Abstract submissions are invited for the session ‘Private Sector Area Studies: Regional Expertise & Knowledge Production in the Political Risk Industry’ (RGS-IBG Political Geography Research Group Sponsored Session) for the 2018 RGS-IBG conference to be held at Cardiff University, Tuesday 28 Friday to 31 August 2018.

Please submit abstracts to p.gilbert@sussex.ac.uk by Monday 5^th Feb (the deadline for submitting the full session proposal form to the RGS-IBG is Friday 16^th Feb).

Session Abstract:

Political geographers have recently outlined an emerging ‘third wave’ of critical area studies that is attentive to the politics of representation, and sceptical about the solidity of regional ‘units’ (e.g. Sidaway et al. 2016). This third wave is said to follow a first wave of (less critical, more instrumental) Imperial area studies designed to aid the British colonial project, and a second wave of Cold War area expertise cultivated among American social scientists. At the same time, others have lamented the decline of field-based area studies and the emergence of ‘new cartographic white spaces’ as reports on regional conflict are increasingly produced ‘without leaving the office’, via remote-sensing technologies and a reliance on (often unacknowledged) research assistants (Duffield 2015). Alongside this reconfiguration of area studies – towards the critical, but away from the field-based – political risk analysis has emerged as a growth industry in its own right, and one with substantial influence. Indeed, the university protocols that often impede fieldwork in regions deemed ‘risky’ are themselves dependent on ratings and advice produced by political risk analysis and insurance firms (Perera 2017). Producing maps, indices and advice for transnational executives and global policy elites – and recruiting social science graduates from elite universities (LSE, Columbia) in global financial centres – the political risk industry has emerged as a key site for the production of instrumental private sector area expertise, insulated from contemporary debates about the prospect of a ‘critical’ area studies and the decline of fieldwork-based expertise. Yet knowledge production in the political risk industry has received scant geographical attention to date.

This session invites contributions which address the following questions: (1) Through what technologies, social relations and forms of fieldwork is political risk expertise produced? (2) How do political risk analysts contribute to the propagation of particular models of geopolitics and ideal relationships between state, society and transnational corporations? (3) Who produces regional expertise in the political risk industry and how do specific educational or social networks shape political risk analysis? (4) How does this form of private sector area studies relate to earlier Imperial and Cold War iterations of strategically-minded regional expertise, and to an emerging wave of ‘critical’ area studies?

WOMEN’S STUDIES

QUARTERLY

is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for its Spring 2019 Special Issue:

ASIAN DIASPORAS

 Guest Editors: Lili Shi, Kingsborough Community College-CUNY and Yadira Perez Hazel, University of Melbourne

Asian diasporas are gendering spaces and times that intertwine stories of race, transnationalism, citizenship, and postcoloniality. We contend that Asia is not only a geographic term, but also a comparative one. It is the collective sum of heterogeneous racial, regional, transhistorical and transnational politics that transcends bodies and identities of “Asia” across Global South and North as well as global mediascape. We also embrace an expansive notion of diaspora, one that is beyond the mere causal result of travel and migration that reifies the binary of home and settlement that subsequently “privileges the mobility of masculine subjects” (Campt, T. & Thomas, D. A., 2008, p.2). We propose Asian diasporas as scattered communities, identities and relationships that are conditioned by, while influencing and transforming, global struggles of nation, empire, postcoloniality, transnationality and respective hegemonies.

 This special issue aims to curate essays that theorize and narrate Asian diasporas through feminist frameworks. We invite contributors to foreground gender as they engage conceptually with Asian diasporas as spaces of un-unified and uneven gendering and queering experiences, identities, histories and hegemonies, compelling individuals to endlessly translate multiple forces into daily interactions (Brah, 1996; Hall, 1996; Ang, 2001; Edwards, 2003; Grewal, 2005; Campt, 2004; Gopinath, 2005; Campt & Thomas, 2008, Atay 2015).  What are the local and global gendering moments in Asian diasporic transnationalism? How do we investigate “politics of destination” (Chu, 2010) in the often-described fluid movement of Asian diasporas? What unique struggles do Asian diasporas encounter as a historically feminized group in colonialist discourse? In what light should we study Asian diasporas beyond the Global North’s imaginaries of “Asia” and its related gender identities, localities, populations, and bodies?

 This call also encourages contributors to examine this issue’s boundary-marking concepts of Asian-ness, diasporic-ness, woman-ness and queerness within various grounded contexts and times. For example, how does gender intersect with the politics of belonging in racialized immigrant communities? How do we theorize intra-diasporic differences? What are the comparative or differing histories and moments that Asian diasporas encounter with those of other diasporas, other marginalized groups, against the dominant (American-centric) black-and-white racial relationships? How are Asian diasporic women and queer affected by global scripts of patriarchy, neoliberalism, transnational capitalism, and the responding logics of gender, race, labor, and family?

We especially welcome contributions that engage Asian diaspora beyond the Americas, beyond U.S. notions of race and racial experience, and diasporas across centers of Global North within Asia.

We invite essays on, yet not limited to, the following topics:

·      Diasporic Asian gender identities and belonging

·      Non-binary manifestations and creations of Asian diasporas

·      Concepts, ideologies and practices of masculinity/femininity/gender hegemonies  among Asian diasporic communities

·      Queer Asian diasporas and identities

·      Asian diasporas in cyberspace

·      Disabilities in Asian Diasporas

·      Women in faith-based diasporic Asian communities

·      Asian diaspora women’s labor

·      Asian diaspora and feminist autoethnographies

·      Gender, nation, and class in Asian diasporic contexts

·      Neoliberalism and gender in Asian diasporas

·      Feminine health in Asian diasporas

·      Gender and poverty in Asian diaspora

·      Media consumption/representation of Asian diasporic women and queer communities

·      Asian diasporic community organizing

·      Asian feminist diasporic art

·      Asian diasporic families (gender relations)

·      Diasporic youth and parenting

·      Decolonializing feminisms among Asian diasporas

• State policies, citizenships, public practices, and local activisms of Asian diasporas across gendered expressions
• Circuits of migration, detention, exile, incarceration, deportation, and enslavement
• Practices, narratives of Asian Diaspora outside and/or within “Asia”

Scholarly articles and inquiries should be sent to guest issue editors Lili Shi and Yadira Perez Hazel at AsianDiasporasWSQ@gmail.com. We will give priority consideration to submissions received by March 1, 2018. Please send complete articles, not abstracts. Submissions should not exceed 6,360 words (including abstract, keywords, un-embedded notes and works cited) and should comply with the formatting guidelines at www.feministpress.org/submission-guidelines. We will give priority consideration to submissions received by March 1, 2018. Please send complete articles, not abstracts. Submissions should not exceed 6,360 words (including abstract, keywords, un-embedded notes and works cited) and should comply with the formatting guidelines at

We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please provide all contact information in the body of the e-mail.

