Papers from the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group sponsored conference, organised by Darren Smith, Kath Browne and David Bissell held in Brighton in 2009, are now published in the journal of Social and Cultural Geography.

The forum includes the following papers.  Many of these will need an institutional subscription to the journal for access (via journal link above), but a few are available through author links (links below).

• ‘Reinvigorating social geographies? A ‘social re/turn’ for a changing social world: (re)opening a debate’ By Darren P. Smith, Kath Browne & David Bissell
• ‘Redundant? Resurgent? Relevant? Social Geography in Social & Cultural Geography’ by Phil Hubbard
• ‘Multiple, marginalised, passé or politically engaged? Some reflections on the current place of social geographies’ by Peter Hopkins
• ‘US Social Geography, alive and well?’ by Vincent Del Casino
• ‘Navigating a non-representational research landscape and representing ‘under-represented groups’: from complexity to strategic essentialism (and back)’ by Hannah Macpherson
• ‘Geography, race and emotions: social and cultural intersections’ by Anoop Nayak

RGS-IBG medals and awards recognise excellence in geographical research and fieldwork, teaching and public engagement. Any Fellow or member of the Society may make a nomination, and Research Groups are also encouraged to support nominations.

Nominations should consist of a completed nomination form with a statement of 200-300 words outlining why the candidate should receive the award, a CV of the candidate and written support of approximately 200-300 words from two additional Fellows or members of the Society.

To download the nomination form, read the nomination criteria, or find out more about the medals and awards, please visit: http://www.rgs.org/AboutUs/Medals+and+Awards/Nominate+your+choice.htm

The deadline for making a nomination is 28 February 2012.

If you have any questions, please contact the Director’s Office, E: director@rgs.org.

Nominations for vacant positions on RGS-IBG Council

Positions on Council are nominated and elected by the Fellowship and bring with them the responsibilities of a Trustee of the Society. It is normally expected that Council members will also serve on (and chair in the case of Vice-Presidents and Honorary Treasurer) the Committee of Council relevant to the position to which they have been elected. Only Fellows of the Society may stand for positions on Council and only Fellows may propose candidates for election (this includes Postgraduate Fellows).

The deadline for making a nomination is 25 March 2012.

A list of vacant positions for election and more information about the responsibilities of Council members, can be found here: http://www.rgs.org/AboutUs/Governance/Nominations+for+Council.htm.  

Candidates may only stand for one position.  They must provide a short biographical note and the names of five Fellows of the Society supporting of their application (Proposing Fellows).  Proposing Fellows may only support one candidate for any single position and must provide a brief summary of why the candidate is suitable for the Council position along with their Fellowship number.

If you have any questions, please contact the Director’s Office, E: director@rgs.org.

Geographical Reflections

This is a call for papers for the RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-term Conference, to be hosted over the weekend of 20th – 22nd April 2012 at the School of Geography, Nottingham University. The aim of the conference is to provide a welcoming, relaxed and supportive environment for postgraduates to present any aspect of their research to their peers.

Papers with any theme on any topic within geography or a related discipline are invited, and postgraduates should feel comfortable presenting their work at any stage of its development. We would also welcome any papers or posters which deal with this year’s conference theme: ‘Geographical Reflections’. This could include:

- How has postgraduate work furthered debates in geography?
- How have postgraduates developed new and innovative methodologies?
- How has postgraduate research challenged previous geographical work?
- How can reflecting on past debates inform our understanding of present and future geographies?

This broad theme is designed to appeal to postgraduates at any stage of their degree working in or on geographical topics, from both the physical and human domains of geography, and to all related disciplines.

As well as the paper sessions we will also run several interactive workshops covering a range of topics such as publishing during your PhD, practical tips for teaching and demonstrating, common methodological approaches and issues and securing post-PhD grant funding.

We are delighted to announce that Nick Clifford (Professor of Physical Geography, King’s College London) will present the pre-conference plenary to the conference theme of ‘Geographical Reflections’ on the evening of Friday 20th April.

The RGS-IBG Mid Term Conference event has been kindly sponsored by the University of Nottingham Graduate School, the School of Geography and the RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum.

The guidelines for abstract submission are as follows:

Papers: Papers should be no more than 10 minutes in length with 5 additional minutes allocated for discussion afterwards. Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted to RGSmidterm2012@nottingham.ac.uk

Posters: Posters should be A0 in size. They will be mounted on display boards throughout the day and presenters will be allocated a 15 minute slot in which to answer questions. Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted to RGSmidterm2012@nottingham.ac.uk

The deadline for paper and poster abstract submissions is 5pm 3rd February 2012.

ALL DELEGATES MUST REGISTER BEFORE SUBMITTING AN ABSTRACT: please see http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/research/rgs-ibg-postgraduate-conference/rgs-ibg-postgraduate-mid-term-conference-2012.aspx for registration forms and further details.

