Ecocultures 2012: Transitions to Sustainability
A Conference to take place at the University of Essex, 17th -18th April 2012

Ecocultures are communities from whom we can learn the art and science of sustainable living.

The aim of Ecocultures 2012 is to advance knowledge of how communities adapt successfully to social-ecological change, maintain resilience and enhance well-being. The conference will present and synthesise the best, current, multi-disciplinary perspectives of the barriers and bridges encountered by Ecocultures and how they can contribute to a global transition to sustainability.

Context

In an emerging ‘perfect storm’ of pervasive and sometimes turbulent ecological, social and cultural change human communities will need to find ways to adapt creatively and sustainably. In doing so, we will need to learn how to mitigate emerging global threats such as climate change and resource degradation through changes in individual behaviour, community actions, state-level responses and international governance. We will need to adapt – psychologically, socially, economically, politically and culturally – to the new social and environmental conditions of the anthropocene. And finally, we will need make these adaptations creatively, in a way that maintains or improves well-being. The scope and urgency of these challenges require us to critically examine current efforts to live sustainably, and understand the nature and mechanisms of sustainability.

The Ecocultures research programme at the University of Essex examines how traditional and newly emerging communities across the world are already responding to these challenges relatively successfully. Designated as ‘Ecocultures’, these communities provide living examples of sustainability in resilient social-ecological systems. They offer us lessons on how sustainability looks, possible pathways for transition, and offer hope that high levels of ecological well-being are consistent with the flourishing of society and culture. In doing so, they provide hope that there is more than one way to develop and more than one way to be happy, whilst maintaining a commitment to environmental and societal well-being.

The Ecocultures 2012 conference will bring together members of these communities, researchers who work with them, policy makers interested in applying their lessons and development practitioners looking for innovative ways to enhance social-ecological well-being. Together, we will examine the principles and practices of ‘Ecocultures’ from multiple disciplinary perspectives and at every scale, from the individual to the community and beyond. The questions we will address will range from the deepest organising principles of alternative development paradigms (how do the members of Ecocultures view their place in the world and accord value to nature?) to the practicalities of their social and economic organisation. We invite submissions from across the spectrum of the social sciences and humanities; trans-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary submissions are particularly encouraged.

Conference Themes

We invite submissions from academics, policy makers and development practitioners engaged in work on resilience and sustainability. Papers could include (but are not limited to) the following themes:

* Case studies on communities successfully adapting to social-ecological change;
* Historic examples of highly resilient communities and their current status;
* Analyses of the ‘traditional’ practices contributing to sustainable lifestyles, the stresses to which these provide resilience, and the barriers and bridges to the continued practice of such traditional lifestyles in today’s world;
* The emergence of ‘new’ Ecocultures, such as cultural revitalisation initiatives, ‘back to the land’ initiatives and the transition movement; the barriers and bridges to sustainability within these initiatives, the potential for their spread, their contribution to well-being and to social-ecological resilience at community level and beyond;
* Critical analyses of current and alternative notions of ‘development’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘resilience’;
* Analyses of struggles for resources: how do, for example, the extractive industries and multi-national corporations affect the sustainability of communities;
* Conflicts between different notions and practices of ‘sustainability’;
* Meta-analyses of the social, economic, political and cultural barriers and bridges to sustainability;
* Analyses of the role played by current policies, economic and corporate initiatives for ‘sustainability’, including the potential for sustainable governance, the links between international trade and sustainable growth, and the potential role played by consumer awareness, environmental regulations, new methods of environmental valuation and corporate social responsibility initiatives.

Conference keynote address

One of the conference’s keynote addresses will be delivered by Professor Jules Pretty, Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex.

He is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability and Resources), Pro-Vice-Chancellor responsible for the Faculty of Science and Engineering, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. His books include This Luminous Coast (2011), Nature and Culture (co-authored, 2010), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Environment (4 vols, ed 2006), The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Agriculture (2005, ed), The Pesticide Detox (2005, ed), Agri-Culture (2002) and Regenerating Agriculture (1995). He is a Fellow of the Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts, former Deputy-Chair of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), and has served on advisory committees for a number of government departments. He is currently member of the Lead Expert Group for the UK Government’s Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures Project, member of the Expert Panel for UK National Ecosystem Assessment and member of BBSRC’s Strategy Advisory Board. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture, and an honorary degree from Ohio State University in 2009.

