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Call for Papers: Global Connectivities in the Rural South and the Rural North
AAG Conference 2018, New Orleans, April 10-14
Session organizers: Michael Woods and Francesca Fois (Aberystwyth University)
Sponsored by GFASG and RGSG: the
Geographies of Food and Agriculture Specialty Group
and the
Rural Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers
This session aims to explore how connectivities between the global north and the global south have a transformative impact on rural communities in both hemispheres. Recent scholarship has recognized the emergence of a ‘global countryside’
in parallel to the global city, which has found expression both in the ‘global north’ (Nelson and Nelson 2010, Woods 2007) and the ‘global south’ (Aguayo 2008, Rodriguez-Castro et al 2016). Approached from a relational perspective, the global countryside
is a hybrid assemblage, constituted by heterogenous components and the entanglement of diverse, dynamic social, economic, political, cultural and environmental relations that connect rural places with other rural and urban spaces (Heley and Jones 2012, Woods
2007). These include a multitude of inter-connections and inter-dependencies that cross the conventional divide between the ‘global north’ and the ‘global south’: commodity chains and global production networks, cultural exchanges, transnational social networks
and social movements, and flows of capital, migrants and tourists, among others.
However, whilst there is a growing body of case study research on globalization in rural communities, many of these studies are still focused on discrete localities, with global relations described only as context. Analysis of the actual
flows, relations, inter-connections and inter-dependences that connect localities, and of the precise ways in which they become embedded in particular rural spaces and interact with local social relations, is generally less developed, especially with regard
to north-south relations. We propose in this session that paying attention to these connectivities can help to further enhance understanding of globalization in rural contexts and to transcend the conventional north-south dichotomy in rural geography research.
This session calls for papers that examine global north-south connectivities in rural communities in the global south and/or the global north. This may include connections between rural communities in the global south and urban localities
in the global north; connections between rural communities in the global north and urban localities in the global south; or rural-to-rural connections between the global north and the global south. We aim to address questions including: How are global flows
and relations shaping rural spaces in the global south and/or the global north? What sort of rural geographies are emerging from the interactions between the global south and north? How can we conceptualise globalized and transnational rural spaces and communities?
What hybrid outcomes are generated in globally connected ruralities? What forms of transnational rural communities are being enacted?
In exploring these themes we are open to investigations that employ different methodological approaches and different conceptual lenses across empirical topics including, but not limited to agriculture, resource industries, manufacturing
production networks, labour and lifestyle migration, tourism, conservation and social movements.
Anyone interested in participating in this session please send an abstract
(~250 words) with author name(s), author affiliation(s), author email(s) to both Francesca Fois ([log in to unmask]) and Michael
Woods ([log in to unmask]) by Monday 16th October.
Please note that participants are also expected to register and submit their abstracts through the AAG website themselves before Wednesday October 25th.
Dr Francesca Fois
Post-Doctoral Research Associate (GLOBAL-RURAL)/ Cydymaith Ymchwil Ôl-ddoethurol,
Department of Geography and Earth Sciences/ Adran Daearyddiaeth a Gwyddorau Daear,
Aberystwyth University/ Prifysgol Aberystwyth,
Ceredigion SY23 3DB, UK.
Phone/ Ffon: (+44)1970 621572
Email/ E-bost: [log in to unmask]
ERC GLOBAL-RURAL project
Website & blog/ Safle y we a blog:
https://globalruralproject.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @globalrural