Poetry submissions should be sent to WSQ’s poetry editor Patricia Smith at WSQpoetry@gmail.com by March 1, 2018. Please review previous issues of WSQ to see what type of submissions we prefer before submitting poems. Please note that poetry submissions may be held for six months or longer. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if the poetry editor is notified immediately of acceptance elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please paste poetry submissions into the body of the e-mail along with all contact information.

Fiction, essay, memoir, and translation submissions between 2000-2500 words should be sent to WSQ’s fiction/nonfiction editor, Rosalie Morales Kearns, at WSQCreativeProse@gmail.com by March 1, 2018. Please review previous issues of WSQ to see what type of submissions we prefer before submitting prose. Please note that prose submissions may be held for six months or longer. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if the prose editor is notified immediately of acceptance elsewhere. We do not accept work that has been previously published. Please provide all contact information in the body of the e-mail.

ABOUT WSQ: Since 1972, WSQ has been an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of emerging perspectives on women, gender, and sexu­ality. Its peer-reviewed interdisciplinary thematic issues focus on such topics as Precarious Work, At Sea, Solidarity, Queer Methods, Child, Activisms, The Global and the Intimate, Trans-,The Sexual Body, and Mother, combining legal, queer, cultural, technological, and historical work to present the most exciting new scholarship, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, and visual arts on ideas that engage popular and academic readers alike. WSQ is edited by Jillian Báez (College of Staten Island-CUNY) and Natalie Havlin (LaGuardia Community College-CUNY) and published by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Visit http://www.feministpress.org/wsq.

CfP POLLEN 2018:

From performativity to hybridization: exploring theory-practice entanglements in (so-called) market-based environmental initiatives

POLLEN18: Political Ecology, the Green Economy, and Alternative Sustainabilities

Oslo, Norway

June 20-22, 2018

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: December 6, 2017

Session organizers: Catherine Windey (University of Antwerp), Vijay Kolinjivadi (Université du Québec en Outaouais), Gert Van Hecken (University of Antwerp), and Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza (Duke University)

Over the last two decades, market-based instruments (MBIs) for nature conservation have become increasingly prominent in environmental and development policy discourse as a so-called win-win solution. While there is no consensual definition of MBIs and they encompasses heterogeneous types of programmes that do not always use markets in their conception and implementation, a utilitarian rationale and the use of financial incentives remain central elements of their design (Pirard, 2012). Therefore, beyond the material outcomes of MBIs and regardless of actual commodification or marketization processes taking place, much of the critical scholarship on MBIs denounces this overarching rationale as part of a hegemonic neoliberal governmentality that primarily serves the capitalist agenda. Accordingly, this form of environmental management would lead to a detrimental modification of socio-ecological relations through the promotion of productivist/individualistic socio-cultural attitudes towards the environment at the cost of more intrinsic motivations (e.g. Brockington and Duffy, 2010; Büscher et al., 2012; Castree, 2003; Corbera, 2012; Fletcher and Büscher, 2017; McAfee, 2012; Sullivan, 2006; Van Hecken and Bastiaensen, 2010). At the same time, an increasing number of empirical studies have also shown precisely how these dominant narratives behind MBIs are constructed, contested and (re)negotiated at multiple levels (e.g. Benjaminsen, 2014; Büscher, 2014; den Besten et al., 2013; Evans et al., 2014; Leggett and Lovell, 2012; McElwee, 2014; Milne and Adams, 2012; Pasgaard, 2015; Shapiro-Garza, 2013a, 2013b; Van Hecken et al. 2015a). In fact, these models do not necessarily unfold on the ground as intended and rather result in a hybridization between different worldviews, everyday practices and ways of valuing ‘nature’ through actors’ agency and power relationships (Cleaver, 2012; Van Hecken et al., 2015b).

While it is important to critically examine the ideologies and power structures underlying MBIs along with micro scale analysis (e.g. Fletcher & Büscher, 2017), we argue that these debates often remain somewhat trapped within binary frames between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, ‘market’ and ‘no market’, ‘capitalist’ and ‘non-capitalist’, ‘resistance’ and ‘consent’, that still convey the idea of an imposition of the global neoliberal/capitalist economy to powerless non-capitalist local communities and agents (Gibson-Graham, 2002; Hart, 2006). Individual agents and communities hence appear as a “site of economic impact and never as a constituent of the economic” (St Martin, 2006: 182) which conveys the idea that there is an a priori structural power, i.e. neoliberalism, and an a posteriori agency/actor that is always the site of its hegemonic impact. Through this lens, the tendency is to dismiss theory-practice entanglements and various human-nature relationalities and discursive formations that continuously emerge, but which fall outside of these dialectic ontologies, hence paradoxically risking reinforcing a neoliberal performative act “that limits our political imaginations and sense of agency” (Burke and Shear, 2014: 129; Kolinjivadi et al., 2017). Crucially, these outcomes are not framed as alternatives in response to an imposition by the hegemonic tendencies of neoliberalism or a capitalist economy. Instead, they emerge as theory-practice entanglements, consciously or unconsciously, in relation to a muddle of ideologies, social norms, power relations, actors’ agencies, path dependencies and geographic scales (Van Hecken et al., 2017).

