Print

Print


We are pleased to invite you to a one day symposium on Framing Flaming
Futures prior to the NZGS/IAG conference in Auckland this July.

Please see below for details. Abstracts are due Feb 16.

best,
Lauren Rickards (RMIT Uni) and Tim Neale (Deakin Uni)



*Institute of Australian Geographers*

*Framing Flammable Futures Symposium*



*Wednesday 11 July, 2017*

*9.30am – 5.30pm*

*University of Auckland*





Climate change and the intersecting issues of the Anthropocene demand that
questions of sustainability and disaster are thought together. This one
day, participatory, pre-conference symposium will use the NZGS/IAG
conference at the School of Environment, University of Auckland, 12-14
July, to bring together members of the new Environmental
Sustainability-Hazards Risk and Disasters study group and others to discuss
a key climate change challenge: our increasingly flammable future.



The unprecedented 2017 Port Hills fires in Aotearoa New Zealand and other
recent fire events in Australasia underline the need to explore how diverse
groups currently manage their existing and potential engagement with fire,
and may need to manage it in the future. As pointed out by scholars such as
Nigel Clark, Kathryn Yusoff, Simon Dalby, Stephen Pyne and David Bowman,
rethinking how humans relate to fire – from contained combustion of fossil
fuels to the “wild” fires that sweep through landscapes and lives – is now
a key intellectual and practical issue.



This pre-conference event will contribute to this task by bringing together
diverse perspectives. Participants will discuss how the emergence of a more
flammable future under climate change reflects and affects the ways in
which fire is currently framed - whether as natural or unnatural presence,
a social risk, a cultural resource, or something else. It will examine
possible biases and injustices of contemporary fire management, including
tensions and synergies between disaster risk reduction and longer-term
sustainability.



Scholars and practitioners are invited to submit abstracts for 10 minute
presentations in response to the above and the following prompts: *How is
fire typically framed in your line of research or work, and why? What are
strengths and weaknesses of this approach? How do issues around climate
change, disasters and/or sustainability feature, or not feature? What will
or should the human relation to fire look like in the future?*



Please send your 200-220 word abstracts to Timothy Neale (
[log in to unmask]) and Lauren Rickards ([log in to unmask]) *by
16th February 2018*. Please note that a small amount of travel support
($200 pp) is available for PhD and Early Career scholars thanks to support
from the Institute of Australian Geographers. If you would like to be
considered for this funding please add a short 100-150 word note to your
abstract submission explaining why you would benefit from travel support.