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Sociology Home > CeMoRe Home > Worldwide Conferences, Workshops and Seminars

Worldwide Conferences, Workshops and Seminars

Calls for Papers

Conferences, etc.

Calls for Papers

  • Call for Papers for the 2013 RGS-IBG conference. This will take place in London from Wednesday 28 to Friday 30 August 2013. Please note the opportunity for a postgraduate paper prize.

    New paradigms in conceptualising shared mobility.

    Session Convenors: Dr Juliet Jain & Professor Graham Parkhurst, University of the West of England, Bristol

    Technology is offering a potential new dynamic in how transport is delivered and used.  There is a move from what were once ‘private’ ways of being mobile towards ‘shared’ modes.  Traditionally, shared modes have been buses, coaches, trams, trains and air.  Now there are shared cars through car clubs, personal rapid transport (PRT), and taxi services, and shared bicycles such as the London Barclays bike scheme.  Mobile technologies and the rise of the ‘app’ have become particularly useful in facilitating shared transport opportunities (e.g. Barclays bike hire scheme in London). 

    Speculating on urban futures, Sheller and Urry (2003) considered the notion of public/private and the potential reconfiguration of the city with shared automated ‘pods’.   Feasibility studies and trials of personal rapid transport systems are now underway.  Yet as Latour (1996) explores in his tale of Aramis, future visions of re-scripting mobility practices demand complex enrolments between politics, technical developers, communities, etc.  Do such sociological interpretations and theoretical ideas assist in the implementation of shared schemes and the social diffusion of new collective mobility mechanisms? 

    Sharing transport presents challenges to the notion of individual ownership, and opens new debates around:-

    • how shared transport is theoretically conceptualised;
    • how it is conceived, designed, delivered and managed;
    • the spatial impacts that might emerge from new networks;
    • how it is modelled and evaluated; and
    • how it is experienced and perceived by the public.

    This session seeks abstracts that present evidence from new ‘shared’ schemes, theoretical concepts of sharing and social practices, and new methodological approaches for modelling use and networks, and understanding of the user experience of shared transport.

    Please email your abstract of 250 words (max) to Juliet Jain Juliet.Jain@uwe.ac.uk and Graham Parkhurst Graham.Parkhurst@uwe.ac.uk by the 30th January 2013.

    Postgraduate Prize
    Eligible author presenters are encouraged to submit a paper for the Postgraduate Paper Prize, which is will be sponsored by Emerald Publishing in 2013. There is a first prize of £100, and a runner-up prize of a book chosen from the Emerald transport titles.

    To enter for the prize, a full paper of not more than 6000 words should be submitted to the Secretary of the TGRG (Kate Pangbourne, k.pangbourne@abdn.ac.uk) no later than 5pm on the Friday of the week prior to the conference.

    Eligibility:
    Eligibility is restricted to post-graduate students (or those who have had their viva within six months of the date of the conference) presenting their own work. There is a presumption that the papers ought to be sole authored.

  • Call for Papers

Contemporary issues in long-distance commute work
in the extractive industries and other sectors

Symposium at the University of Vienna, Austria
8-10th July 2013

Long-distance commute (LDC) work and fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) operations are types of mobile work arrangements where workers are resident at one location, but for varying periods of time live and work at another, commuting between the two on a periodic basis. Typically the workplace is at some distance from the normal place of residence, isolated from other communities such that accommodations and other services have to be supplied by the resource or project developer. This type of work arrangement has become increasingly relevant for the extractive industries as well as in construction, technology, administration and service sectors worldwide. This is especially the case in remote regions such as the Sub-Arctic as well as in regions where a qualified labour force is not available. Though these work arrangements date back to the early days of offshore oil exploration and to the 1970s in the mining sector, however studies on many aspects of LDC in different contexts are still often at an exploratory stage. Contemporary research primarily refers to community and regional development implications of LDC and to a lesser extent research on impacts on LDC workers and their families. The LDC workers, their mobile life-style and the conditions of long-distance commuting in the variety of industries and sectors where it is used has so far still only received limited attention. LDC is not a homogenous organisation of mobile labour, and as such involves a wide variety of forms and settings. This symposium strives to shed light on contemporary scientific discussions, theory and methodology in the study of LDC labour matters, as well as to applied studies and entrepreneurial practice related to mobile labour organization. In particular, contributions will examine the complexity of modes and impacts of LDC and the responses of the workers themselves to this method of organising a labour force. The organisers welcome contributions from those in private sector, government, academic and other groups with interests in any of the sectors that utilize this form of work organization or with interests in this type of work organization from a variety of perspectives from theory to practice, policy making to regulation, assessment to management, etc. Conference languages will be English and Russian (translations provided).