Conference Arrangements

The conference will take place on the Colchester campus of the University of Essex from the morning of Tuesday, 17th April until the afternoon of Wednesday, 18th April 2012. Conference costs will be kept to a minimum and confirmed by the end of January 2012.

For maps and travel directions, see http://www.essex.ac.uk/about/getting_here/

Submissions and Contacts

Paper proposals, in the form of an abstract (400-700 words) and Panel proposals (max 1000 words), should be sent to Prof. Steffen Böhm (steffen@essex.ac.uk) and Zareen Bharucha (zpbhar@essex.ac.uk) by 16th January 2012. Please make reference to the conference in the subject line of your email by marking it ‘Ecocultures 2012’. Authors will be notified of acceptance by 30th January 2012.

For general inquiries, please email Zareen Bharucha (zpbhar@essex.ac.uk). A visa letter can be provided for delegates who will require it for travel to the UK. Please let us know if you need one.

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The National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University and Hofstra Cultural Center in partnership with Columbia University Center for Sustainable Urban Development and New York University Center for the Sustainable Built Environment present:

From the Outside In:  Sustainable Futures for Global Cities and Suburbs

A Conference at Hofstra University

Thursday-Saturday, November 8-10, 2012

This three-day conference will focus on sustainable futures in global city-regions, taking the suburbs as its starting point and working its way inward to the city center.  The conference will focus primarily on the New York metropolitan area, though we also seek participation from experts working in other cities around the world.

We seek an interdisciplinary discussion about sustainability that bridges the environmental, economic, and social spheres within complex urban regions.  While the insights of environmental science may guide efforts to reduce and mitigate the environmental effects of car-dependent suburban lifestyles, we must also consider how suburban and urban economics, politics, and cultures may limit or enable different forms of environmental stewardship, policy, and planning.  It is becoming clear, at many scales, that equity and environmental goals are often indivisible in building the political will needed to achieve sustainability.  It is thus critical to consider access to transportation, health care, and education in the context of social equity and environmental justice.

When considering the suburbs’ place within a metropolis that wrestles with environmental degradation and social inequality, it is also important to recognize variation among suburbs.   As suburbs of New York and other global cities are home to growing numbers of elderly, low-income, and immigrant residents, the conference will examine where the collective burdens fall today, how proposed solutions will affect particular groups, and how communities can be engaged in the decision-making process.

We plan to bring together academics, practitioners, and community leaders, so that they can identify barriers to achieving a sustainable region, as well as pioneering solutions for the future.  This conference will provide opportunities to share working models and visions for the sustainable suburb, and discuss how these solutions can be implemented.  We welcome proposals for individual papers, organized sessions, and round-tables that address a wide range of themes relevant to the future of metropolitan regions.  Topics might include, but are not limited to:

*       Sustainability and regional water, energy, waste, and transportation systems
*       Environmental justice and community engagement
*       The role of finance in creating a sustainable region
*       Green job creation
*       Methodological challenges in planning, measuring, and benchmarking sustainability
*       Affordability and the green suburb
*       Technological innovation and green industries
*       The effects of growing diversity on sustainability
*       Designing and retrofitting green suburbs, and certifying green buildings
*       The future of regional planning and Smart Growth
*       Pollution, brownfield redevelopment, and remediation in industrial suburbs
*       The role of government action and multiscalar collaboration
*       Social media and sustainability
*       Green activism and sustainability education
*       Climate change, hazards, and resiliency

Researchers will have an opportunity to submit their papers for review and possible publication in a special issue of the new Journal of Suburban Sustainability.

An abstract submission console is available at  http://www.hofstra.edu/sustainablefutures.  Individual paper abstracts should be limited to 200 words and submitted through the conference website before March 15, 2012.  Proposals for organized paper sessions, panels, and round-tables should be sent to the conference directors, Robert Brinkmann and Christopher Niedt, at hofstrasustainability2012@gmail.com as soon as possible; please include the names and contact information for all confirmed and potential participants.  The organizers will confirm paper acceptance/rejection by mid-May.