To further challenge conventional discursive polarizations and to enlighten and rethink diverse identities and practices (Gibson-Graham, 2002), we believe that the analysis of how so-called MBIs are formed and then enact, are (re)informed and contested in interaction with hybrid socio-ecological configurations is a crucial area of exploration. In other words, examining these programmes in praxis requires a stronger relational understanding of humans-in-nature and nature-in-humanity in order to ground MBI design and implementation within historical and often unruly geographical conditions. We are therefore interested in bringing together a collection of presentations that look at the dynamic processes of MBIs’ (re)configuration that can potentially shape the formation of a new episteme. We thus invite conceptual, theoretical and empirical contributions that consider but are not limited to the topics below:

– ‘Politics of knowledge’: performativity of policy and academic discourses on MBIs; theory-practice entanglements; how discourses are constructed and translated into practice;

– Diverse and historically-situated values, institutions, agencies, knowledge practices, skills and traditions related to natural resources management and how they interact with MBIs’ as narrative and practice;

– Dynamics of power (e.g. ‘power-knowledge’, access and use of natural resources, etc.), role of the State and unruly green governmentalities  surrounding MBIs;

– Going beyond capital-logics as imposed from above: contingent human-nature histories as debunking neoliberalism’s so-called “success”.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to catherine.windey@uantwerpen.be before 6 December 2017. Feel free to contact us should you have any questions or ideas about this session. If accepted to this paper session, applicants will still need to register through the POLLEN website.

References

Benjaminsen, G. 2014. Between Resistance and Consent: Project–Village Relationships When Introducing REDD+ in Zanzibar. Forum for Development Studies, 41, 377-398.

Brockington, D., and Duffy, R. 2010. Capitalism and Conservation: The Production and Reproduction of Biodiversity Conservation. Antipode 42(3), 469-484.

Büscher, B. 2012. Payments for ecosystem services as neoliberal conservation: (Reinterpreting) evidence from the Maloti-Drakensberg, South Africa. Conservation & Society, 10, 29-41.

Büscher, B., Sullivan, S., Neves, K., Igoe, J. & Brockington, D. 2012. Towards a Synthesized Critique of Neoliberal Biodiversity Conservation. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 23, 4-30.

Büscher, B. 2014. Selling Success: Constructing Value in Conservation and Development. World Development, 57, 79-90.

Burke, B. & Shear, B. 2014. Introduction: engaged scholarship for non-capitalist political ecologies. Journal of Political Ecology, 21, 127-144.

Castree, N. 2003. Commodifying what nature? Progress in Human Geography, 27, 273-297.

Cleaver, F. 2012. Development as Bricolage. London: Earthscan.

Corbera, E. 2012. Problematizing REDD+ as an experiment in payments for ecosystem services. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 4, 612-619.

den Besten, J. W., Arts, B. & Verkooijen, P. 2014. The evolution of REDD+: An analysis of discursive-institutional dynamics. Environmental Science & Policy, 35, 40-48.

Evans, K., Murphy, L. & de Jong, W. 2014. Global versus local narratives of REDD: A case study from Peru’s Amazon. Environmental Science & Policy, 35, 98-108.

Fletcher, R., Büscher, B., 2017. The PES Conceit: Revisiting the Relationship between Payments for Environmental Services and Neoliberal Conservation. Ecological Economics 132, 224-231.

Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2002. Beyond Global Vs. Local: Economic Politics Outside the Binary Frame. In: Herod, A. & Wright, M. (eds.) Geographies of Power: Placing Scale. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Hart, G. 2006. Denaturalizing Dispossession: Critical Ethnography in the Age of Resurgent Imperialism. Antipode, 38, 977-1004.

Kolinjivadi, V., Van Hecken, G., Vela Almeida, D., Kosoy, N., Dupras, J., 2017. Neoliberal performatives and the “making” of payments for ecosystem services (PES). Forthcoming in Progress in Human Geography. DOI: 10.1177/0309132517735707.

Leggett, M. & Lovell, H. 2012. Community perceptions of REDD+: a case study from Papua New Guinea. Climate Policy, 12, 115-134.

McAfee, K. & Shapiro, E. N. 2010. Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mexico: Nature, Neoliberalism, Social Movements, and the State. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100, 579-599.

McElwee, P., Nghiem, T., Le, H., Vu, H., Tran, N., 2014. Payments for environmental services and contested neoliberalisation in developing countries: A case study from Vietnam. Journal of Rural Studies 36, 423-440.

Milne, S. & Adams, B. 2012. Market Masquerades: Uncovering the Politics of Community-level Payments for Environmental Services in Cambodia. Development and Change, 43, 133-158.

Pasgaard, M. (2015). Lost in translation? How project actors shape REDD+ policy and outcomes in Cambodia. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 56(1), 111-127.

Pirard, R., 2012. Market-based instruments for biodiversity and ecosystem services: A lexicon. Environmental Science and Policy 19-20, 59-68.

Shapiro-Garza, E., 2013a. Contesting the market-based nature of Mexico’s national payments for ecosystem services programs: Four sites of articulation and hybridization. Geoforum 46, 5-15.

Shapiro-Garza, E., 2013b. Contesting market-based conservation: Payments for ecosystem services as a surface of engagement for rural social movements in Mexico. Human Geography 6(1), 134-150.

St Martin, K. 2006. The impact of “community” on fisheries management in the US Northeast. Geoforum, 37, 169-184.

Sullivan, S., 2006. Elephant in the room? Problematising ‘new’ (neoliberal) biodiversity conservation. Forum for Development Studies 33(1), 105-135.

Van Hecken, G. & Bastiaensen, J. 2010. Payments for Ecosystem Services in Nicaragua: Do Market-based Approaches Work? Development and Change, 41, 421-444.

Van Hecken, G., Bastiaensen, J., Huybrechs, F., 2015a. What’s in a name? Epistemic perspectives and Payments for Ecosystem Services policies in Nicaragua. Geoforum 63, 55-66.

Van Hecken, G., Bastiaensen, J. & Windey, C. 2015b. Towards a power-sensitive and socially-informed analysis of payments for ecosystem services (PES): Addressing the gaps in the current debate. Ecological Economics, 120, 117-125.

