 |
 |
Hi Folks – coldest Dec in UK for 100 years, terrible floods in Australia – the weather keeps grabbing the headlines!! Second Call for papers RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2011 Location: RGS-IBG, London Dates: 31 Aug - 2 Sept 2011 Session Title: "Meteorological Imaginations. Towards geographies of affective practices of weather, atmospherics and landscapes" Convenors: Owain Jones; University of the West of England (CCRI): and Oliver Moss; University of Northumbria Sponsoring Research Groups Social and Cultural Geography Research Group Climate Change Research Group Historical Geography Research Group Form of session: 20 min papers, with the possibility of other forms of presentation. “Compared with the amount of attention devoted to the solid forms of the landscape, the virtual absence of weather from philosophical debates about the nature and constitution of the environment is extraordinary” (Ingold 2008). In cultural geography and beyond recent work on landscape has variously stressed embodiment, the senses, performativity, memory, practice, lively materiality, and so on. Many of these approaches are post-phenomenological in terms of their transcendence of traditional culturalist and conventional phenomenological frameworks and their foregrounding of relational (distributed) agency often operating in affective registers which are suffusing through and between bodies, materials, spaces. Some geographers have begun to address weathers, e.g. Brace and Geoghegan (2010) ‘Human geographies of climate change….’; McCormack (2008)‘Engineering affective atmospheres….’; AAG (2011) session on ‘Weather, Geographical Contexts and Spatial Behaviour’, as have other disciplines, e.g. Jankovic & Barboza (2009) ‘Weather, Local Knowledge and Everyday Life….’. But, as Ingold suggests, little attention has been paid to weather/atmospherics in relation to the amounts of them around, their ubiquitous impacts on everyday practices, and their striking affective qualities. Weathers and atmospherics are key means by which we are in-the-landscape. The landscape, as received through sight, sound, smell, haptic experience/practice is both mediated by, and exists in relation to, the combining registers of various weathers/atmospherics (temperature , humidity, precipitation, visibility, pressure, altitude, wind). A range of technologies (e.g. clothing, equipment) and specific practices (ways of moving, sensing, navigating) are drawn into larger practices of landscape - be they work related or recreational - in response to weather/atmospheric conditions. It is through weathers/atmospherics that one is firmly placed within the landscape as an affective living space rather than being on the edge of it as a visual presentation, and it is through and within them (literally) that practices of landscape occur. Some responses to the affecting agencies of weather can be found in past/present art/literary renditions of landscape. Artists such as Van Gogh, Constable, Turner, Cezanne and Monet were fascinated by weather and its changing moods, and sought to locate their practice in the affecting landscape in ways which absorbed and reflected it - seeking to convey the very atmosphere located between artist and motif. Dickens spoke of the “Genius of the Weather” sitting on the step of a fog-bound house, and drew striking psychogeographies of thickly atmospheric London streets . Montesquieu considered the “Empire of Climate” and how he thought it shaped culture and economy through bodies. This session seeks papers which explore past and present weathers-atmospherics-places-landscapes in a range of ways which might include studying the experiences of others, auto-ethnographic accounts, accounts which draw upon past and present art literary practice and scientific/academic study. We welcome papers which are trying to operate in performative, affective, non/more/anti –representational modes; those seeking to engage physical-cultural processes; and also any others, including art works and/or performative pieces, which are exploring past /present experiences and practices of weather/ landscape in any interesting way!! The relationship between past/present/future practices/experiences/imaginations of weathers-landscapes and the vexed issue of climate change might also be a fruitful avenue to explore: “Even the rain is different now; erratic, violent .. It’s rain that feels wounded”. (Sarah Hill The Carhullan Army) Please send titles and abstract (250 words) to [log in to unmask] AND [log in to unmask] by the end of January. We will issue second and final CFPs at appropriate times. Dr Owain Jones Senior Research Fellow Countryside <http://www.ccri.ac.uk/> & Community Research Institute / Contact Details <http://www.ccri.ac.uk/TopMenu/ContactDetails.htm> Publications at Academia.edu/OwainJones <http://westengland.academia.edu/OwainJones/Papers> Chair of the Royal Geographical Society Research Group on Children, Youth and Families <http://www.gcyf.org.uk/> Associate Editor Journal of <http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14733285.asp> Children’s Geographies Priston Festival <http://www.priston.org.uk/festival/> Alternative email (UWE) <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Mobile: 07871 572969 ‘In the top three in the People and Planet green league table; committed to sustainability’ This email is confidential to the intended recipient. If you have received it in error please notify the sender and delete it from your computer. The University of Gloucestershire is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 06023243 Registered office: The Park, Cheltenham, GL50 2RH Please consider the environment before printing this email.