With the usual apologies for cross-posting …
CALL FOR PAPERS – PLANNING REGIONAL FUTURES
Regional Studies Special Issue / RSA Winter Conference 2018, 15-16 November, London.
Organisers: John Harrison (Loughborough University), Daniel Galland (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) and Mark Tewdwr-Jones (Newcastle University)
PLANNING REGIONAL FUTURES
Since Regional Studies was founded in 1967, planning and planners have been central to understanding cities and regions. In the first ever issue of the journal the opening four papers all had “regional plan” or “regional planning” in their title. Yet as Regional Studies celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017, planning could be seen to face powerful challenges – professionally, intellectually, practically – in ways arguably not seen before.
Recent developments and trends have raised fundamental questions about the ‘p’ word (planning) in academic and policy circles. We can point to how planning is no longer solely the domain of professional planners but has been opened up to a diverse group of actors who are involved in place-making and place-shaping. We can observe how the study of cities and regions traditionally had a disciplinary home in planning schools (geography departments, and the like) but this link with place and space disciplines is being steadily eroded as research increasingly takes place in and through interdisciplinary research institutes. We can point to the advent of real-time modelling of cities and regions, and the challenges this poses for the type of long-term perspective that planning has traditionally afforded at a time, and in a society, where immediacy and short-termism are the watchwords. We can reflect on ‘regional planning’ and its mixed record of achievement. And we can also recognise how the link between ‘region’ and ‘planning’ has been decoupled as alternative regional (and other spatial) approaches to planning have emerged in conjunction with more networked and relational forms of place-making, and the re-imagination of the urban and the region in the current period.
This Special Issue is an intellectual call-to-arms to engage planners (and those who engage with planning) to critically explore research agendas at the intersection of planning and regional studies. More specifically, our aim is to move beyond the narrow confines of existing debate by providing a forum for debating what planning is, and should be, for in regional studies.
Proposals are therefore invited that take-up the intellectual and practical challenge of planning urban and regional futures, as well as more provocative think-pieces that challenge or defend the foundations upon which the planning tradition in regional studies is constructed.
Potential topics/themes of interest might include, but are not limited to:
Theoretical interventions and/or empirical studies which seek to advance new ways of (re)conceptualising regional (and other forms of spatial) planning;
Papers which seek to connect the changing dynamics of planning and regions to broader processes of political, economic and societal change;
Examination of the causes, consequences and implications of different forms of agreement-based policies or ‘contractualism’ in planning cities and regions;
Studies which seek to interrogate the link between planning and regional studies;
Those that question the scope and meaning of ‘regional’ in planning regional futures;
International comparative perspectives on planning city and regional futures;
Perspectives on the changing institutional context(s) in which planning and work on planning urban and regional futures is increasingly conducted;
Research which positions current approaches to planning in regional studies within a historical context and/or horizon-scanning papers outlining a next stage in this evolution;
Accounts which avail new insights into the implications for cities and regions of when and where planning now occurs, and who or what is planning and determining urban and regional futures.
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Please send your proposal to the lead guest editor, John Harrison ([log in to unmask]), copied to Daniel Galland ([log in to unmask]) and Mark Tewdwr-Jones ([log in to unmask]), by 29 June 2018.
Your proposal should be no more than one side of A4 and include the following information: author names, affiliation and e-mail address; title of contribution; abstract detailing the contribution of the paper; and up to 6 keywords.
Contributors will be selected based on the quality of their proposal and alignment to the theme. Our aim is to bring together researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds who share common ground through their interest in planning and regional studies. This includes those at the ‘centre’ of recent debates, emergent voices, as well as engaged critics.
Decisions on proposals will be made by 13 July 2018.
*** The theme of this year’s RSA Winter Conference 2018 which will take place in London on 15-16 November is “New Horizons for Cities and Regions in a Changing World”. The RSA have kindly allowed us to run three paper sessions (up to 15 papers) and one roundtable across the two days of the conference on the theme of this special issue.
http://www.regionalstudies.org/conferences/conference/rsa-winter-2018
Participation in these sessions is not an essential requirement to be selected for the special issue (subject to the journal’s usual peer review process) but we would like as many of the papers as possible to be presented at the conference to facilitate in-depth discussion and debate among the contributors. A willingness to participate would be looked upon favourably.
The registration deadline for the conference is 20 August 2018 meaning you will have confirmation that your paper has been selected to be submitted to Regional Studies for inclusion in the special issue (subject to the journal’s usual peer review process). Please indicate on your proposal whether you would be willing to participate in the sessions at RSA Winter Conference 2018 ***
Full papers will be expected by 28 February 2019.
Papers will be reviewed following the Regional Studies double-blind review process and must be prepared accordingly using the Regional Studies guidelines.
ABOUT REGIONAL STUDIES
Regional Studies is a leading international journal covering the development of theories and concepts, empirical analysis, and policy debate in the field of regional studies.
The distinctive purpose of Regional Studies is to connect insights across intellectual disciplines in a systematic and grounded way in order to understand how and why regions and cities involve.
Essential criteria for papers to be accepted for Regional Studies are that they make a substantive contribution to scholarly debates, are sub-national in focus, conceptually well-informed, empirically grounded and methodologically sound. Submissions are also expected to engage with wider debates that advance the field of regional studies and are of interest to readers of the journal.
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Dr John Harrison
Department of Geography, Loughborough University
Tel: +44(0)1509 228198 | E-mail: [log in to unmask] | Webpage | Google Scholar Profile | Twitter
Editor | Urban and Regional Horizons
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