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.