Notice: Materialities conference - postponed

The third Materialities conference has been postponed until the new year so its timing does not clash with termtime. New time/place to be confirmed in due course

Duncan Fuller

As some may know, Duncan died suddenly ten days ago. In time, I am sure members of SCGRG will want to discuss how we might appropriately mark his contributions to the group as both member of the group, one-time Committee member and speaker at many SCGRG sessions and events. He was both an provocative and passionate geographer, and his passing makes British geographer seem a less fun place. He will be sadly missed. Our thoughts are of course with his family and friends at this time.

For those who want to share their memories of Duncan as teacher, colleague and friend, please see:

http://engaginggeography.wordpress.com/5-duncan-fuller/

Conference session report (3)

Geographies of Social Enterprise

The study of social enterprise organisations that trade with a social purpose is an emerging field of research that is of importance to geographers and other social scientists. This double session recognised the topical nature of the research and brings together academics already working in the field to present their work but also to discuss future research directions.

The first session focused on the geographies of social entrepreneurs/enterprise covering a variety of research areas: Jane Ricketts Hein presented a summary of research on the role of churches in rural areas; Emma Street discussed her research with the South Bank Employers Group; Dan Van der Horst showed the importance of social enterprise in the renewable energy sector and Muki Haklay discussed the use of Geo-Spatial mapping techniques in understanding social impact to cultural and social geographical aspects of social enterprise.

In the second session focused on connecting social enterprise research with social theory and the relationship between social enterprise and the empowerment of marginalised and excluded groups. The session included presentations Mike Gordon, with some statistical analysis of social enterprise activities; Kean Birch discussing the role of the third sector in regional development and finally Sarah-Anne Muñoz offered a research agenda for social enterprise research.

The sessions complemented each other by focussing on the different approaches and methodologies associated with social enterprise research. It is hoped that this will stimulate further research on social enterprise within Geographical research.

Conference session report (2)

A session that was co-sponsored by the SCGRG at this year's RGS involved photography. The images were a mixture of self-directed photos and those taken by researchers. All were exhibited in the tented area at the RGS and seemed to attract much interest. For further images and details, see:

http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Research+and+Higher+Education/Photographs+Matter+gallery/Photographs+Matter.htm

The session had two objectives, first to bring together current work using participant directed photography and second to critically examine the spaces of the conference by providing an exhibition rather than a paper session. Accompanying this exhibition was a panel session and a round table discussion. The exhibition involved work from 19 different projects grouped into four thematics: Photographs and young people; Imaging identity and the self in situ; Memory, images and remembering; and Images, marginalisation and resistance. These thematics occupied the informal spaces of the conference in the entrance foyer and great hall of The RGS building and the marquee in the grounds.

Both the roundtable discussion and the panel session with Gillian Rose JD Dewsbury and Eric Laurier were very well attended with some very interesting points raised both by the panellists, and in wider discussion. Not least was the issue that despite the effective and affective communication of ‘the image’ it is tempered within and softened by words. Moreover the academic space of the image is restricted to illustration by editorial requirements, ethical considerations, and print limits of academic outputs.

Conference session report (1)

RGS/IBG paper session, Friday 29th August 2008

Matters of Interdisciplinarity: Archaeology meets Geography

Convenors: Dr. Divya P. Tolia-Kelly & Dr. Richard Hingley (Durham Geography and Archaeology, respectively)

This materiality session successfully brought together archaeologists and geographers to consider both their shared and divergent approaches to understanding landscape. The diverse range of papers promoted lively discussion and highlighted the overlaps between the two disciplines and the importance of taking a broader interdisciplinary approach to research. The papers led us from post colonial readings of landscape and shifting perceptions of ruination and reconstruction of historic landscapes to contemporary emotional experiences and the cultural commoditisation and consumption of landscapes, especially in the heritage sector, via time geography and models of innovation. Some common themes which emerged were issues of ownership of landscape and the nature of rightful encounter and how these are (re)presented in mapping and recording techniques and artistic and literary works that deal with landscapes. Contributors from archaeology, geography, rural economics, and the environmental sector created a truly interdisciplinary and diverse session which fostered a fruitful exchange of theory and method providing new perspectives for all concerned. The discussant was Professor Stephen Daniels (Director of AHRC Landscape and Environment Programme).

Chairs:
Divya Tolia-Kelly & Robert Witcher
Contributors:
Martin Redding (Environment Officer – Witham)
Divya Tolia-Kelly(Durham – Geography)
Robert Witcher (Archaeology – Durham)
Richard Hingley (Archaeology – Durham)
Claire Nesbitt (Archaeology – Durham)
Glynn Kelso (Geography – Queen’s University Belfast)
Adam Wainwright (Archaeology – Exeter)
Nick Winder (Institute for Policy and Practice – Newcastle)
Claudia Dürrwächter (Institute for Policy and Practice – Newcastle)
Victoria Bell (Centre for Rural Economy – Newcastle)

CFP Geographies of Art

Call for papers: Geographies of art: Annual Association of American Geographers Conference, Las Vegas, 22-27 March 2009



Are you critic, collaborator, creator, curator ? Does your research in some way develop a relationship between geography and art ? A look at recent publications and conference programs indicates the growing scope of the interrelationship between art and geography and the increasing range of forms this work is taking as boundaries between geographers, artists and curators blur. The title of this session is broad, and deliberately so, for it aims precisely to consider the breadth of this relationship between geography and art. The intention is to bring together a range of practices, and practitioners, to consider the ideas, methods and conceptual developments that come from this so obviously fruitful relationship. This is a relationship which offers us purchase on so many of the important debates within geography today: creative research and writing practices,
identity performance and practices, landscape, representation and non-representation, affectual and sensory relations, immaterial labour practices, social and political sculpture, the environment, discourses of new materialisms… to name but a few. Alternatively, what do you, as an artist, get from geography and geographers? What value is drawn from collaborative working practices? Your focus may be contemporary or historical practice and it is certainly not restricted to visual art.

Formats may include but are not restricted to : papers, videos, performance works, or sound works. Potential topics may include but are not restricted to:

• the outcomes and practices of collaboration
• social sculpture, art and participatory geographies
• production, consumption and the circulation of aesthetics
• art and, and as, the political
• artistic networks, creative clusters and art schools
• geopolitics and art forms
• art as therapy
• art as practice and performance of identity
• aesthetics and politics
• art and geography’s critique of the visual
• artist as social agent
• art and regeneration
• the internet as art space/ networked art
• art and questions of affect and sensory relations
• the space of the museum/ the museum without walls
• site-specific practices
• environmental aesthetics
• art and landscape
• geography and visual culture

Please direct any questions and abstracts ( 250 words) to Harriet Hawkins at
h.hawkins@exeter.ac.uk, by the 8th October 2008.

Third materialities conference/workshop, Dec, Exeter

Ian Cook (Exeter) is keen to get those who have been involved in previous workshops deciding the form and content of the third SCGRG materalities conference - 'Endgames'.

See http://materialgeographies.wordpress.com/ for both archive of previous workshop content plus details of forthcoming event