PHOTOGRAPHS MATTER - A Call for Photographs 

RGS-IBG conference, London, 27-29 August 2008
 
Sponsored by 
The Social and Cultural Geography Research Group; 
The Geographies of Leisure and Tourism Working Group; and 
The Participatory Geographies Working Group 
 
Much has been said about images and the complexity of what and how they 
represent. Similarly the dominance of the visual in western culture has 
been critiqued as attempts have been made both theoretically and 
methodologically, to shift away from the visual. Such trends look either 
to engage with other sensory involvements with the world and/or to focus 
on post perceptive meaning. The aim of such work is to build a more-than- 
visual component into academic and everyday accounts of the world. 
However, the visual remains a significant actor in the way that people 
engage with the world, account for, access and describe the more-than- 
visual world; images conjure meanings, trigger memories and summon 
emotions. 
Non-professional or lay photographs have a particular resonance in this 
regard as they are subject to different systems of aesthetics and capture 
different meanings, and processes. Such non-professional images enter 
geographical discourses in a variety of ways; as research objects from a 
variety of historical and contemporary sources or as outputs from research 
methodologies. 
Methodologically the use of visual methods has increasingly become 
synonymous with video, both participatory and otherwise. And the benefits 
of such technologies cannot be overlooked. However, while video captures 
movement so wonderfully, the very nature of photography stills events, 
thereby encouraging individuals to become more reflective and introverted 
about their understandings of space, place and identity. Thus self 
directed, lay photography could have much to offer current geographical 
debates, both methodologically and theoretically, as images are examined 
as a process rather than just on their illustrative merits. 
This session therefore looks to revisit stills photography to critically 
engage with images as a mechanism for understanding geographies that 
matter in the world. The session has two components: 
•       An exhibition of submitted photographs and accompanying abstracts 
•       A panel session that will discuss the exhibition and lay          
photography more generally. 
We invite academics who are using participant directed photography to 
submit between 6 and 12 photographs and an accompanying abstract. These 
images will then be mounted for public display during the conference. 
Exhibitors will be given guidelines on the space available. An opportunity 
for people to leave written comments will be available throughout and the 
call for photographs 
The exhibition will culminate in a panel session, where the role of such 
images in geography will be discussed.  Panel speakers will include 
Gillian Rose, JD Dewsbury and Eric Laurier. Exhibitors will be encouraged 
to attend the panel session to contribute to the debate. 
The aim of this session therefore is to provide a forum to discuss the 
role of images as a process for unpacking understandings of the self-in- 
situ. Thereby garnering interesting perspectives on how ethnicity, 
subjectivity, sexuality or encounters with the more-than-human, come to 
matter within and beyond the image. 
For this session we are looking for submissions of between 6 and 12 
photographs and an accompanying abstract from those using participant led, 
non-professional stills photography in their research. We welcome 
contributions from first and third world, urban and rural contexts, home 
and away, from human and physical geographers, other disciplines and from 
practitioners beyond the academy. Possible topics for photos could include 
but are not limited to: 
 
-      Photography: composing meaning and value 
-      Capturing the more-than-human 
-      Photographs, leisure and the tourist 
-      Photographs as methods 
-      Imaging identity 
-      Photographs and post-perceptive meaning 
-      Memory, emotion and the image 
-      Photographs and gender, race, sexuality and disability 
-      Photographs, landscape and nature 
-      Historical geographies of imaging 
-      Photographs and the more-than-visual 
-      Peer-peer photos: imaging research processes 
-      Affective photos… …capturing events? 
 
Those who are interested in being involved,  please submit some examples 
of intended photographs and a short (200 word) abstract ASAP to either: 

Jacob Bull                         Andrew Church 
[log in to unmask]              [log in to unmask] 
        
University of Exeter               University of Brighton 
Cornwall Campus                    Cockcroft Building 
Penryn                             Lewes Road 
Cornwall                           Brighton 
TR10 9EZ                           BN2 4GJ