Van Hecken, G., Kolinjivadi, V., Windey, C., McElwee, P., Shapiro-Garza, E., Huybrechs, F., & Bastiaensen, J., 2017. Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher’s ‘PES Conceit’. Forthcoming in Ecological Economics. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.10.023.

Landscape Studies is multidisciplinary, with a diverse array of approaches that give the field its strength. The Landscape, Space and Place (LSP) Conference is in its 12th year of bringing together scholars across various disciplinary backgrounds and from different stages of their careers. At this conference, all scholars interested in the widely varied interpretations and analyses of landscape are invited to join in the exchange of ideas and consideration of novel intellectual perspectives, to join in the effort of building a more integrative framework for the field.
We are open to many interpretations of Landscape, Space, and Place. Some previous papers and sessions have dealt with the following approaches:
*Geographies of film culture and exhibition
*Digital landscapes, mapping, and geo-caching
*Global conflict, borders, and nationalism
*Queer spaces, gendered places, and visual culture
*Whiteness and racialized landscapes
*Archaeology and landscape history
*Visual culture and media studies
*Tourism, post-colonialism, and boundary crossing
*Emplacement, displacement, and hybridity
*Environmental landscapes and politics
*Migration, geographies of everyday life
*Animal and post-human geographies
*Architecture and theories of design
*Photography and documentary studies
*Soundscapes, sound studies, and sonar
*Literary Geographies, text(ile)ual spaces, contexts
*Embodiment and the politics of scale
Potential questions to address include but are not limited to:
How do landscapes shape dynamics of power and how do these power structures in turn shape landscapes? *What are the relationships between spaces and cultural and artistic practices? *How can places influence conceptualizations of citizenship and political involvement? *What are some of the contemporary or historical ways of representing and experiencing space? *What are some of the ways of circulating and reproducing notions of place?
Information and Guidelines for Submission:
The LSP conference will feature workshop panels of 3-4 people presenting papers related to a general theme. Presenters should prepare 10-12 minute presentations that will be followed by a 15-20 minute Q/A. Papers may include a variety of multimedia aids. Along with typical PowerPoint paper presentations, past conferences have included landscape architecture panels, artistic installations, hands-on demonstrations, and film screenings. Such creative project submissions are also welcome and can be accommodated. Please notify the coordinators of your particular needs in the email which accompanies your abstract submission.

For any type of submission please include: a written abstract of 250-300 words, five (5) keywords to describe your project, and list two (2) bibliographic references. Submissions are due by January 31, 2018. Please submit abstracts to iulandscapeconference.wordpress.com/abstract-submission If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at IUlandscapeconference@gmail.com.
Conference Committee: Beth Ciaravolo (chair) and Abdul Aijaz

POLLEN18: Political Ecology, the Green Economy, and Alternative Sustainabilities

Oslo, Norway

June 20-22, 2018

Session organizers: Catherine Windey (University of Antwerp), Vijay Kolinjivadi (Université du Québec en Outaouais), Gert Van Hecken (University of Antwerp), and Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza (Duke University)

Over the last two decades, market-based instruments (MBIs) for nature conservation have become increasingly prominent in environmental and development policy discourse as a so-called win-win solution. While there is no consensual definition of MBIs and they encompasses heterogeneous types of programmes that do not always use markets in their conception and implementation, a utilitarian rationale and the use of financial incentives remain central elements of their design (Pirard, 2012). Therefore, beyond the material outcomes of MBIs and regardless of actual commodification or marketization processes taking place, much of the critical scholarship on MBIs denounces this overarching rationale as part of a hegemonic neoliberal governmentality that primarily serves the capitalist agenda. Accordingly, this form of environmental management would lead to a detrimental modification of socio-ecological relations through the promotion of productivist/individualistic socio-cultural attitudes towards the environment at the cost of more intrinsic motivations (e.g. Brockington and Duffy, 2010; Büscher et al., 2012; Castree, 2003; Corbera, 2012; Fletcher and Büscher, 2017; McAfee, 2012; Sullivan, 2006; Van Hecken and Bastiaensen, 2010). At the same time, an increasing number of empirical studies have also shown precisely how these dominant narratives behind MBIs are constructed, contested and (re)negotiated at multiple levels (e.g. Benjaminsen, 2014; Büscher, 2014; den Besten et al., 2013; Evans et al., 2014; Leggett and Lovell, 2012; McElwee, 2014; Milne and Adams, 2012; Pasgaard, 2015; Shapiro-Garza, 2013a, 2013b; Van Hecken et al. 2015a). In fact, these models do not necessarily unfold on the ground as intended and rather result in a hybridization between different worldviews, everyday practices and ways of valuing ‘nature’ through actors’ agency and power relationships (Cleaver, 2012; Van Hecken et al., 2015b).

While it is important to critically examine the ideologies and power structures underlying MBIs along with micro scale analysis (e.g. Fletcher & Büscher, 2017), we argue that these debates often remain somewhat trapped within binary frames between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, ‘market’ and ‘no market’, ‘capitalist’ and ‘non-capitalist’, ‘resistance’ and ‘consent’, that still convey the idea of an imposition of the global neoliberal/capitalist economy to powerless non-capitalist local communities and agents (Gibson-Graham, 2002; Hart, 2006). Individual agents and communities hence appear as a “site of economic impact and never as a constituent of the economic” (St Martin, 2006: 182) which conveys the idea that there is an a priori structural power, i.e. neoliberalism, and an a posteriori agency/actor that is always the site of its hegemonic impact. Through this lens, the tendency is to dismiss theory-practice entanglements and various human-nature relationalities and discursive formations that continuously emerge, but which fall outside of these dialectic ontologies, hence paradoxically risking reinforcing a neoliberal performative act “that limits our political imaginations and sense of agency” (Burke and Shear, 2014: 129; Kolinjivadi et al., 2017). Crucially, these outcomes are not framed as alternatives in response to an imposition by the hegemonic tendencies of neoliberalism or a capitalist economy. Instead, they emerge as theory-practice entanglements, consciously or unconsciously, in relation to a muddle of ideologies, social norms, power relations, actors’ agencies, path dependencies and geographic scales (Van Hecken et al., 2017).

