Dear all,
Myself and colleagues are organising the below session for the AAG this April and depending on the number of abstracts submitted, hope to have a sub-session focusing specifically on the framing of disaster and 'resilience-building' discourse (namely as it concerns affected people and places), as well as grassroots mobilisations relating to the above.
I would encourage anyone working on, or interested in similar themes (including non-geographers) to take a look and consider submitting an abstract.
Kind regards,
Jordana
Jordana Ramalho
PhD Candidate
Department of Geography and Environment
London School of Economics and Political Science
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** Apologies for cross posting**
Bodies and Spaces ‘of’ and ‘at’ Risk in the City: Framings, Responses and Resistance
In an increasingly globalised and rapidly changing world, the simultaneous association of cities as spaces
of risks and opportunities are becoming more pronounced. Navigating risk has always been an inherent part of urban life, though one which is notably subjective and differentially distributed and experienced between people and places. In contemporary cities
of the global North and South, rising inequality, turbulent geopolitics and ethno-political tensions, coupled with environmental degradation and the growing force and frequency of extreme weather events are creating a climate of fear. Amidst this context,
the urban has become both a site of insecurity and refuge to those ‘at risk’ and has led to the targeting of blame for risk on certain groups.
Framings of people and places as being ‘of risk’, or ‘at risk’ are often contradictory, deployed to serve
political interests that enable the governance of risky subjects, over objectives of reducing the vulnerability of those most marginal. Also inherent to these processes are acts of resistance by those working to address the conditions of exclusion and inequality
that underpin vulnerability, as well as counter the stigmatisation and problematic framings of bodies as ‘at’ or ‘of’ risk.
In this interdisciplinary session, we seek to bring together a collection of theoretical and empirical papers
inspired by issues of inequality and social justice, which critically interrogate the framings and formations emerging from urban ecologies of risk. We are particularly interested in papers that speak to the politics of citizen-subject and space-place framings
around urban risk and securitisation, as tools of governance or otherwise, or which highlight movements or dynamics of resistance that challenge or undermine these processes or narratives.
Submissions are encouraged from researchers (including early career or PhDs post-fieldwork) working in different
geographical contexts, on topics that conceptually engage with places and people ‘of’ or ‘at’ risk within the urban sphere.
Examples of topics may include but are not limited to:
Submission Deadline and Procedure: