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Call for papers for a session on *Agrofood systems*

at the *RGS-IGB Annual International Conference* on *‘Nexus thinking’*

London, UK 30th Aug – 2nd Sept 2016.

*‘From political ecology to political technology in agrofood systems’.*


*Sponsored by the Food Geographies Working Group and Rural Geography
Research Group*


Agrofood studies has evolved from a political economy to a networked
perspective that addresses power in a relational fashion, allowing agency
to emerge from constellations of social, economic, technological and
natural components. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT), this approach
attempts to overcome separations between nature, culture and society. ANT
emerged from Science and Technology Studies (STS), to which this session
relates: it seeks to interrogate the role of technology in agrofood
systems. Technologies are not merely material implements, but include
interpretations of ways to use these and to perform agrofood systems
without them. Issues of power and control are folded into physical objects
such as seed, agrochemicals, vehicles and packaging. STS provides language
that describes how such technologies are ‘re-scripted’ in diverse social
contexts, performing multiple tasks for different actors. This vocabulary
permits examination of the recursive co-construction of technology, society
and nature. More generally, food systems comprise complex nexuses between
humans, animals, plants and technology; rural-urban and development
gradients, and production, processing, marketing and consumption.

The session invites papers that consider the technology-politics nexus in
agrofood systems. Of particular interest are STS, ANT, technoscience,
assemblage and Political Ecology perspectives, but submissions that
consider these themes from any theoretical standpoint are welcome.


*Please submit abstracts of 250 words to me, Imogen Bellwood-Howard, at
[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> by 10th February 2015. I’ll
inform presenters by 19th February 2016, when I’ll submit the session. For
questions about the session, please contact me. More information about the
RGS conference can be found at www.rgs.org <http://www.rgs.org>.*

-- 
Imogen Bellwood-Howard
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https://sites.google.com/site/imogenbellwood