To further challenge conventional discursive polarizations and to enlighten and rethink diverse identities and practices (Gibson-Graham, 2002), we believe that the analysis of how so-called MBIs are formed and then enact, are (re)informed and contested in interaction with hybrid socio-ecological configurations is a crucial area of exploration. In other words, examining these programmes in praxis requires a stronger relational understanding of humans-in-nature and nature-in-humanity in order to ground MBI design and implementation within historical and often unruly geographical conditions. We are therefore interested in bringing together a collection of presentations that look at the dynamic processes of MBIs’ (re)configuration that can potentially shape the formation of a new episteme. We thus invite conceptual, theoretical and empirical contributions that consider but are not limited to the topics below:

• ‘Politics of knowledge’: performativity of policy and academic discourses on MBIs; theory-practice entanglements; how discourses are constructed and translated into practice;
• Diverse and historically-situated values, institutions, agencies, knowledge practices, skills and traditions related to natural resources management and how they interact with MBIs’ as narrative and practice;
• Dynamics of power (e.g. ‘power-knowledge’, access and use of natural resources, etc.), role of the State and unruly green governmentalitiessurrounding MBIs;
• Going beyond capital-logics as imposed from above: contingent human-nature histories as debunking neoliberalism’s so-called “success”.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to catherine.windey@uantwerpen.be before 6 December 2017. Feel free to contact us should you have any questions or ideas about this session. If accepted to this paper session, applicants will still need to register through the POLLEN website.

References

Benjaminsen, G. 2014. Between Resistance and Consent: Project–Village Relationships When Introducing REDD+ in Zanzibar. Forum for Development Studies, 41, 377-398.

Brockington, D., and Duffy, R. 2010. Capitalism and Conservation: The Production and Reproduction of Biodiversity Conservation. Antipode 42(3), 469-484.

Büscher, B. 2012. Payments for ecosystem services as neoliberal conservation: (Reinterpreting) evidence from the Maloti-Drakensberg, South Africa. Conservation & Society, 10, 29-41.

Büscher, B., Sullivan, S., Neves, K., Igoe, J. & Brockington, D. 2012. Towards a Synthesized Critique of Neoliberal Biodiversity Conservation. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 23, 4-30.

Büscher, B. 2014. Selling Success: Constructing Value in Conservation and Development. World Development, 57, 79-90.

Burke, B. & Shear, B. 2014. Introduction: engaged scholarship for non-capitalist political ecologies. Journal of Political Ecology, 21, 127-144.

Castree, N. 2003. Commodifying what nature? Progress in Human Geography, 27, 273-297.

Cleaver, F. 2012. Development as Bricolage. London: Earthscan.

Corbera, E. 2012. Problematizing REDD+ as an experiment in payments for ecosystem services. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 4, 612-619.

den Besten, J. W., Arts, B. & Verkooijen, P. 2014. The evolution of REDD+: An analysis of discursive-institutional dynamics. Environmental Science & Policy, 35, 40-48.

Evans, K., Murphy, L. & de Jong, W. 2014. Global versus local narratives of REDD: A case study from Peru’s Amazon. Environmental Science & Policy, 35, 98-108.

Fletcher, R., Büscher, B., 2017. The PES Conceit: Revisiting the Relationship between Payments for Environmental Services and Neoliberal Conservation. Ecological Economics 132, 224-231.

Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2002. Beyond Global Vs. Local: Economic Politics Outside the Binary Frame. In: Herod, A. & Wright, M. (eds.) Geographies of Power: Placing Scale. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Hart, G. 2006. Denaturalizing Dispossession: Critical Ethnography in the Age of Resurgent Imperialism. Antipode, 38, 977-1004.

Kolinjivadi, V., Van Hecken, G., Vela Almeida, D., Kosoy, N., Dupras, J., 2017. Neoliberal performatives and the “making” of payments for ecosystem services (PES). Forthcoming in Progress in Human Geography. DOI: 10.1177/0309132517735707.

Leggett, M. & Lovell, H. 2012. Community perceptions of REDD+: a case study from Papua New Guinea. Climate Policy, 12, 115-134.

McAfee, K. & Shapiro, E. N. 2010. Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mexico: Nature, Neoliberalism, Social Movements, and the State. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100, 579-599.

McElwee, P., Nghiem, T., Le, H., Vu, H., Tran, N., 2014. Payments for environmental services and contested neoliberalisation in developing countries: A case study from Vietnam. Journal of Rural Studies 36, 423-440.

Milne, S. & Adams, B. 2012. Market Masquerades: Uncovering the Politics of Community-level Payments for Environmental Services in Cambodia. Development and Change, 43, 133-158.

Pasgaard, M. (2015). Lost in translation? How project actors shape REDD+ policy and outcomes in Cambodia. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 56(1), 111-127.

Pirard, R., 2012. Market-based instruments for biodiversity and ecosystem services: A lexicon. Environmental Science and Policy 19-20, 59-68.

Shapiro-Garza, E., 2013a. Contesting the market-based nature of Mexico’s national payments for ecosystem services programs: Four sites of articulation and hybridization. Geoforum 46, 5-15.

Shapiro-Garza, E., 2013b. Contesting market-based conservation: Payments for ecosystem services as a surface of engagement for rural social movements in Mexico. Human Geography 6(1), 134-150.

St Martin, K. 2006. The impact of “community” on fisheries management in the US Northeast. Geoforum, 37, 169-184.

Sullivan, S., 2006. Elephant in the room? Problematising ‘new’ (neoliberal) biodiversity conservation. Forum for Development Studies 33(1), 105-135.

Van Hecken, G. & Bastiaensen, J. 2010. Payments for Ecosystem Services in Nicaragua: Do Market-based Approaches Work? Development and Change, 41, 421-444.

Van Hecken, G., Bastiaensen, J., Huybrechs, F., 2015a. What’s in a name? Epistemic perspectives and Payments for Ecosystem Services policies in Nicaragua. Geoforum 63, 55-66.

Van Hecken, G., Bastiaensen, J. & Windey, C. 2015b. Towards a power-sensitive and socially-informed analysis of payments for ecosystem services (PES): Addressing the gaps in the current debate. Ecological Economics, 120, 117-125.

