(Apologies for cross-posting)

Call for Papers - new deadline: October 25.

Skilled mobilities, knowledge circulation and elite formation

Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA

April 5-9, 2017

Organisers: Maggi Leung (Utrecht University) and Nir Cohen (Bar-Ilan University)

This paper session aims at extending our understanding of elite formation in our age of migration/mobilities, and examines the ways by which the production and exchange of skills, knowledge and expertise reflect and contribute to these processes. Specifically, it seeks to unpack the notion of skilled/skilling mobility (e.g. education-related), interrogate the discourses, practices and politics that shape  knowledge mobility, and map out their impact both in diverse places (global cities, smaller towns and rural settings in the global South and North) and in the formation of translocal elites and knowledge communities/networks.

We particularly welcome papers that advance our understanding of issues surrounding conventionally-defined (e.g. professional, businesses, education) skilled mobilities, but also contributions taking a more critical perspective on ‘knowledge’ and ‘skills’, including those pertaining to ‘’lower’ or 'de-skilled’ groups, fields and processes.

We wish to encourage researchers working in different geographical contexts and employing a wide range of methodologies – both quantitative and qualitative. We will consider and debate issues including - but not limited to - the following:

•          How are knowledge, skills and expertise framed in our mobile world?

•          What kinds of ideas, knowledge and skills move (or not) and are produced as a result of ‘skilled/skilling’ migration/ mobilities?

•          Skilled migrants/mobile people’s trans-local affiliations and allegiances

•          How are skilled mobilities and elite formation related and played out in diverse temporal-spatialities?

•          Gender dimension of skilled mobilities and elite formation

•          The role of the state and the governance of skilled mobilities

•          Private actors as facilitators of skilled mobilities

•          Skilled mobilities and race/gender/ethnic/class identities

Interested participants are invited to submit their paper title, abstract (no more than 250 words) and Presenter Identification Number (PIN) to the organizers Maggi Leung ([log in to unmask]), and Nir Cohen ([log in to unmask]) by October 25, 2016.

Authors need to submit paper abstract first through the AAG website to obtain the PIN. Guidelines for preparing abstracts are available at: http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/call_for_papers/abstract_guidelines