AAG 2015 Annual Meeting, Chicago, 21-25 April 2015
CFP: Geographical Encounters with “Odd” Research Objects
Lia Frederiksen (University of Toronto)
David K. Seitz (University of Toronto)
Do you have an object of study that seems “odd”? If so, let’s talk.
Our aim is to convene a dialogue among critical human geographers about our objects of study that can invoke puzzlement from non-academic audiences, and within disciplinary and interdisciplinary subfields. Our common ground in the session would be that we are frequently asked why and what we are studying in and through our objects of research.
We’re interested in talking with each other about how “odd” is rendered in light of more common theoretical framings and subfields. The oddness might therefore emerge, endure, and intensify in relation to the audiences we speak to and the categories we pursue deeper understanding through. Such objects would be easily described neither as resistant, nor emancipatory, nor enigmatic. As with Robyn Wiegman’s (2012) “object lessons”, we are keenly interested in exploring what it means to “have” an object of study, particularly in terms of critical human geography.
Critical (and especially feminist and queer) geographers have long engaged in powerful efforts to expose the political constitution and valences of such putatively apolitical objects as the body, the home, and the public park (Nast and Pile 1998, Domosh and Bondi 1998, Brown 2000, Mitchell and Staeheli 2007). Our engagement with similarly overlooked objects builds on this work to ask about the political stakes of ostensibly unremarkable objects — which can register as “too boring”, “too bourgeois”, or “not sexy”. We see this pursuit as linking with critical geography’s continued push to produce an analysis of power without “proper objects” (Butler 1994).
How might these objects benefit from critical geography’s sustained insistence on and curiosity about the banal and diffuse character of power? How might the awkward relationship between an uncommonly researched object and a subfield help to recast ongoing conversations? How might these uneasy relationships inform our research design and methods?
While we are aware of the novelty of an “odd” research object, we aim to avoid the trivial or peculiar inflections in posing and discussing these questions with each other. We are thinking of oddness much in the way that Berlant (2011) insists that it is social relations, not the objects themselves, that generate “cruel-optimistic” conditions which obstruct potential flourishing. We therefore look forward to engaging in a rigorous conversation among critical geographers that looks intently at the relationship between under-researched or under-theorized objects of study to bring fresh ideas to our subfields and theoretical framings.
Odd objects might include — but are by no means limited to — sites of banal consumption and ordinary consumer citizenship: bars, toilets, libraries, churches, phone booths, salons (hair, nail, etc.), electrical outlets, water taps, hardware stores, elevators, weigh stations, work stations, automobiles, recreational campgrounds, kitchen gardens, ferry boats. We are particularly hopeful to convene a discussion of these geographies spanning Global North and Global South framings.
If you are interested in taking part in this special session please send a 250-word abstract, including title, author(s), institutional affiliation(s), e-mail address(es) and 5 keywords to oddobjectsaag@gmail.com by October 1, 2014.
Works Cited
Berlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Brown, Michael P. 2000. Closet Space: Geographies of Metaphor from the Body to the Globe. London: Routledge.
Butler, Judith. 1994. “Against Proper Objects. Introduction.” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6.2+3: 1-25.
Domosh, Mona and Liz Bondi. 1998. “On the Contours of Public Space: A Tale of Three Women.” Antipode 30.3: 270-289.
Nast, Heidi J. and Steve Pile, eds. 1998. Places Through the Body. London: Routledge.
Weigman, Robyn. 2012. Object Lessons. Durham: Duke University Press.