Apologies for cross-posting
RGS/IBG 2011 Conference: The Geographical Imagination
31st August – 2nd September 2011 (London)
DARG and UGRG sponsored session(s) on:
Researching the South African City: Legitimacy and location in the
emergence of a Franco-Anglo South African urbanism
Session Convenors:
Dr Charlotte Lemanski (UCL) [log in to unmask]
Dr Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch (Lyon) [log in to unmask]
Prof Jenny Robinson (UCL) [log in to unmask]
Summary:
Research that is empirically based outside one’s own immediate context
is inherently loaded with issues of authenticity and legitimacy; who
has the ‘right’ to speak about events over ‘there’. This is true for
most geographers to some extent, but for global North researchers
interested in the global South there are additional issues of culture,
language and the diverse geographical and theoretical traditions of
different contexts. Cultural and political distances are therefore
not only constituted between the researcher and the researched, but
also amongst and between researchers from diverse cultural and
disciplinary backgrounds, constituting complex geographies of
knowledge and knowledge production. This session focuses on the
complexities and complementarities that arise in the context of
Franco- and Anglo-researchers contributing to understanding the
emergence of new South African urbanisms. Within and between South
African-based researchers there are also important differences of
position, theory and politics. This session invites contributions
which develop substantive themes around new agendas in South African
urban analyses. We invite researchers to build specific reflections on
the politics and cultural specificities of their research and writing
practices into these substantive papers. We also invite specific
focussed reflections on the productive developments which have ensued
from the sustained interactions between Francophone and Anglophone
researchers working on South Africa, as well as some of the challenges
of working across these different language and theory communities.
These experiences speak to wider ambitions to break down divisions in
geography between research and publishing in different language
communities and northern and southern contexts.
Format:
The format of the session(s) is flexible and we are open to receiving
‘classic’ research papers as well as short discussion points. We
intend to invite a panel of key (Franco-, Anglo- and South
African-based) researchers who will provide critical responses to the
themes presented.
Deadline for abstracts: 7th February 2011
Please send abstracts to: [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]; and [log in to unmask]
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