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(Le texte français suit)

Call for Papers:

Beyond the Culture of Nature: Rethinking Canadian and Environmental Studies

Location: The University of British Columbia, Vancouver campus (http://www.canadianstudies.ubc.ca/)
Date: 29-30 September, 2012

Canadian and Environmental Studies are two fields in transformation.  Initiated in part as emancipatory projects in the 1970s, seeking to define subjects and articulate their meanings, the two fields have diverged and been complicated by shifting ideas about nation and nationalism on the one hand, and the environment and sustainability on the other.  Wilderness once stood as a central shared concern of the two fields, but constructivist critiques have highlighted its associations with race, gender, settler societies and social power, and the discourse of sustainability has transcended wilderness as a cultural and linguistic artifact, reliant on a binary vision of nature and culture.  This conference asks what has replaced the culture of nature that once provided common ground for Canadian and Environmental Studies?  How do area and interdisciplinary studies intersect, and with what benefits and problems?  Does a shared agenda remain?  This conference seeks to bring Canadian and Environmental Studies scholars together to discuss and debate the relations of their two fields and imagine the intertwined futures of Canadian and Environmental Studies.

Possible conference themes include:

The place of nature in Canadian Studies

The place of Canada in Environmental Studies

What’s left of wilderness and the culture of nature?

Understanding Canada, regions and places in a world of global flows and environmental processes

How to apply: Paper proposals for the conference should be 250 words in length and accompanied by a one-page c.v. We welcome proposals for individual papers, whole panels and poster presentations.  We are seeking funding to provide partial support for graduate student participants.

Proposal Deadline: Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Please send queries and proposals to Matthew Evenden, Chair of Canadian Studies, University of British Columbia at: CNS-conference2012@geog.ubc.ca

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Appel de Communications:

Au-delà de la culture de la nature: Repenser les études canadiennes et environnementales.

Lieu: Université de Colombie-Britannique, Campus de Vancouver (http://www.canadianstudies.ubc.ca/)
Date: 29 et 30 septembre 2012

Les études canadiennes et les études environnementales sont deux champs en transformation. Entrepris en partie en tant que projets émancipatoires au cours des années 1970, cherchant à définir des sujets et à élaborer leurs significations, ces deux champs d’études ont divergés et se sont complexifiés en même temps que les notions de nation et de nationalisme, ainsi que celle d’environnement et de durabilité, se recomposaient. Autrefois une préoccupation commune de ces deux champs, la nature sauvage (wilderness) est dorénavant associée à la race, au genre, aux sociétés coloniales et au pouvoir social, par les critiques constructivistes. Quant au discours sur la durabilité, il a transcendé la nature sauvage en tant qu’artefact culturel et linguistique, tributaire d’une vision binaire de la nature et de la culture. Cette conférence s’interroge sur ce qui a remplacé la culture de la nature en tant que point commune des études canadiennes et environnementales ? Comment est-ce que les « area studies » et les études interdisciplinaires s’entrecoupent, avec quels bénéfices et quels problèmes ? Existent-ils encore des points de convergence? Cette conférence cherche à rassembler les chercheurs en études canadiennes et environnementales pour discuter et débattre de la relation entre les deux champs d’études et d’imaginer un avenir commun en études canadiennes et environnementales.

Thèmes de conférence possibles:
-       La place de la nature dans les études canadiennes
-       La place du Canada dans les études environnementales
-       Que reste-il de la nature sauvage et de la culture de la nature ?
-       Comprendre le Canada, les régions et les lieux dans un monde de circulations globales et de processus environnementaux.

Comment soumettre une proposition: Les propositions de communication ne doivent pas dépasser 250 mots et elles doivent être accompagnées d’un c.v. d’une page. Nous accueillons favorablement les propositions pour les communications individuelles, pour un panel et les présentations par affiches scientifiques. Nous recherchons des fonds pour offrir un soutien partiel aux étudiants diplômés participants.

DATE LIMITE : MERCREDI, 1er FÉVRIER 2012
Veuillez faire parvenir les requêtes et les propositions à Matthew Evenden, Chair of Canadian Studies, University of British Columbia, à l’adresse suivante : CNS-conference2012@geog.ubc.ca

Matthew Evenden
Associate Professor
Department of Geography
Chair of Canadian Studies
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, CANADA V6T 1Z2
http://blogs.ubc.ca/waterhistory/

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The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC) is pleased to announce its next conference in Malibu, California at Pepperdine University in August 2012.  The conference theme will be “Nature and the Popular Imagination.”

