Final cfps - extended dealine - rural futures

Hi there

We have had some great looking responses to this call for papers be are
seeking a few more.

If you are doing anything like action research – participatory methods –
collaborations – inter disciplinary research - in any area of rural
geography, rural studies, (with board interpretations applied to all terms)
we want to hear from you! We are seeking papers (about work) which are/is
trying to ‘push the envelope’. We are not talking paper work! we are talking
taking academic work beyond its (so far) designed capacities for action!

Call for papers: RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2008 - 27-29 August, London.

Title: Towards Transformative Knowledges/Practices for Sustainable Rural
Futures

Sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group

Convened by the Countryside and Community Research Institute


Within human geography and the social sciences more broadly there is a move
to break up settled, and narrowly drawn, institutional, pedagogic,
theoretical, disciplinary and methodological boundaries as we come to
realize that addressing the intensely complex, hybrid, unstable (yet
intransigent) nature of reality calls for new knowledge
formations/practices. New views of knowledge are exploring/practicing
integrations of theory, practice, politics and methods into new
‘non-representational’ assemblages of creative inquiry (Law, 2005).

Related to this there is also what Latour calls a ‘pixelisation of
politics’, where progressive actions can take place at many sites, in many
forms, and at different scales and in different networks. These actions are
(can be) pragmatics of knowledge/practice created within competency groups
clustered around situations of concern and/or potential. Academic attention
focuses on action already in process within communities,
socio-techno-ecological networks, and processes of governance and economics.
Can rural academics identify, join and add value to these? Can rural
academics initiate these?

This session seeks to explore these new terrains of theory/practice "which
matter", in relation to sustainable rural futures. In particular we invite
papers which report upon work where academics (perhaps in interdisciplinary
alliances) are actively working with (rather than on) rural actants (which
may include non-humans) in ways which seek to be transformative in some way
- not least in terms of sustainable socio-ecological formations.

Possible themes (amongst many)

Action research and rural sustainability
Participatory research and rural sustainability
Interdisciplinary research and rural sustainability
Innovative stakeholder engagement strategies
Working with humans and non-humans
Case studies of rural projects working toward sustainable socio-ecological
sustainability in the developed and developing world
Putting non-representational theory into practice (and other theoretical
methodological trajectories)
The ethics and politics of non-representational research


Titles and Abstracts of up to 200 words to be sent to HYPERLINK
"mailto:ojones@glos.ac.uk" ojones@glos.ac.uk by 25 Jan 2008