"LANDSCAPES, IDENTITIES AND DEVELOPMENT" conference

"LANDSCAPES, IDENTITIES AND DEVELOPMENT" conference - Lisbon / Óbidos,
Portugal, 1-5 September 2008

see http://tercud.ulusofona.pt/PECSRL/SessionsKeynotes.htm


We are inviting contributions to the following special session:


A10 Special Session: EMERGING ENERGIES, EMERGING LANDSCAPES.


Energy and landscape are intricately inter-connected. Landscapes embody
and are significantly shaped by the energy decisions of previous
generations and our own. Before the onset of the industrial revolution,
renewable energy was virtually the only type of energy available to
humankind (e.g. fire, crops to feed draught and riding animals, sailing
ships, watermills, windmills). Their relative importance in our ‘energy
mix’ became almost negligible during the industrial age, but renewable
energies are currently undergoing a renaissance. Concerns about climate
change and energy security have driven energy issues ever-higher up socio-
political agendas, and the decisions which we make about our ‘energy
futures’ will have far-reaching implications for landscapes, both directly
(through infrastructure) and indirectly (by modulating climate change).
The proposed transformation of our energy mix towards a much greater
reliance on renewables thus greatly enhances the importance and topicality
of the landscape-energy relationship. The ways in which sections of
society interpret the diverse, diffuse and spatially heterogeneous impacts
of (decentralized) renewable energies or contribute to these changes can
be regarded as a re-composition of socio-technical links between energy
generation and (territorial) identity.

The idea underlying this session is that (changes in) the notion, practice
and meaning of landscape can be studied through the ‘lens’ of energy
developments, and vice versa. The planning and/or sitting processes for
renewable energy developments create an opportunity to analyse the social
(re)construction of landscape. The session aims to explore landscape-
energy issues based on empirical, theoretical or synthetic contributions
coming from various countries and disciplinary fields. They might deal
with the development of renewable energies (e.g. wind power, biomass) or
of more conventional types of energy generation and transmission (e.g.
hydro, fossil fuel, nuclear, electricity grid networks), include landscape
as a salient dimension and/or consider the ability of theoretical
frameworks to capture the multi-dimensionality (i.e. relational, social,
environmental, material, spatial, aesthetic) of the process of landscape
construction.

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: 10th of January 2008.

For discussion or further information, please contact one of the
coordinators of the special session:
Alain Nadai nadai@centre-cired.fr
Charles Warren crw2@st-andrews.ac.uk
Dan van der Horst d.vanderhorst@bham.ac.uk

apologies for any cross posting