Van Hecken, G., Kolinjivadi, V., Windey, C., McElwee, P., Shapiro-Garza, E., Huybrechs, F., & Bastiaensen, J., 2017. Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher’s ‘PES Conceit’. Forthcoming in Ecological Economics. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.10.023.

Tourism is undergoing major changes in the advent of social media networks and other forms of digital technology. This has affected a number of tourism related processes including marketing, destination making, travel experiences and visitor feedback but also various tourism subsectors, namely hospitality, transportation and tour operators. An already substantial and growing body of research has investigated these developments, both regarding tourism processes (Munar 2011, Tham et. al. 2013, Mkono & Tribe, 2017) and industry subsectors (Leung et al. 2013, Munar & Jacobsen, 2014, Gretzel & Fesenmaier 2009, Hvass & Munar, 2012). However, largely overlooked are the effects of these changes on the urban fabric and its social structure, in particular questions concerning inequality.

Digital technologies are widely perceived as a vehicle to foster economic upliftment. Advocacy for new digital platforms and devices often includes claims that they allow for a wider distribution of the benefits of tourism (Martin 2016, Cheng 2016). There is plenty of evidence that tourism, helped by digital technologies, has dispersed into urban spaces/places which have not previously been associated much with the tourist gaze (Maitland & Newman 2009). In this situation, even social inequality, and poverty as such, can become a tourist attraction and at times subject to commodification processes, as research on slum tourism has shown (Burgold et al. 2013, Freire-Medeiros 2013, Frenzel et al. 2015, Frenzel 2016, Whyte 2017).

But claims that digitally enhanced tourism is able to address issues of inequality remain contested as resistance and protest against noise, overcrowding and tourism–related gentrification has become an issue across various cities (Colomb/Novy 2017). They also remain largely untested empirically.

Against this backdrop we aim to bring together two aspects of tourism studies which have been treated rather isolated from one another but need to be addressed in their complex interrelations: the influence of digital technologies on tourism and the question of tourism and urban inequality. The panel seeks to examine a broad range of studies that deal with issues of urban inequality in regard to the application of digital technologies in the tourism sector. The research questions guiding papers for this session emerge from three interconnected dimensions (1) Narratives and representations; (2) Media infrastructures and the power of algorithms; and (3) Political economy and material effects.

Narratives and Representation
Some insinuations have been made in terms of the potential of social media to reduce inequality, due to its accessibility and the free or low-cost nature of its use. Social media may enable marginalised urban citizens to amplify their voice in urban conflicts. (Martin 2016, Xenos, Vromen & Loader 2014). Tourists can be catalyst in these processes by providing an audience and prompting the need and the economic incentive to create local stories about places. More generally speaking, tourism has been shown to put places otherwise marginalized on maps from which they were previously hidden (Steinbrink et al 2014), however such processes may have problematic consequences (Holst 2016). We seek to understand better how digital technologies can assist in putting certain, either unknown or stigmatized, areas “on the map” and thus increase their visibility as a destination in terms of tourism offerings (Cheng 2016)

Media infrastructures and the power of algorithms
While there is evidence for a wider expansion of digital infrastructures into neglected neighborhoods, the quality, speed and spread of media infrastructures often remains reflective of the relative wealth of an area. How do digital infrastructure projects affect tourism‘s ability to alleviate poverty? And even if infrastructural limits are overcome, researchers are increasingly skeptical about claims regarding the platform economy’s promise of equality (Baka 2015). Algorythmic management and rationality is far from neutral (Jeacle and Carter 2011). Do the algorythmic rationales and software principles of digitally enhanced tourism work as empowering the urban poor? And are platforms really “equal” when tour operators with larger capital seem to have advantages in terms of social media management and also the manipulation of algorithms?

Political Economy and material effects
Key sharing economy actors of urban tourism like AirBnB claim that their endeavor has poverty alleviating aspects. Thus struggling families may increase their revenue by temporarily renting out vacant rooms or housing. The evidence for this is scarce and often contradicting claims are made, e.g. that Airbnb drives up local rents and has displacement effects (Lee 2016, Sans & Domínguez. 2016). In addition, some research has demonstrated that the sharing economy is displacing traditional tourism economies with significant consequences for local operators that rely on this market (Fang, Ye & Law, 2015). Moreover leakages need to be re-considered as every AirBnB transaction moves locally generated money to California.

Methodological considerations
We invite papers from a variety of disciplines and with both qualitative and quantitative approaches. We also note that digital technologies have opened new methodological possibilities, in particular for social science and big data uses. We encourage contributions that make use of these new technologies, as well as reflect on the methodological implications of the new availability (or limits there of) of large scale data sets in digital form.

Assistant Professor in Environment and Race – University of South Carolina

The School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment invites applications for a tenure-track, assistant professor position to begin August 16, 2018. We seek an individual with outstanding research and teaching capabilities and interests that focus on the intersections of race and the environment. The area of specialization is open. Research interests may include, but are not limited to: environmental justice; race, nature, and landscape; diversity in environmental institutions; race and class in environmental movements; the intersections of social inequality and environmental conflict; race and conservation; and race and environmental imagery. We seek candidates whose scholarship is theoretically grounded and who can work across disciplinary boundaries to produce innovative research and teaching. Potential disciplinary backgrounds could include sociology, geography, anthropology, history, public policy, political science, environmental humanities, comparative literature, African American studies, American studies and related fields.

The successful candidate is expected to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment and to maintain an active research agenda. The School (http://www.seoe.sc.edu) is a multidisciplinary unit with a strong commitment to expanding its faculty in the areas of environmental social science and humanities. Potential collaborative interactions exist within the School and with other units across the University. Teaching responsibilities will include introductory courses that support interdisciplinary degrees in Environmental Studies and Environmental Science as well as upper-level undergraduate and graduate level courses related to the candidate’s specialty, with a standard teaching load of two courses per semester. Cross appointment with an appropriate unit is possible, depending on the candidate’s expertise. A Ph.D. is required at the time of appointment. Applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vita, research statement and statement of teaching interests in a single pdf file and a list of contact information for three references through uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/20441. For more information please contact: Alicia Wilson, Environment & Race Search Committee Chair, School of the Earth, Ocean & Environment, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, awilson@seoe.sc.edu.

