Apologies for cross postings
Call for Papers
Theorising Sustainability: Connecting Economy, Environment and
Society?
Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting,
14-19 March 2004, Philadelphia
Campbell (1996) made the bold statement that, "in the battle of big
public ideas, sustainability has won: the task in the coming years is
simply to work out the details and narrow the gap between theory and
practice". Indeed, an interest in sustainable development by both
academics and policy makers has led to an explosion of literature on
the subject over the past ten years or so. Amongst other issues, those
contributing to this literature have explored questions of defining
sustainability, debated whether it can ever be attained, and suggested
policy measures at all spatial scales. More optimistic scenarios
include ecological modernisation and industrial ecology, both of which
have been adopted by policy makers (both explicitly and implicitly).
The problem with many of these accounts is, however, that they
understand sustainability predominantly in terms of the natural
environment. Geographers too have fallen into this trap - despite our
long history of examining equity, the environment, livelihood and
economy, we rarely try to connect these themes with the concept of
sustainability. In doing so, however, we may be able to move the
concept of sustainability forward. What might the conceptual
approaches, in use for the past decade, in political economy and
political ecology, from regulationism, feminist and post-structural
theory, tell us when interpreted through the framework of
sustainability? Moreover, how might we re-conceptualize sustainability
and move it beyond its environmental moorings?
The purpose of this proposed session is two-fold. First, it is to
provide an opportunity to reflect on theoretical developments to date
and to explore their usefulness for conceptualising a geographical
perspective on sustainability. In particular we are interested in
papers that explore: the connections between sustainable developments
in particular places and broader economic processes; how notions of
sustainable development can be used to provide a more progressive
social agenda; how we conceptualise relationships between spatial
scales; how we can account for the enormous diversity in concrete
sustainability activities. Second, we seek to provide an outlet for
sharing empirical work on sustainability. What are the conditions that
allow sustainability to become incorporated into different
geographical contexts? The purpose here is to make share both findings
as well as empirical approaches. We thus seek papers that are
theoretical or empirical in nature.
We take a broad view of sustainability and welcome papers from a
variety of themes in a variety of contexts, including: community
unionism, labor geographies, NGOs, resource production and
consumption, planning and regional development, economy-environment
relations, environmental justice, and so forth.
If you are interested in this session please contact: Rob Krueger,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, [log in to unmask] or David Gibbs, The
University of Hull, [log in to unmask] Please respond by 15
September, 2003.
Reference:
Campbell, S (1996) Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities: Urban
Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development. Journal of
the American Planning Association. 62 (3): 296-312.
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Professor David Gibbs
Department of Geography
University of Hull
Hull
HU6 7RX
United Kingdom
Tel. 01482 465330
Fax 01482 466340
Mobile 0775 1072017
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.hull.ac.uk/geog/html/gibbs.htm
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