DOPE 2017 CFP: 2 slots left in "Reading Sustainability for
Difference"-session.


*DOPE 2017 – Call For Papers: Reading Sustainability for Difference: Place,
community and development.*


Organizers: Frederik Aagaard Hagemann (Lund University) and Elizabeth (Za)
Barron (University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, discussant)


The ubiquity of sustainability in current academic and development
discourses has pushed scholars to ask if the concept has already lost
meaning and value (Farley and Smith 2013). A related critique of the three
pillars approach to sustainability is that sustainability science
overemphasizes environmental management at the expense of real economic or
social change. Our goals for this paper session are then two-fold: to
tackle the meaning and value of sustainability while also asking if the
concept would actually be better served by focusing on economic change and
social justice.


Critical scholars such as Arturo Escobar (2007) and J.K. Gibson-Graham
(2016) have directed attention to multiscalar place-based economic
practices and the re-valuing of local politics as central themes in
understanding and transforming global economic processes for just and
democratic institutions. The lesson from this body of research is to redraw
the lines of what counts as economic practice, locate and establish
alternative economies in local communities.


A similar aspiration can be met by focusing on place-based practices of
sustainability. Applying Gibson-Graham’s (2016) techniques of ‘reading for
difference’ to sustainability, for example, leaves room for local and
emerging iterations of sustainable development. The central notion of
‘place’ itself is open to co-constitution by society, culture and nature
(Casey 1996). Research in the processes of place can provide vital
analytical tools to understand and activate sustainable development that
equally concerns equity, economy and ecology.


Hoping to discuss both possibilities and prohibitions for sustainability,
we welcome case studies, theoretical investigations, literature reviews and
other forms of research-contributions. Topics might include but are not
limited to:

-          Critical discussions of sustainability, sustainable community
development, social-ecological relationships in place, transforming
local/global social-ecological relations, emplacement of economic
practices, capitalism as world ecology, ‘place’ as site of resistance,
commons and commoning.

If you are interested in joining this session, please send an abstract of
200-300 words to Frederik Aagaard Hagemann ([log in to unmask]) by the 30th of
November. Participants will be notified by the 30th of November and will
then need to register and submit their abstracts to DOPE 2017 by December
1st, 2016.


References:
Casey. Edward S.  (1996): How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short
Stretch of Time: Phenomenological Prolegomena. In *Senses of Place*, ed. S.
Feld and K. Basso, 13-52. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.


Escobar, Arturo (2007): Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise. In Cultural
Studies  <http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcus20/21/2-3>Vol. 21 , Iss. 2-3


Farley, H., & Smith, Z. (2014): *Sustainability: If it’s everything, is it
nothing?* New York: Routledge.


Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2016): Building Community Economies: Women and the
Politics of Place. In: *The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development* (pp.
287-311). Palgrave Macmillan UK


Harvey, David (1993): From Space To Place And Back Again: Reflections on
the Condition of Postmodernity. In Jon Bird et al., eds. *Mapping The
Futures* (pp. 3-29) London and New York, Routledge