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CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference of Irish Geographers
University College Cork, Ireland
Thursday 4th May to Saturday 6th of May 2017
We are welcoming abstract submissions for the following session:
Disrupting Imagined Geographies: Media, Power and Representation.
Session Conveyors: Natasha Keenaghan, Ryan Browne and Dr Kathy Reilly, NUI Galway
Representation forms an essential part of how meaning is constructed and exchanged within particular societies and cultures. Various media often script distant people and places within recognisable tropes of poverty, violence, famine, disease and death. This has fundamentally impacted how the public understands global issues and the actions supported in addressing these. Representations of people and place have long been a means to understanding the power relations underpinning our relationship with distant ‘Others’ (Said 1978). This very often consolidates and reinforces reductive hegemonic narratives about the realities of life in distant places; while at the same time legitimises narrow, often limited, and targeted western interventions. Ultimately this selective framing of people and place prioritises some, while marginalising and silencing others, ultimately failing to engage with larger structural flaws that operate within global political and economic spheres. In facilitating these imaginative geographies (Gregory 2004) the media continues to obstruct more nuanced and critical representational practices surrounding the narratives of distant people and places. This session seeks to explore the role geography can play in disrupting dominant and unhelpful tropes through which western publics understand distant people and places, considering what can be learned from previous transgressions of hegemonic media representations. This session aims to create a space for research that challenges, disrupts and unpacks dominant (re)presentational narratives. Session organisers welcome contributions exploring intersections between representation, power and the media; themes may include (but are not restricted to) humanitarianism, development and social justice.
Instructions for contributors: Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to [log in to unmask] by Monday 13th March. Contributors will be informed of the inclusion of their paper in the session prior to the early bird registration deadline (March 20th).
More details on the CIG conference and registration can be found here: http://www.conferenceofirishgeographers.ie
Very best,
Natasha Keenaghan