Doctoral research programme

• Funding to support seven PhD studentships with a focus on learning and teaching research:  http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/doctoral-programme

International scholarship scheme

• Funding to facilitate scholarship of learning and teaching abroad, with a view to developing practice in the UK:  http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/international-scholarship-scheme

Seminar and workshop series

• Open call for psychology workshops.  £1000 grant available plus additional £500 to cover speaker travel:   http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/funding#seminar

Academic associates

• Your opportunity to work for HEA on a consultancy basis, to make a difference to learning and teaching in UK Universities:  http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/academic-associates

UK travel grants

• Funding available for individuals and teams to attend learning and teaching development events:   http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/travel-fund

Teaching Development Grants

• Individual bids: call opens 3 January 2012. Up to £7k for successful bids: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/funding#tdg
• Collaborative grants: call opens 27 February 2012. Up to £60k for successful bids:   http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/funding#tdg

HEA conferences

• HEA STEM conference 12-13 April 2012, Imperial College, London. Online booking available at:  http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2012/academyevents/STEM_annual_conf
• HEA annual conference 3-4 July 2012, University of Manchester The call for sessions will open at the end of November and close on 13 January 2012. Online bookings will open 17 February 2012:  http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/annual-conference

HEA Geography and Earth Sciences events

• Education for sustainable development workshop 16th February 2012, Bath Spa.  http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2012/16_Feb_HEA_STEM_Bath_Spa

Keep in touch

• Email: helen.walkington@heacademy.ac.uk 
• Subscribe to receive updates: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/my_academy

As you may already know, the ESRC is currently undertaking a ‘benchmarking review’ of UK human geography in partnership with the AHRC and the RGS-IBG.  This is intended to gauge the strength of the subject in terms of its international standing and provides an opportunity to make the case for additional support for the subject.  The review is being chaired by Professor David Ley from UBC and is completely independent from the Higher Education Funding Councils’ Research Excellence Framework.

As part of the review, Professor Peter Jackson has been commissioned to undertake a review of research quality and impact in the field of Social and Cultural Geography (with reviews of other sub-disciplinary areas also being commissioned).  As part of the review, which is working with very tight deadlines, he has been asked to liaise with study group members, to confer with senior academics in the field and to produce a report of c.2000 words by 27 February.  This is to seek your assistance with this process.

Please make your suggestions under some (or ideally all) of the following headings:

1. How has research in social and cultural geography in the UK developed over the last ten years, and what are the major strengths and weaknesses of the field?
2. Give examples of key academic outputs (books and other publications) that have made an important contribution to scholarship and/or have helped to set or move intellectual agendas in the field.
3. Give examples of key non-academic impacts (including engagement with research users in policy and practice), noting any changes that have arisen as a result of research in social and cultural geography.

This last question is particularly challenging given the lack of any single group of research ‘users’ in our field so suggestions of particular people to contact who might be able to verify the non-academic impact of research in social and cultural geography would be particularly helpful as this is also part of my brief.

If time permits, I hope to be able to circulate a copy of my draft report (at the end of February), providing an opportunity for further comments and suggestions before the final version is submitted in mid-March.

Please send your replies to p.a.jackson@sheffield.ac.uk by Friday 27 January at the latest.  Your help with be very much appreciated and will contribute directly to the benchmarking review process.

Thanks and best wishes

Peter Jackson

The SCGRG are organizing two ‘in-house’ events for this conference:

• Social and Cultural Geographies in a Time of Crisis (discussion panel)
• Social and Cultural Geographies of Impact

The group will be co-sponsoring two conference Chair’s plenary sessions (details tba):

• (In)secure spaces
• (In)secure peoples

We are also delighted to be sponsoring the following submitted paper sessions below.

• Ludic Geographies
• More-than-human geographies: from coexistence to conflict and killing
• Home Unmaking
• Licensing spaces, things and people
• ‘Policing’ geographies: engendering securities and insecurities
• Writing and doing human geography research in Greece during a turbulent decade

Further details on the conference are available via the RGS website. Please get in contact with session organisers for further details of any of these sessions and for information on how to submit a paper.

The deadline for session organisers to submit completed session proposal forms for SCGRG sponsored sessions to the RGS is January 31st 2012.

Our thanks to everyone who has supported the group over the last year.  If you have ideas for how we might best further research in Social and Cultural Geography in 2012, do get in touch via twitter, facebook or email the committee.

with best wishes,

Gail

A discussion panel convened by Ben Anderson and the SCGRG

How should social and cultural geography respond to a world that is either in crisis or where various events and situations are now framed in terms of crisis? How do social and cultural geographers understand the material and imaginative geographies of crises? And how does responding to crisis demand or invite social and cultural geographers to change their habits of thinking, research and action?

