Dear all – please do circulate the
following to postgraduates who might be interested.
Any queries should be directed to Matthew
Kurtz ([log in to unmask]).
Many thanks
Steve
Dr Steve Hinchliffe
Geography Discipline
Faculty of Social Sciences
Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
44(0) 1908 654479
. . . .
.
Call
for Papers
Lively Temporalities: A Half-Day Workshop for New Researchers
ESRC/NERC Interdependence
Seminar Series
Saturday, 1 July 2006:
"If you knew
Time as well as I do," said the Hatter, "you wouldn’t talk
about wasting it." (Lewis Carroll)
With all the talk about the value of time, the
"faster" pace of life, and unprecedented changes in the world around
us, Time seems to be a pressing issue. In the last two decades, for instance,
it has become the subject of TV documentaries (BBC’s About Time), general non-fiction (
As part of the Interdependence Day project (http://www.interdependence.co.uk), we invite
postgraduates with research about lively and diverse temporalities in a globalised world to
talk about their work in
The workshop will build on recent work about the dynamic
temporalities of nature and diverse social constructions of time, in order to
outline fresh views about environmental change, globalization, and
sustainable development. Recent scholarship has asked us, for example, to
consider constructions and experiences of time (like those of space) as
multiple, dynamic, and highly uneven around the world. Compare the months it
takes for cocoa beans to be sown, grown, and harvested in the South, for
instance, with the seconds it takes for cocoa "futures" to be bought
and sold on the stock markets in the North before the plants have even
germinated. Or consider the intimate relationships between the past and present
that have been variously articulated in postcolonial studies, where the
past can be understood as folded into the present, and the
present is often thought to be folded back into understandings of the
past. Arguably, then, the way we understand interdependence, causation, and
responsibility are wholly entwined with various notions and analyses of time:
sequence and simultaneity, continuity and change, event and duration, etc. This
suggests that discussions about time and its lively temporalities may
provide provisional starting points for better understandings of
interdependence.
Accordingly, presentations should outline empirically-based
research that directly addresses interdependence and various aspects of
time, dynamic temporalities, and/or transformation. These aspects might include
(but are certainly not limited to) such issues as:
Presentations should be about five to seven minutes long. In
lieu of any lengthy arguments that try to persuade listeners, participants
might consider simply providing a sketch of the location in which their
research is situated, a short outline of their approach to the dynamics of
timing and temporality in that site, how their approach might effect new
understandings of interdependence and responsibility, and what their
aspirations are in conducting the research.
The workshop will then provide a venue in which to discuss
how new research from a variety of field-sites and disciplines might inform
better understandings of time and interdependence. Further, we hope to enliven
strategies that will bring the fresh thinking in new research to a broader
audience, by connecting a group of emerging scholars with other writers and
activists so as to discuss other tactics to support the research-based
interventions. We strongly encourage postgraduate students and new researchers
from a wide range of organizations and disciplines across the natural sciences,
humanities, and social sciences to consider participating.
If you want to learn more about the workshop, please contact
the organizer, Matthew Kurtz, at Open University: [log in to unmask]. The workshop
will be followed by the