To ensure full consideration, applications and letters should be received by Nov 20, 2017. We will review files until a candidate is selected. The University of South Carolina is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer and is responsive to the needs of dual-career couples. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. The University of South Carolina does not discriminate in educational or employment opportunities on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, veteran status or genetics.

The School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment is a multidisciplinary unit of approximately 600 undergraduate students, more than 80 graduate students, and 32 faculty representing research areas ranging from Earth and Ocean Sciences to Environmental Policy and History. The University of South Carolina’s main campus in Columbia is a Carnegie “very high research activity” institution with over 34,000 students on the main campus, more than 450 academic programs, and the top Honors College in the United States. Columbia is a vibrant community with approximately 800,000 people across the greater metropolitan area. It is the home of state government, major corporate headquarters, diverse entertainment venues, a lively arts scene, and affordable neighborhoods.  Located in the middle of the state, Columbia provides easy access to South Carolina’s beautiful beaches and mountains.

Tourism is undergoing major changes in the advent of social media networks and other forms of digital technology. This has affected a number of tourism related processes including marketing, destination making, travel experiences and visitor feedback but also various tourism subsectors, namely hospitality, transportation and tour operators. An already substantial and growing body of research has investigated these developments, both regarding tourism processes (Munar 2011, Tham et. al. 2013, Mkono & Tribe, 2017) and industry subsectors (Leung et al. 2013, Munar & Jacobsen, 2014, Gretzel & Fesenmaier 2009, Hvass & Munar, 2012). However, largely overlooked are the effects of these changes on the urban fabric and its social structure, in particular questions concerning inequality.

Digital technologies are widely perceived as a vehicle to foster economic upliftment. Advocacy for new digital platforms and devices often includes claims that they allow for a wider distribution of the benefits of tourism (Martin 2016, Cheng 2016). There is plenty of evidence that tourism, helped by digital technologies, has dispersed into urban spaces/places which have not previously been associated much with the tourist gaze (Maitland & Newman 2009). In this situation, even social inequality, and poverty as such, can become a tourist attraction and at times subject to commodification processes, as research on slum tourism has shown (Burgold et al. 2013, Freire-Medeiros 2013, Frenzel et al. 2015, Frenzel 2016, Whyte 2017).

But claims that digitally enhanced tourism is able to address issues of inequality remain contested as resistance and protest against noise, overcrowding and tourism-related gentrification has become an issue across various cities (Colomb/Novy 2017). They also remain largely untested empirically.

Against this backdrop we aim to bring together two aspects of tourism studies which have been treated rather isolated from one another but need to be addressed in their complex interrelations: the influence of digital technologies on tourism and the question of tourism and urban inequality. The panel seeks to examine a broad range of studies that deal with issues of urban inequality in regard to the application of digital technologies in the tourism sector. The research questions guiding papers for this session emerge from three interconnected dimensions (1) Narratives and representations; (2) Media infrastructures and the power of algorithms; and (3) Political economy and material effects.

Narratives and Representation
Some insinuations have been made in terms of the potential of social media to reduce inequality, due to its accessibility and the free or low-cost nature of its use. Social media may enable marginalised urban citizens to amplify their voice in urban conflicts. (Martin 2016, Xenos, Vromen & Loader 2014). Tourists can be catalyst in these processes by providing an audience and prompting the need and the economic incentive to create local stories about places. More generally speaking, tourism has been shown to put places otherwise marginalised on maps from which they were previously hidden (Steinbrink et al 2014), however such processes may have problematic consequences (Holst 2016). We seek to understand better how digital technologies can assist in putting certain, either unknown or stigmatized, areas “on the map” and thus increase their visibility as a destination in terms of tourism offerings (Cheng 2016)

Media infrastructures and the power of algorithms
While there is evidence for a wider expansion of digital infrastructures into neglected neighborhoods, the quality, speed and spread of media infrastructures often remains reflective of the relative wealth of an area. How do digital infrastructure projects affect tourism’s ability to alleviate poverty? And even if infrastructural limits are overcome, researchers are increasingly sceptical about claims regarding the platform economy’s promise of equality (Baka 2015). Algorythmic management and rationality is far from neutral (Jeacle and Carter 2011). Do the algorythmic rationales and software principles of digitally enhanced tourism work as empowering the urban poor? And are platforms really “equal” when tour operators with larger capital seem to have advantages in terms of social media management and also the manipulation of algorithms?

Political Economy and material effects
Key sharing economy actors of urban tourism like AirBnB claim that their endevor has poverty alleviating aspects. Thus struggling families may increase their revenue by temporarily renting out vacant rooms or housing. The evidence for this is scarce and often contradicting claims are made, e.g. that Airbnb drives up local rents and has displacement effects (Lee 2016, Sans & Domínguez. 2016). In addition, some research has demonstrated that the sharing economy is displacing traditional tourism economies with significant consequences for local operators that rely on this market (Fang, Ye & Law, 2015). Moreover leakages need to be re-considered as every AirBnB transaction moves locally generated money to California.

Methodological considerations
We invite papers from a variety of disciplines and with both qualitative and quantitative approaches. We also note that digital technologies have opened new methodological possibilities, in particular for social science and big data uses. We encourage contributions that make use of these new technologies, as well as reflect on the methodological implications of the new availability (or limits there of) of large scale data sets in digital form.

We have space for one more paper:

Cold War era area studies and traditional regional geography were presented by their proponents as integrative fields – approaches to coalesce macro and micro level analyses of geo-strategic motives, social processes, and political and economic dynamics. In the 1990s, a reiteration of regional geography under the label of New Regionalism (Storper 1997) explored economic processes at the local level, yet maintaining a keen attention to multilevel and comparative sociopolitical dimensions. Since then, the predominance of thematic foci in the discipline – such as political geography writ large, and strands of economic geography such as global value chains and production networks created topical, theoretical, and in some cases methodological division between state-centered analyses in political geography and firms-centered analyses in economic geography. Notwithstanding the claims of geoeconomics to account for the role of the market in larger political decisions, and GVC and GPN roles of the state in governance, it is difficult to account for the liminal spaces in which firms and states actually interact, and, consequently, for the ways in which the increasingly transnational life of firms influences changes in the structure of states.

