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Dear all, Best wishes for the new year. Please forward this to anyone who may be interested. Call for Papers: Crafting Alterity: Creativity, Making, and Hopeful Geographies RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2019, 28th- 30th August 2019, London Sponsored by the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) Session Convenors Dr Rebecca Collins, Department of Geography & International Development, University of Chester, UK. [log in to unmask] Dr Thomas Smith, Department of Environmental Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. [log in to unmask] Abstract: The geographical literature on craft and creative practices continues to grow apace (Price & Hawkins, 2017; Carr & Gibson, 2017). In part this is the result of growing interest in how creative entanglements between human subjects, material objects, and mediating practices of (re)production sensitise us to our place(s) in the world. At a time when human appropriation of, and impact on, the material world has led to the defining of a geological epoch characterised by our material traces, there are important questions to be asked, and answered, about how we can fulfil our social, cultural and psychological needs as human beings through relationships with material things that leave fewer negative environmental impacts. Recent scholarship concerned with the tacit, embodied knowledge that characterises craft and making has demonstrated empirically how accumulation of such knowledge creates greater sensitivity to the potentialities of materials as a result of deep haptic human-subject/material-object 'entanglements' (e.g. Straughan, 2015 on taxidermy; Paton, 2013 on stone carving; see also O'Connor, 2007; Eden & Bear, 2011). Additionally, the identification of these moments or processes of 'entanglement' as uniquely individual, personal and both spatially and temporally situated - and thus, a function of the specific environment in which the practice is situated - frames acts of making as an intersection of multiple material micro-geographies, dispersed across and drawing from various times and spaces (Patchett, 2016; Ingold, 2000). Isis Brook's suggestion that "active, purposive engagement with the material realm" can help us to "reintegrate ourselves into the material fabric of the world" in ways attuned to environmentally-sensitive consumption (2012:p.109) emphasises the potential of rethinking how material practices mediate our being-in-the-world, specifically in ways that engender hope of somehow making that world, or our being in it, 'better'. In this session we seek contributions which explore the transformations brought forth by material engagement in various sites of vernacular and everyday creativity - not least transformations in understanding our being-in-the-world, material affordances, meaningful work, and alternative conceptions of embodied sustainable practices such as maintenance and repair. Other potential considerations include: * What practices do diverse craft spaces and communities encourage to counter unsustainable modes of living? * Given that craft has been highlighted as key to grappling with the value-action gap in sustainability research (Coeckelbergh, 2015), what role can embodiment and skill play in sustainability transitions (see Royston, 2017)? * What scales, temporal and spatial, are relevant in such (often slow and place-specific) practices, given the urgency of our ecological predicament? * Amidst a growing recognition of certain crafts as endangered 'intangible cultural heritage' (HCA, 2017), in tandem with the 'dematerialisation' of economies in the Global North, how do skills linger in the landscape, and how does this affect socio-cultural resilience (Carr, 2017)? We particularly welcome methodologically innovative research grounded in the messy materiality of the workshop, as well as heretofore lacking perspectives from beyond the Global North. We also welcome contributions that take a different form from the standard didactic conference paper. We anticipate allocating fifteen minutes per speaker, with five minutes for questions. Abstracts of maximum 250 words should be submitted by close of Thursday 31 January to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> and [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Dr Thomas Smith Postdoctoral Researcher [logo Masarykova univerzita Fakulta sociálních studii] Masaryk University | Faculty of Social Studies Department of Environmental Studies A: Jo¹tova 10 | Brno E: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ResearchGate<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tom_Smith71> | Academia.edu<https://st-andrews.academia.edu/TSmith> | Twitter<https://twitter.com/SmithTGeo> ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CRIT-GEOG-FORUM list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CRIT-GEOG-FORUM&A=1