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Call for Papers AAG New Orleans April 10th - 14th 2018 Rethinking the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in China Alison Browne, University of Manchester, [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Britt Crow-Miller, Arizona State University, [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Sarah Rogers, University of Melbourne, [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 'Nexus Thinking' for water-energy-food (WEF) is rightly side-eyed by some critical geographers as potentially being just another apolitical buzzword (Allouche et al., 2015; Cairns & Krzywoszynska, 2016; Williams et al., 2016). However, others argue that it still offers opportunity to think about interconnectivities of infrastructures, policies and practices (Foden et al.,), and that considering these resource interdependencies should in fact be a feature of critical geographical praxis (Leck et al., 2015). China faces significant water-energy-food challenges, in relation to both the quantity and quality of its resources, changing patterns of demand and labour, transboundary management problems, and jurisdictional conflicts. Despite near universal access to drinking water there is little trust in urban tap water (Zhen et al 2017). The country still faces a series of challenges in regards to food safety (Gong & Jackson, 2012), and is currently undergoing fundamental reforms to how food is produced and by whom. There continues to be spatial inequality in water, food and energy provision across the country (Browne et al., 2017), and the burdens of mega-projects tend to be unevenly distributed (Crow-Miller & Webber 2017). A 'nexus' approach is seen by some as a way to understand the dynamics of, and explore solutions for, these challenges at different scales (Li et al., 2015). This session is a call for researchers at all career stages working on issues at the intersections of water and/or energy and/or food, and related challenges to engage in a critical discussion of nexus thinking with respect to China. We particularly encourage the participation of PhDs and ECRs. The broader purpose of this session is to gather a network of colleagues to work together towards jointly-published outputs on the themes of the session. As such we ask that participants submit the following to the organisers: a short conference abstract (250 words, by October 16th 2017) and a paper outline/draft paper (<5000 words, by February 28th 2018). Potential topics for papers might include: * Everyday politics of water-energy-food * Institutional analyses of water-energy-food in the Chinese context, including transboundary management * Technopolitical approaches to water-energy-food * Co-production of society and water-energy-food References Allouche J, Middleton, C. and Gyawal, D. (2014). Nexus Nirvana or Nexus Nullity? A dynamic approach to security and sustainability in the water-energy-food nexus. STEPS Working Paper 63. Brighton: STEPS Centre Browne, A.L., Petrova, S., & Brockett, B. (2017) Energy-water nexus vulnerabilities in China: Infrastructures, policies and practices. In Simcock, Thomson, Petrova, Bouzarovski (Eds), Energy poverty and vulnerability: A global perspective. Routledge. Pp. 80-95 Cairns, R. & Krzywoszynska, A. (2016). Anatomy of a buzzword: The emergence of 'the water-energy-food nexus' in UK natural resource debates. Environmental Science & Policy 64, 164-170. Crow-Miller, B., Webber, M 2017 Of maps and eating bitterness: The politics of scaling in China's South-North Water Transfer Project, Political Geography Foden, M., Browne, A.L., Evans, D., Sharp, L., & Watson, M. (under review). The water-energy-food nexus at home: New opportunities for policy interventions in household sustainability. The Geographical Journal. Gong, Q. (2012). Consuming anxiety? Food, Culture & Society, 15(4), 557-578 Leck, H., Conway, D., Bradshaw, M., & Rees, J. (2015). Tracing the water-energy-food nexus: description, theory and practice. Geography Compass, 98, 445-460 Li, G., Huang, D., and Li, Y. (2016). China's input-output efficiency of water-energy-food nexus based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. Sustainability 8(9), 927. Williams, J., Bouzarovski, S., & Swengedouw, E. (2014). Politicising the nexus: Nexus technologies, urban circulation and the coproduction of water and energy. [Nexus Network Think Piece Series, Paper 001]. University of Manchester, UK Zhen, N., Barnett, J., Webber, M 2017 Trust and the risk of consuming polluted water in Shanghai, China, Journal of Risk Research