With apologies for any nonsense:
> Spaces of participation
>
> Convenors: Mike Kesby (St Andrews), Duncan Fuller (Northumbria), Larch
> Maxey (Swansea), Dorothea Kleine (London School of Economics)
>
> 'Participation' is gaining increasing prominence in social research and
> social policy. But what are the spatial dimensions of participation - what
> difference does geography make to our understandings and experiences of
> participation (Cornwall 2004; Kesby 2005)? Interest in these questions is
> growing outside human geography, and while our discipline as a whole is
> rather late in turning its focus towards participation, geographers are
> well placed to make an important contribution to the debate. This session
> encourages the exploration of approaches, styles and technologies
> (including participation via webconference) aimed to widen and deepen
> participation within the fora of international conferences. In this
> session we are interested to address questions of how space, spatiality,
> context and scale affect participatory practice. We want to discuss how a
> sensitivity to geographical issues better helps explain how, why and were
> participation works and/or fails, and to identify a geographical
> perspective might help surmount existing limitations and improve
> participatory praxis. Finally we are interested to explore how
> geographical concerns be brought into participatory work and how
> geographical analysis might be cultivated amongst participants themselves.
>
>
> Papers are therefore welcomed from all parts of the academy, and/or from
> those actively involved in the creation of participatory spaces and
> futures, in whatever form. Participants might like to consider the
> following question and themes:
>
> · How do participatory spaces, places, contexts and arenas work,
> and how can we make them work better?
>
> · Participation is increasingly becoming institutionalised. What
> are the new institutionalised spaces of participation like and what have
> their effects been?
>
> · How might participation best be conceptualised in spatial
> terms?
>
> · To what extent are participatory approaches embedded in space
> and place, how does that affect the sustainability of participation and
> how can we facilitate the distanciation of participatory praxis beyond the
> boundaries of carefully managed participatory arenas?
>
> · To what extent and with what consequences, are particular
> participatory events/processes situated and located within particular
> institutional and social contexts?
>
> · To what extend is PAR space 'paradoxical', i.e. beyond the
> dominant powers that constitute everyday spaces, so enabling impossible
> behaviours and unthinkable thoughts, yet at the same time itself
> constituted by potentially dominating powers?
>
> · Does "The new tyranny" critique mean that participatory spaces
> are inevitably spaces of externally imposed discipline and power and even
> if they are, does this necessarily mean that they can never be spaces for
> empowerment, consciencisation or action?
>
> · Does the recently proposed taxonomy of 'invited' versus
> 'popular' participatory spaces provide a useful way to conceptualize
> different kinds of participatory arenas?
>
> · How can various new and old arenas of participation be linked
> and connected in productive ways and how might this address the critiques
> that accuse advocates of participation of limiting themselves to the local
> scale?
>
> · Geographers believe that spatiality and politics of scale are
> tremendously important issues for social analysis, but how can be bring
> these and other geographical concepts into participatory projects with
> which we are involved in ways that make sense and have utility for
> ordinary people?
>
> · How can conferences (like the RGS-IBG Annual Conf.) become
> more inclusive? What roles (if any) can new information and communication
> technologies play in broadening participation to those who cannot attend
> in person? Could conferences be structured, timed, located, and otherwise
> organised in ways which increase participation?
>
> Please send expressions of interest, or abstracts to any or all of the
> session convenors by 24th January 2006:
>
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
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>
> ----------------------------------
> Dr Duncan Fuller
> Programme Leader, BA Geography
> Division of Geography
> Ellison Building D Block
> Northumbria University
> Newcastle upon Tyne
> NE1 8ST
>
> Direct Tel - 0191 2273753
> Fax - 0191 2274715
> Divisional Office - 0191 2273428
>
> PEANuT (Participatory Evaluation and Appraisal in Newcastle upon Tyne) -
> http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/peanut
>
> Mapping Tranquillity -
> http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/map_tr
> anquil/?view=Standard
>
> Exploring solutions to 'graffiti' in Newcastle upon Tyne -
> http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/graffi
> ti/
>
> 'Local to me': Advancing Financial Inclusion in Newcastle upon Tyne -
> http://northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sas/sas_research/pa/consultres/local/
> ?view=Standard
>
> Participatory Geographies Working Group of the RGS/IBG (PyGyWG)-
> http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/
>
> Geo-publishing.org - http://www.may.ie/nirsa/geo-pub/geo-pub.html
>
>
> Radical Theory/Critical Praxis: Making a Difference Beyond the Academy?
> http://www.praxis-epress.org/availablebooks/radicaltheorycriticalpraxis.ht
> ml
>
>
====
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