Abstract submissions: maximum 450 words, due by 7th January 2013, emailed to lom.geographie@univie.ac.at Include with the abstract the presentation title, author name(s) and affiliation(s) and contact information, including email addresses.

 

May 15–-17, 2013
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

 

In contemporary cities, the effects of advanced telecommunications and commodified media exist everywhere around us. In both eye-catching and oblique ways, mass and personalised media forms reshape our spatial  practices and perceptions of specific milieus and the city as a whole.

We invite presentations that deal particularly with the following issues:

•- role of media and surveillance technologies in the spectacularisation of urban public spaces and events
•- the ways in which media technologies and representations become part of the taken-for-granted perceptions and routinised practices and rhythms of urban life
•- the actual and potential contributions of mass and personalised media forms to the contestation of economic, political and cultural hegemonies in cities

Throughout the interdisciplinary symposium, the spectacular, ordinary and contested aspects of the media city will be brainstormed through questions such as: What is the relationship of materiality of media and symbolic media representations in the construction of densely digitalised urban milieus? To what extent and how is media-saturation steering people’s urban activities towards automated and un-reflected modes? Or do the “urban media affordances” open room for creative place-making practices, new amalgamations of technology and corporeality, and even chances for alternative decoding and political resistance? In which ways do different forms of art and popular culture (cinema, literature, theatre, digital games etc.) articulate and intervene in the media city? What ethical and political issues lurk behind the pecuniary motifs of the ongoing mediatisation of space?

Invited keynote speakers:

  • Anne Cronin, Lancaster University, UK
  • Stephen Graham, Newcastle University, UK
  • Shannon Mattern, The New School, USA
  • Scott McQuire, Melbourne University, Australia • If you would like to present a paper at the Spectacular/Ordinary/Contested Media City symposium, please send an abstract (max. 300 words) to mediacity-2013@helsinki.fi by 14 January 2013. A narrative bio (max. 100 words) describing the author’s background and research interests should also accompany the proposal.

For more information, visit:
http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/events/mediacity2013

The organising committee:
Jani Vuolteenaho & Outi Hakola, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and Seija Ridell & Sami Kolamo, University of Tampere, School of Communication, Media and Theatre.

Contacts / conference secretary:
Kirsi L. Reyes-Anastacio / Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Email: mediacity-2013@helsinki.fi

 

  • Responsible Geographies
    5th Nordic Geographers’ Meeting
    University of Iceland, Reykjavík
    11th – 14th June 2013.

    Controversial geographies of tourism

    Call for abstracts This session focuses on the geographies of tourism in a Nordic context. More specifically the focus is on the manifestations of controversy in Nordic tourism development. Controversy is probably the norm of tourism development, and most certainly underpins much of its geography. Controversies provide opportunities to study the social world and its making and are tantamount to studying the geographies of tourism. On this basis, the session invites papers investigating and understanding various controversies related to tourism mobilities, geographies of production and consumption of tourism and issues of sustainability in tourism. Under these broad thematic headings roughly centred on flows sustaining tourism and the destination, the session is intended to be wide ranging in scope. The aim is to subdivide papers submitted to this session according to emerging themes in two distinct strands, one being on destination development and the other on tourism mobilities. The undertow of both strands is how mobilities and destinations are resilient in the face of change and risks and how these can be managed in just and responsible ways.    

    If you are interested in submitting an abstract to this session, please make it no longer than 250 words and upload it before 31st January 2013 through the following link: http://conference.hi.is/ngm2013/controversial-geographies-of-tourism/

  • Call for Papers
    Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham and The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust

Rust, Regeneration and Romance: Iron and Steel Landscapes and Cultures
10-14 July 2013, Ironbridge, UK

For centuries iron and steel have been the fundamental building blocks of modernity. These metals and the technologies, societies and cultures surrounding them have revolutionised the lives of billions of people. From the earliest functional usage of iron in domestic life, to decorative cast iron, from weapons to knives and forks and from the use of high tensile steels in buildings around the world to the stainless steels of space exploration, the transformative power of iron and steel is undeniable. This capacity to transform extends to the landscapes and cultures which have themselves been transformed through the mining, production, processing and consumption of iron and steel. As China and India race to modernise their economies with imported iron and steel, many cities across Europe and North America are still struggling with the decline in production and manufacture. In many parts of Europe former centres of iron and steel production have undergone regeneration and now form part of the tourism economy. Rust has gained currency as part of industrial heritage. Still, in many parts of the developing world, ideas of heritage lie very much in the future, as communities continue to work in the mining of iron ore and the production and fabrication of steel.