For generations, the interconnections between religion and nature have been expressed, promoted, and contested through the incubator of popular culture, including films produced in nearby Hollywood. As a global and symbolic center that reflects and invents nature/religion representations, Malibu and its environs provide a fantastic venue for critical reflection on the religion/nature nexus in the popular imagination. Along with keynote addresses and other scholarly sessions, a number of special events and excursions are in the works, including a scholar-led tour of The Getty Villa in Malibu and opportunities to enjoy the beautiful and famous Malibu coast.  Some of these may be offered before or after the official
conference period.  Affordable on-campus housing will be available to conference participants.

We invite proposals about nature and religion in diverse expressions of popular culture, including films, television, comics, fiction, music, sports, graffiti, clothing, and festivals. As always, while we encourage proposals focused on the conference’s theme, we welcome proposals from all areas (regional and historical) and from all disciplinary perspectives that explore the complex relationships between religious beliefs and practices (however defined and understood), cultural traditions and productions, and the earth’s diverse ecological systems.  We encourage proposals that include theoretical frameworks and analyses, emphasize dialogue and discussion, promote collaborative research, and are unusual in terms of
format and structure.

Proposals for individual paper presentations, sessions, panels, and posters should be submitted directly to Sarah Pike at spike@csuchico.edu. It is not necessary to be an ISSRNC member to submit a proposal. *Individual paper
proposals* should include, in a single, attached word or rich text document, the name and email of the presenter(s), title, a 250-300 word abstract, and a brief, 150 word biography (including highest degree earned and current institutional affiliation, if any). *Proposals for entire sessions* must include a title and abstract for the session as a whole as well as for each individual paper. Proposers should also provide information about ideal and acceptable lengths for proposed sessions, and whether any technology, such as data projectors, are desired. Most paper presentations will be scheduled at 15-20 minutes and a premium will be placed on discussion in all sessions. Proposals will be evaluated anonymously by the Scientific Committee, but conference directors will be aware of proposers’ identities in order to select for diversity in terms of geographical area and career stage. Student proposals are particularly welcome.

The deadline for proposals is 1 April 2012.

For more information and updates, please go to:
http://www.religionandnature.com/society/conferences.htm#malibu

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Theme Issue Call for Papers

Learning for sustainability through resource and environmental governance:
Lessons from Canadian experiences

Environments addresses people in their social, natural and built environments. The intent is to promote scholarship and discussion in a multidisciplinary and civic way, providing ideas and information that people might use to think effectively about the future.

The theme

Resource and environmental problems are often complex and controversial, and have uncertain impacts on social and ecological systems. They frequently involve numerous ecosystems, overlapping administrative jurisdictions, contested politics, many stakeholders and knowledge claims, and diverse economic interests. In response to such problems, there is a need for environmental governance to be adaptive and to reflect learning by people, groups, organizations and other governance actors. Learning from governance experiences helps participants gain insight into complex social and ecological systems, develop shared understandings of problems and potential solutions, make decisions under conditions of high uncertainty, and guide social and ecological systems along sustainable paths.

The editors invite contributions on the subject of learning for sustainability through environmental governance. Governance is viewed broadly, and includes policy making, regulation, planning, management, administration, assessment, monitoring and decision making. The focus of the special issue is lessons from Canadian experiences. Paper topics may include, but are not limited to:

• education that facilitates learning in governance
• institutions, organizational structures, and governance processes that enable or inhibit learning
• informal or experiential learning by people, groups, organizations and other actors involved in governance
• connections among individual, social, organizational and societal learning
• promising theoretical, conceptual and methodological frameworks in the field
• examples of community-based social marketing and learning for sustainability
• the roles of behavioural change and social action in learning for sustainability
• the policy learning cycle and adaptive policy making
• learning outcomes that are consistent with sustainability objectives

Guest editors

Alan Diduck, Environmental Studies Program, The University of Winnipeg, a.diduck@uwinnipeg.ca

A. John Sinclair, Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba, jsincla@ms.umanitoba.ca

Timing

Abstracts of 250 to 300 words should be submitted electronically to one of the guest editors by January 6, 2012. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit papers, of no more than 6,000 words, by June 15, 2012, to achieve a Spring 2013 publication date. Detailed submission instructions and author guidelines for the papers may be found at http://www.environmentsjournal.ca/index.php/ejis/about/submissions.

