We have space for ONE more paper - please get in touch with one of us before the end of the week.
Apologies for cross-posting.
Call for papers for RGS Annual Conference, Edinburgh, July 2012:
Securing Development
Session organisers: Patricia Campbell, Emma Laurie and Jo Sharp (University of Glasgow)
Sponsored by: Developing Areas Research Group and Political Geography Research Group.
Since the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 the links between 'poverty' and 'extremism' have been reinforced, blurring the boundaries between 'development' and 'security' in western domestic political discourse. This discourse is currently writ large through the UK coalition government's international development agenda. It has, however, emerged from a long lineage of development intervention which masks geopolitical objectives behind seemingly benevolent actions. Western states' have realigned their Cold War foreign policy principles so that, rather than the threat coming from a communist superpower, it is now 'weak states', those considered as 'breeding grounds' for terrorism, that have captured the attention of the Western interventionist gaze. A number of commentators have highlighted the fact that this depoliticises western intervention around the world through a humanitarian lens. Amid an ever-increasing rhetoric of austerity, governments are increasingly justifying international intervention through domestic interests, further heightening the allure of selling development spending under the rubric of fear. Moreover this refiguring of development as security has led to biopolitical regimes of development governance at a policy level and a "blurring of lines between civilian and military, and humanitarian aid workers and intelligence, security and other military personnel who became part of the operational delivery of aid" (Smith 2010: 22).
The session seeks to draw out the (geo)politics of 'development' as it as it takes place against a backdrop of the austerity and the War on Terror.
Possible themes include, but are not restricted to:
* (Re)imagining the object of development
* Impacts of changing development priorities
* The geopolitical discourse of failed states
* The politics of exception / the depoliticisation of aid
* Biopolitics and the creation of active (global) citizens
* The value(s) of development
* The shifting geographies of development
* The securitization of development
Smith, M. 2010. 'Terrorism thinking: "9/11 changed everything"' in Smith, M. Securing Africa. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.1-28.
Please send abstracts of to either Trish ([log in to unmask]), Emma ([log in to unmask]) or Jo ([log in to unmask]) by Friday 20th January. Please get in touch with any one of us if you have any questions about the session
Patricia Campbell
Doctoral Candidate
School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
University of Glasgow
Email: [log in to unmask]
Webpage: http://www.ges.gla.ac.uk:443/postgraduates/pcampbell
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