part in this panel.
References
Massey, D. (2004). Geographies of responsibility. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 86(1), 5–18.
Massey, D. (2006). Space, time and political responsibility in the midst of global inequality. Erdkunee, 60(2), 89–95.
Noxolo, P., Raghuram, P., & Madge, C. (2011). Unsettling responsibility: postcolonial interventions: Unsettling responsibility: postcolonial interventions. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 37(3),
418–429. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00474.x
Popke, J. (2007). Geography and ethics: Spaces of cosmopolitan responsibility. Progress in Human Geography, 31(4), 509–518.
Raghuram, P., Madge, C., & Noxolo, P. (2009). Rethinking responsibility and care for a postcolonial world. Geoforum, 40(1), 5–13. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.07.007
Spivak, G. C. (1994). Responsibility. Boundary 2, 21(3), 19–64.