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--- Apologies for cross-posting --- Final Call for Papers RGS-IBG ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2016 Royal Geographical Society, London, 30 August - 2 September 2016 Environmental volunteering in the neoliberalized North: Ethics, affects and materialities. Session Organizers: Marion Ernwein (University of Fribourg, Switzerland), Claire Tollis (Université Savoie Mont Blanc, France), Timothy Tait-Jamieson (University of Fribourg, Switzerland). As part of neoliberalization processes, the past 20 years have witnessed a growing involvement of the private sector in the governance, maintenance and financing of environmental projects and areas. Alongside private companies, non-profits have made their way and volunteer work has developed into a variety of forms - ranging from one-shot cleaning-up of natural areas, to long-term devolution of environmental responsibilities onto local groups. While international environmental volunteering and its neocolonial and neoliberal colorations are now well documented (Cousins et al. 2009; Griffiths 2015; Lorimer 2010), the specific forms that environmental volunteering might take within the austerity framework of Northern countries still needs to be more comprehensively addressed. Furthermore, while a literature addressing the changing role of the third-sector within neoliberal settings has developed (Fyfe 2005), it only rarely addresses environmental governance. This session therefore aims at identifying and analyzing the ethics and rationalities that accompany the development of volunteering in environmental management in the global neoliberalized North, both from the point of view of institutions and of volunteers, as well as at exploring its affective and material dimensions. Drawing inspiration from recent work on affect and emotion in political ecology (Singh 2013; Sultana 2015) we would like to understand the role that the corporeal and affective dimensions of volunteering play in the mobilization and motivation of participants, as well as in the production of consent towards this emerging mode of regulation. With this objective in mind, the session will put into question the technical devices used to turn citizens into environmental subjects and the materialities of the natures produced by volunteers. Presentations may encompass the variety of institutional and spatial forms of environmental volunteering (Environmental activism v. volunteering; Ad-hoc forms of environmental volunteering v. the "third sector"; Urban gardening as volunteering; Conservation volunteering; Volunteering in landscape management, etc) to include topics such as but not limited to: · The affective politics of volunteering: Affective encounters with nature as source of consent to neoliberal environmental governance / The marketability of affective socio-natural encounters and the development of a voluntary economic sector / The recourse to volunteering as mode of legitimization. · Devices and techniques used to produce environmental subjectivities through volunteering; affect and environmentality. · The natures of volunteering: Are specific charismatic species and spaces used to mobilize volunteers? What are the preferences and partialities of volunteers in terms of species and landscapes? · The social life of environmental volunteering: What impacts does volunteer work have on local socio-spatial and socio-natural relationships? / What impacts does it have on (new) environmental professions? / What role(s) do professional environmental managers play in the development and management of volunteers and volunteering in general? Please send a title and abstract of no more than 250 words to Marion Ernwein ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>), Claire Tollis ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Timothy Tait-Jamieson ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) by February 10th 2016. If you are interested to participate as a discussant, please get in touch. References: Cousins, J.A., Evans, J., Sadler J.P. (2009) 'I've paid to observe lions, not map roads!'-An emotional journey with conservation volunteers in South Africa. Geoforum, 40(6): 1069-1080. Griffiths, M. (2015) I've got goose bumps just talking about it!: Affective life on neoliberalized volunteering programmes. Tourist Studies, 15(2): 205-221. Lorimer, J. (2010) International conservation 'volunteering' and the geographies of global environmental citizenship. Political Geography, 29(6): 311-322. Singh, N.M. (2013) The affective labor of growing forests and the becoming of environmental subjects: Rethinking environmentality in Odisha, India. Geoforum, 47: 189-198. Sultana, F. (2015) Emotional Political Ecology. In Bryant, R. (Ed) The International Handbook of Political Ecology. Edward Elgar Publishing: 633-645. --- Dr Marion Ernwein Lecturer in Human Geography Unit of Geography University of Fribourg Chemin du musée 4 CH-1700 Fribourg +41(0)26 300 92 47 http://www.unifr.ch/geoscience/geographie/en/staff/human-geography-group/dr.-m.-ernwein