The panel asks what social and cultural geography might be and become at a time when the multiple events and situations are currently being understood as crises; the credit crunch, climate change, resource scarcity, universities, terrorism and political violence, over-consumption, urban unrest and inequalities, social reproduction, climate change and environmental damage … to name but a few events in what has become an open-ended list. Of course, the contemporary condition is not the first where the vocabulary of crisis has come to dominate the political imaginary and to be worked into the fabric of the everyday: we could think of the oil crisis of the 70s, the Cuban missile crisis, or longstanding claims to a crisis of masculinity, for example. Now used to denote a temporary situation that threatens harm and requires some form of decisive action, even if the precise nature of the action is not known, the proliferation of crises and crisis talk poses challenges to social and cultural geography. Put simply: what could and should our relation to the phenomena of crisis be? Should we trace the relations of (dis)continuity that make up particular crises? Should we invoke and attempt to understand the ‘context’ for the manifestation of any particular crisis – whether we want to frame that context in terms such as neoliberalism or finance capitalism? Should we bear witness to the distribution of harms and damages that surround specific crises or the geographies of insecurity that become part of crises? Perhaps, instead, we should follow the performative effects of naming certain events as crises, or maybe follow the specific techniques and technologies through which events which have been named as crises are governed. Perhaps we could turn to the roots of the term crisis in the Greek krinõ – meaning to cut, to select, to decide – and find in crises the possibility for other and better ways of living?

The panel will explore these and other options in a bid to think through what social and cultural geography might do in a time of crisis and how its existing practices of thinking and modes of research can engage with the contemporary condition. Confirmed panellists so far include Alex Vasudaven and Rachel Pain, with more names to be confirmed in the new year. If you are interested in taking part in this panel, please get in touch with Ben Anderson or Gail Davies.

Social and Cultural Geographies of Impact

Sponsored by the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG)

What is ‘impact’?  How do we evidence ‘impact’?  What makes ‘impactful’ research? How do those outside the academy understand ‘impact’?  What are the stakes of ‘impact’ for postgraduates and academia?

This session will explore the emerging social and cultural geographies of ‘impact’.  Whilst currently understood (or conceived) in terms of the Research Excellence Framework (REF), this session aims to unpack and expand understandings and conceptualizations of impact, generating discussion and debate through two innovative sessions.  Overall, this session seeks to generate a critical forum for discussing, debating, supporting and listening to ideas about ‘impact’ as we navigate through the current landscape of geography in higher education and research institutions.

Whilst the first session will take the form of postcard-based small group discussions, in the second session we will be hosting short, critical ‘impact statements’ (short papers or think pieces) from a range of academic and non-academic participants at AC2012.  We would like to hear about ‘impact’ from a range of different viewpoints (critical, creative, within and beyond the academy) and from researchers at all stages of their career.

If you would like to present a short paper (or ‘impact statement’) of no more than 5 minutes, please send titles and short abstracts (max. 150 words) to Sarah Mills (sm599@le.ac.uk), Amanda Rogers (A.Rogers@rhul.ac.uk) and Mia Hunt (Maria.Hunt.2010@live.rhul.ac.uk) by Friday, 20th January 2012.

Please note that this session is likely to take place in an alternative and informal space at the conference with NO AV support.  We hope this will create an inclusive and engaging environment and go ‘beyond powerpoint’…

Call for Papers RGS/IBG annual conference

Co-convenors: Hester Parr (Glasgow)*, Tim Cresswell (Royal Holloway), and Richard Yarwood (Plymouth), Olivia Stevenson (Glasgow).

*Initial contact point (Hester.parr@glasgow.ac.uk)

This session explores the ‘policing’ of diverse human geographies in the world, and specifically how different registers of policing (by force(s), institutions, legislative shapes and other forms of governance) can engender both securities and insecurities. At the same time, we want immediately to problematise the possibility of ever ultimately ‘securing’ geographies (literally, as well as metaphorically, in and through border-work) and thereby to engage with insecurities. What are insecure geographies? We are curious about how geographies can be(come) insecure, dissolute, disruptive, hard-to-track, and simply missing.

Understanding insecurity beyond a discourse of danger is particularly appealing; and we wish to appeal for papers that re-value insecurities in a variety of ways. Overall, the session hopes to bring security and insecurity into tense conversation via the concept and exercise of ‘policing’; and here ‘policing’ is recognised as a metaphor, and a governing arrangement intended to engender lawfulness but also peace.

This session might lend itself to examination of police, police jurisdiction, police force(s), border ‘work’ (legislatively, conceptually), acts of tracing and tracking, dissident mobilities, porous networks and insecure securities. We welcome both conceptual and empirical papers.

The following questions and themes may prompt ideas, but please do not be restricted by them:

• What are securities and insecurities?
  How can we police security and insecurity?
  What is it to police geographies?
  How can we conceptualise and research insecure/secure geographies?
• What are insecure mobilities and should these always be policed?
• Is police-work always productive of new insecurities?
• Does policing bring peace and security?
• What are the differences between policing and security?