This session invites reflections on how regional analyses may be able to carry forward more nuanced analyses of the processes tying together firms and states. These include, but are not limited to, new forms of sovereignty and territoriality aimed at regulating but also supporting firms within as well as without borders.

• We welcome regionally focused contributions from economic, political, and cultural geographers that include, but are not limited to:
• Theoretical reflections on the notion of region within geo-economic imaginaries that privilege metaphors of flows over viewing states as static frames;
• The interactions between states sponsored investment promotion practices and firms’ locational choices;
• Commercial and business diplomacy;
• Questioning of the organizational boundaries between states and firms through public-private partnerships and other means;
• Theoretical discussions of the role of states in value chains and production networks, as well as the role of firms in geo-economics;
• Empirical studies of how transnational firms (both large multinationals and small transnational or diaspora businesses), governments, and civil societies communicate their reciprocal interests and mediate conflicts;

Depending on the quality of the papers and inclinations of the participants we will submit a special journal issue proposal. Accordingly, please plan to submit a paper at an advanced draft level.

Please send your abstracts to Christian Sellar csellar@olemiss.edu or Jeremy Tasch jtasch@towson.edu

CALL FOR PAPERS, AAG ANNUAL MEETING 2018

Organizers: Fabian Frenzel, Julia Giddy, Thomas Frisch

Tourism is undergoing major changes in the advent of social media networks and other forms of digital technology. This has affected a number of tourism related processes including marketing, destination making, travel experiences and visitor feedback but also various tourism subsectors, namely hospitality, transportation and tour operators. An already substantial and growing body of research has investigated these developments, both regarding tourism processes (Munar 2011, Tham et. al. 2013, Mkono & Tribe, 2017) and industry subsectors (Leung et al. 2013, Munar & Jacobsen, 2014, Gretzel & Fesenmaier 2009, Hvass & Munar, 2012). However, largely overlooked are the effects of these changes on the urban fabric and its social structure, in particular questions concerning inequality.

Digital technologies are widely perceived as a vehicle to foster economic upliftment. Advocacy for new digital platforms and devices often includes claims that they allow for a wider distribution of the benefits of tourism (Martin 2016, Cheng 2016). There is plenty of evidence that tourism, helped by digital technologies, has dispersed into urban spaces/places which have not previously been associated much with the tourist gaze (Maitland & Newman 2009). In this situation, even social inequality, and poverty as such, can become a tourist attraction and at times subject to commodification processes, as research on slum tourism has shown (Burgold et al. 2013, Freire-Medeiros 2013, Frenzel et al. 2015, Frenzel 2016, Whyte 2017).

But claims that digitally enhanced tourism is able to address issues of inequality remain contested as resistance and protest against noise, overcrowding and tourism-related gentrification has become an issue across various cities (Colomb/Novy 2017). They also remain largely untested empirically.

Against this backdrop we aim to bring together two aspects of tourism studies which have been treated rather isolated from one another but need to be addressed in their complex interrelations: the influence of digital technologies on tourism and the question of tourism and urban inequality. The panel seeks to examine a broad range of studies that deal with issues of urban inequality in regard to the application of digital technologies in the tourism sector. The research questions guiding papers for this special issue emerge from three interconnected dimensions (1) Narratives and representations; (2) Media infrastructures and the power of algorithms; and (3) Political economy and material effects.

Narratives and Representation
Some insinuations have been made in terms of the potential of social media to reduce inequality, due to its accessibility and the free or low-cost nature of its use. Social media may enable marginalised urban citizens to amplify their voice in urban conflicts. (Martin 2016, Xenos, Vromen & Loader 2014). Tourists can be catalyst in these processes by providing an audience and prompting the need and the economic incentive to create local stories about places. More generally speaking, tourism has been shown to put places otherwise marginalised on maps from which they were previously hidden (Steinbrink et al 2014), however such processes may have problematic consequences (Holst 2016). We seek to understand better how digital technologies can assist in putting certain, either unknown or stigmatized, areas “on the map” and thus increase their visibility as a destination in terms of tourism offerings (Cheng 2016)

Media infrastructures and the power of algorithms
While there is evidence for a wider expansion of digital infrastructures into neglected neighborhoods, the quality, speed and spread of media infrastructures often remains reflective of the relative wealth of an area. How do digital infrastructure projects affect tourism’s ability to alleviate poverty? And even if infrastructural limits are overcome, researchers are increasingly sceptical about claims regarding the platform economy’s promise of equality (Baka 2015). Algorythmic management and rationality is far from neutral (Jeacle and Carter 2011). Do the algorythmic rationales and software principles of digitally enhanced tourism work as empowering the urban poor? And are platforms really “equal” when tour operators with larger capital seem to have advantages in terms of social media management and also the manipulation of algorithms?

Political Economy and material effects
Key sharing economy actors of urban tourism like AirBnB claim that their endevor has poverty alleviating aspects. Thus struggling families may increase their revenue by temporarily renting out vacant rooms or housing. The evidence for this is scarce and often contradicting claims are made, e.g. that Airbnb drives up local rents and has displacement effects (Lee 2016, Sans & Domínguez. 2016). In addition, some research has demonstrated that the sharing economy is displacing traditional tourism economies with significant consequences for local operators that rely on this market (Fang, Ye & Law, 2015). Moreover leakages need to be re-considered as every AirBnB transaction moves locally generated money to California.

Methodological considerations
We invite papers from a variety of disciplines and with both qualitative and quantitative approaches. We also note that digital technologies have opened new methodological possibilities, in particular for social science and big data uses. We encourage contributions that make use of these new technologies, as well as reflect on the methodological implications of the new availability (or limits there of) of large scale data sets in digital form.

We invite abstracts of max 250 words for consideration to be presented at the AAG 2018 in New Orleans. Please send your abstracts to Dr. Julia K Giddy (juliag@uj.ac.za).