The urban political ecologies of documents: critically extending historical. Call for papers AAG.

Call for papers, AAG Boston, 15-19 April 2008

Session:
The urban political ecologies of documents: critically extending historical
city-natures

Co-organizers:
Ann Marie Murnaghan, Department of Geography, York University, Toronto, Canada
Paul Jackson, Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

This session addresses an interest in producing more detailed studies of the way that urban spaces have been inscribed by certain meanings of nature, and how certain uses of nature have become integral to the functioning of these cities at a variety of scales. In comparison to the work of present day (urban) political ecology, an historical approach is, necessarily, mediated through archives, documents, and oral histories. What are the unique challenges, productive discoveries, and the limitations associated with working with these rich and diverse sources?

Urban political ecology, environmental history, historical geography, and cultural ecologies are useful approaches to uncovering stories about urban
natures, but we often see the intersections and fringes of these fields as the most interesting and productive places for new scholarship so we encourage a wide range of researchers to participate.

Ultimately, we want this session to flesh out, historically spatialize, and complicate notions of urban metabolism and circulation. We are interested in how UPE historical research is structured by historical politics and culture; the construction of and gaps in the archives; and the disciplinary, corporate, government and institutional fields in which ideas and research are made. We seek techniques that can help move beyond these structures. We hope to extend beyond locational case studies, and examine how other boundaries or types of objects can structure our inquiries about the construction and production of space, place and nature.

Some areas of research that would be interesting additions to this session are:

-the changing relations between humans and non-humans
-how do you create an archive of the non-human?
-grappling with and contextualizing past understandings of "city" and "nature"
-how do urban natures become "appropriate" or "inappropriate" for certain groups on the basis of changing ideas of race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, age, taken together and separately?
-historical stories of environmental justice
-historical sites and discourses that challenge both terms urban and nature
-how have social movements, political affiliations, and societal norms influenced and affected natures both as materialities and social constructions?
-tracing to the present day problematic continuities that arise from the history of geography as a discipline, for example the Chicago School's urban ecology
-the benefits and constraints of historical methodologies (for example historical materialism, genealogy, Benjamin's literary montage, etc.)

If you are interested in participating in our session, please email titles and abstracts to the co-organizers by 21 October 2007.

Ann Marie Murnaghan, York University (amfm@yorku.ca)
Paul Jackson, University of Toronto (paul.jackson@utoronto.ca)


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Paul SB Jackson
Department of Geography
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
paul.jackson@utoronto.ca