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Conference Call for Papers
The International Conference on
Culture, Politics, and Climate Change
September 13-15, 2012
Boulder, Colorado USA

Deadline for abstracts: January 10, 2012

This cross-disciplinary conference will explore intersections between culture, politics, and science in order to enhance our understanding of public policy addressing climate change. The conference will interrogate the many obstacles and opportunities confronting U.S. climate policymakers and scientists. Presenters will be asked to broadly consider how climate change is communicated and how these processes intersect with ongoing cultural and political issues. While we will focus on climate change, authors are encouraged to draw lessons that can be applied to a variety of environmental contexts. Comparative papers and panels that explore similarities and differences between culture, politics, and climate policy in the U.S. and other countries are encouraged.

Discussions about climate change, policy, and science arise in a variety of cultural settings. Questions of how and whether to address climate change on a national and global scale are significant parts of political and cultural discourse. How policy is made, the role of state and non-state actors, the communication of science and values, and how meaning is derived from our shared culture are all questions that directly influence policy outcomes. In the context of U.S. national elections and ongoing international climate negotiations, these considerations are especially relevant. This conference will address these questions in the context of the 2012 elections, the COP-18 climate talks, and other cultural developments.

Keynote speakers will include:
Raymond Bradley, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia, UK

Papers and panels on climate change may address, but should not be limited to questions about:

• Communication of science
• Media and environmental policy
• Social movements/activism
• Political communication of climate
• Mediated representation
• Non-state actors in climate politics
• Journalism studies
• Visual culture
• Consumer culture studies
• Spiritualities of globalization
• Religions and the environment
• Documentary/feature film
• Environmental ethics
• Philosophy of science

Culture, Politics, and Climate Change is a conference of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. For more information, contact:

Deserai A. Crow, Associate Director, Center for Environmental Journalism
www.climateculturepolitics.org  

This conference is co-sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder, Advertising a2b, the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), and the CU Environmental Center.

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SUSTAINING CANADA
Past, Present and Future Environments
BACS 37th Annual Conference
Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
2–4 April 2012
CALL FOR PAPERS
The British Association for Canadian Studies (BACS) is pleased to announce that their 37th annual conference will take place on 2–4 April 2012 at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge.

The environment has long been viewed as a policy priority area for Canada: once seen as a boundless resource of raw materials, the need to sustain and conserve has grown in significance along with increasing concern about environmental change. The notion of the environment remains, however, both multi-faceted and contested.

We encourage contributions on any facet of the topic of Sustaining Canada within and beyond the field of Canadian Studies. Proposals for 20-minute papers, to be presented in either English or French, are invited from any single disciplinary or multidisciplinary perspective. Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and comparative panel proposals, including those from postgraduate students, are welcome.

The following aspects are indicative and not comprehensive:

• The origins and growth of environmentalism in Canada.
• Inter-Provincial contrasts? The impact of NAFTA? The sub-prime recession?
• The environment of Canada and resource extraction
• Long-term sustainability issues for energy and other sectors on a global level
• Actions to sustain the environment of Canada.
• Local activism, municipal, provincial, federal dimensions
• The environment of Canada and the human scale
•  Actions towards conservation: recycling, non-motorised transport
• The environment of Canada: depicted, remembered, imagined
• Idealised and devoid of human input? Or incomprehensible without it?
• The environment of Canada and policy-making
• A concern only in the good times or an enduring preoccupation?
• The environment of Canada and the Law
• Enforcement, conflict, Indigenous peoples’ land rights etc
• The environment of Canada and ecological fragility
•  Threatened environments: when, where, how?
• The environment of Canada and the Business sector
• Implications for corporate social responsibility: business costs, business practices

Enquiries and proposals to:

Jodie Robson, BACS Administrator
Email: bacs@canadian-studies.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/canadian-studies.org/bacs2012/

Proposals (panel and individual) and deadline:

Email abstract(s) of 200–300 words and brief CV (please do not exceed one side of A4) which must include your title, institutional affiliation, email and mailing address by 20 November 2011. Submissions will be acknowledged by email. Postgraduate students are especially welcome to submit a proposal and there will be a concessionary conference fee for students. BACS regrets that it is unable to assist participants with travel and accommodation costs.

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The 18th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) will be hosted in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Linking the North and the South: Responding to Environmental Change

Registration will be open some time this Fall, 2012.

