Dear Colleagues,
Please see below for a CFP for a proposed special edition.
The deadline specified is the 31st January, though this is now revised to 10th February.
Please do get in touch with any questions.
Kind regards,
Kate
***Special Issue CFP: Geographies of extinction: exploring the spatio-temporal relations of species and death***
*Convenors*
Ben Garlick, York St John University – [log in to unmask]
Kate Symons, University of Edinburgh – [log in to unmask]
*Abstract*
Over the past half-decade, the interdisciplinary field of ‘extinction studies’ (see http://extinctionstudies.org) has emerged, exploring how extinction – as the death of whole species or ‘ways of life’ – unfolds. Attention is directed towards the specific and contingent processes and relations of death, violence and detachment affecting more-than-human communities. Unsettling the notion of a single extinction event – the death of ‘the last one’ – this work proposes relational ontologies of species-being and extinction. Scholars look to how the intergenerational links and spaces by which species are constituted become closed constituting what species ‘are’ become closed (see van Dooren, 2014). Simultaneously, there is attention how the disappearance of particular forms of life spurs invigorated, technocratic, risky and experimental interventions to stall, prevent or reverse extinction (Heatherington, 2012). Such encounters raise questions around human-nature relations and conservation. We might ask: what can – or should – be saved? Or, possibly, resurrected? How does environmental loss affect notions of value? What kinds of life might survive, even flourish, amidst such scenarios of crisis (see Tsing, 2015)? To what extent is the history of capitalism also a history of extinction (Moore 2015)?
This special issue will build on a successful session at the RGS-IBG 2017 Annual Conference by uniting scholars in exploring the human and non-human geographies of extinction. Extinction studies advocate an interdisciplinary response, emphasising the need to tell the contingent ‘stories’ of loss in order to both, as Haraway (2016) argues, ‘stay with the trouble’ and ‘make thinkable’ the consequences of human activity in the world. Geographers are in many ways ideally placed to take up such a call. We invite authors to propose papers that consider the relationships between extinction and geography, including:
* The concepts of species and extinction in practice and geography.
* ‘Extinction stories’ concerning the historical or contemporary geographies of particular forms of environmental loss.
* The geographies/landscapes produced by extinction.
* The political ecologies of extinction, particularly those which link historic accounts of colonial and capitalist violence against humans with more-than-human extinctions.
* The geographies, politics and consequences (human and more-than human) of ‘de-extinction’ initiatives.
* The contributions/resonances/critiques offered by geographers to work on extinction in the humanities.
*Instructions for prospective authors*
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent jointly to Ben Garlick ([log in to unmask]) and Kate Symons ([log in to unmask]) by 31st January. You will be informed by the 10th February as to whether your paper has been accepted.
*Submissions Deadline*
31st January 2018
*References*
Haraway D (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press; Durham NC & London.
Heatherington T (2012) ‘From Ecocide to Genetic Rescue: Can Technoscience Save the Wild?’ in Sodikoff G (ed) The Anthropology of Extinction: Essays on Culture and Species Death (Indiana University Press; Bloomington IN & Indianapolis): 39-66.
Moore J (2015) Capitalism in the Web of Life. Verso, London & New York.
Tsing A (2015) The mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press; Princeton NJ.
van Dooren T (2014) Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction. Colombia Press; New York.
Whale H and Ginn F (2016) ‘In the Absence of Sparrows’ in Consulo-Willox A and Landman K (eds) Environment and/as Mourning: On Landscapes, Mindscapes, and Healthscapes (London; Routledge).
_______________________________________________________________________
Dr Ben Garlick // Lecturer in Human Geography
School of Humanities, Religion & Philosophy
York St John University | Lord Mayor’s Walk | York | YO31 7EX
Tel: 01904 876132 | Email: [log in to unmask] |Office: QW 207 | Website: bengarlick.wordpress.com
[https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/media/content-assets/homepage/email-logos.gif]
This email and any files transmitted with it were intended solely for the addressee. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know by return.
Please think before you print.
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