This conference seeks to engage in an open multi-disciplinary analysis of iron and steel landscapes and cultures, from the ancient to the modern. It looks toward the legacies of both production and consumption and how these metals have influenced all aspects of social life. We wish to explore the relationships that communities, regions, nations share with iron and steel through its functional use, creative and artistic use and its symbolic use. Indicative questions the conference will address are: How are economies and societies transformed by the extraction and processing of iron? How does the environmental impact and legacy of iron and steel sites shape social and political life? How do governments and communities deal with both the expansion and decline of the iron and steel industries? What are the forms and formats of regeneration for iron and steel landscapes and communities?  To what extent are global communities connected through iron and steel, economically and culturally? How have the landscapes and cultures of iron and steel found expression through various art forms? How are these landscapes managed and understood?

The conference welcomes academics from the widest range of disciplines and wishes to act as a forum for exchange between the sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The conference will draw from anthropology, archaeology, art history, architecture, engineering, ethnology, heritage studies, history, geography, landscape studies, linguistics, metallurgy, museum studies, sociology, tourism studies etc. The conference will take place at the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site.

Indicative themes of interest to the conference include:
 •            Understanding iron and steel landscapes – historic and contemporary perspectives
•             Human – technology relationships
•             Challenges in the presentation and interpretation of iron and steel heritage
•             Touring and tourism in iron and steel landscapes
•             Histories and ethnographies of iron and steel communities - labour relations and working environments
•             Architectural tropes surrounding mining and fabrication
•             Representations of iron and steel cultures in the ‘popular’ media
•             The ‘cultural industries’ (arts, sport, tourism, etc.) in the regeneration of iron and steel communities
•             Languages of steel cities – dialects and territories
•             Symbolic economies of iron and steel - iconography, art and design

Abstracts of 300 words with a clear title should be sent as soon as possible but no later than January 31st 2013 to ironbridge@contacts.bham.ac.uk<mailto:ironbridge@contacts.bham.ac.uk>.
Please be sure to include your full contact details.
Information will be updated on the website http://ironandsteel2013.wordpress.com/.

 

CFP - Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies
The upcoming issue 6(2) of the Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies (ASEAS) will feature a focus on Mobilities in South-East Asia, and aims at bringing together researchers from various academic fi elds in order to do justice to the interdisciplinary nature of this broad topic. The notion of Mobilities, in the broader sense, refers to movements (or non-movements) of persons, objects, information, or capital over time and space. Studies on Mobilities can bridge the fields of migration and tourism; two disciplines that frequently fi nd themselves joined under the umbrella term Mobilities.
Thereby, more specifi cally, an emphasis is put on the movement of people between, across, and within national boundaries. While a theoretical debate on these topics is necessary to contribute to the understanding of Mobilities in its diff erent facets, methodological contributions prove beneficial for advancements in this fundamental area of research. Deadline for abstracts 15 June 2013

If you intend to submit a paper, please contact the editorial board (aseas@seas.at), as this facilitates our planning process. Submissions dealing with one or several of the following issues are of special interest to the board of editors:

• Theoretical debates on mobilities and conceptual challenges resulting from empirical research, e.g. discussing agency-structure approaches
• Methodological contributions to the fi eld: ‘mobile’ and dynamic methods to understand migration, tourism, and mobilities in the 21st century
• Intersections of tourism and migration, e.g. international retirement migration or migration into tourist spaces
• Subnational forms of mobilities such as rural-urban, urban-urban, or rural-rural migrations
• Forced migration, e.g. people having to leave their homes due to confl ict, environmental degradation etc.
• Transnational lives of South-East Asian communities abroad
• Emotion and mobility, focusing on emotional issues such as love, sex, and aff ection in the context of migration decision making and migrant agency
• Upward and downward social mobilities, change of socioeconomic status through migration
• (Im)mobility, exclusion, and inequality: barriers to movement and broader aspects of society and mobility, e.g. the role of the ‘left-behind’ in migration processes
• Mobilities of tourism and travel: movement of tourists and its implications, attempts to understand the post-modern subject on the move, interactions in tourism
• Tourism for sustainable development: alternative forms of tourism, tourism and empowerment, sustainable mobilities
• Rethinking place and space in mobility studies: the meaning of place and
space for the investigation of tourism, migration, and communities (e.g.
community-based tourism, the importance of ‘community’ in tourism)
• As always, book reviews and suggestions for interviews are welcome (for further details, please contact the board of editors)
• More information: www.seas.at / aseas@seas.at

Forthcoming Conferences / Workshops / Seminars

  • Dealing with Disasters International Conference 2012 'Mobilities and Disasters - Developing a Mobilities Social Science Perspective on the Analysis of Disaster', Postgraduate Institute of Management Colombo, Sri Lanka - 28-30 November 2012

 

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