Important dates:
Panels proposed to organizers due by Janurary 15, 2012
Abstracts due January 15th, 2012
2012 Student scholarship applications due Feb 15th, 2012
Electronic versions of presentations sent to ISSRM 2012 web site due May 25th 2012
Student papers submitted to ISSRM web site April 1, 2012

Venue:
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

For more information about ISSRM 2012 Conference, please contact ISSRM2012@ales.ualberta.ca

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Under Western Skies 2: Environment, Community, and Culture in North America
Mount Royal University
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
October 10-13, 2012
<www.skies.mtroyal.ca>

Building on the success of Under Western Skies: Climate, Culture, and Change in Western North America in October 2010, Under Western Skies 2 welcomes academics from across the disciplines as well as members of artistic and activist communities, non- and for-profit organizations, government, labour, and NGOs to address the environmental challenges faced by human and nonhuman actors across North America.

UWS 2 will take place on Mount Royal University campus in the LEED Gold-certified Roderick Mah Centre for Continuous Learning.
Confirmed keynote speakers include:
–environmental historian Donald Worster (University of Kansas; author of Under Western Skies [OUP, 1982]);
–2011 Gemini Award-winning filmmaker and Arctic anthropologist Niobe Thompson (Clearwater Media, Edmonton, AB; co-director Tipping Point: The Age of the Oilsands);
–award-winning Canadian poet Skydancer Louise Halfe (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan);
–climatologist Scott Denning (Colorado State University).

With its mandate for both interdisciplinarity and community outreach, UWS 2 broadens the geographical scope of the inaugural conference but retains its wide call for contributions from all environmental fields of inquiry and endeavor, including the humanities, natural and social sciences, North American studies, public policy, business, and law.  Artistic, creative, and non-academic proposals are also welcome.  Possible directions may include, but are not limited to

• agriculture, food, and food security
• alpine and glacial change
• animal rights and commodification
• automobility/transportation/infrastructure
• borders and transnational issues
• climate shock
• collaboration between scientific and non-scientific communities
• continental “perimeter security”
• direct action and activism
• ecology or nature?
• “ecoterrorism”
• environmental catastrophe and community
• environmental devastation as neo-colonialism
• environmental economies
• environmental humanities
• environmental racism and justice
• environmental technologies
• feedlots and runoff
• forests and forestry
• fracking
• the Great Lakes
• historical perspectives
• human and nonhuman migration
• indigenous environmental kinship
• indigenous land, air, and water rights
• indigenous worldviews and sovereignties
• interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity
• invasive species
• the Keystone Pipeline and continental integration
• law and public policy in North America
• literary, filmic, and new media representations
• marine ecosystems
• national and regional Parks
• new continental weather patterns
• North American bioregions
• North American nuclear culture and power after Fukushima
• North American studies
• oil culture
• the politics of meat
• resilient communities and solidarity
• restoration, reclamation, reparation
• the rights of nature
• seeds and seed patents
• senses of place
• technology as social construction
• tourism and amenity migration
• water rights, watersheds, and river systems
• the “wilding” of North American cities like Detroit
• wildlife and animality
• women’s, gender and/or sexuality studies
• youth, education, and activism

A selection of papers will go forward for an edited book publication or special journal issue following UWS 2.  (The collection of edited papers stemming from UWS 2010 is forthcoming from Wilfrid Laurier University Press as a part of its Environmental Humanities Series.)

Proposals should run no more than 250 words in length and be attached to an email as a .doc or .docx file. Proposals for readings, panels, screenings, displays, and workshops are also welcome.

Direct all proposals, together with brief bio and contact information, to Dr. Robert Boschman at <rboschman@mtroyal.ca> and to Dr. Mario Trono at <mtrono@mtroyal.ca>.

Check for regular updates regarding UWS 2 at the conference website: <www.skies.mtroyal.ca>.

Closing Date: Monday, January 23, 2012

Appel de communications
Under Western Skies 2: Environment, Community, and Culture in North America
Mount Royal University
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Du 10 au 13 octobre 2012

Désirant poursuivre les échanges passionnants du colloque Under Western Skies: Climate, Culture, and Change in Western North America qui s’est tenu en octobre 2010, nous lançons un appel de communications en vue de la 2e édition de cet événement: Under Western Skies 2.  Nous invitons donc les universitaires de toutes les disciplines, ainsi que les représentants des communautés artistiques et environnementales, des organisations à buts lucratifs et non-lucratifs et des organismes gouvernementaux et non-gouvernementaux, à soumettre des propositions de communications sur les défis auxquels sont confrontés les actants humains et non-humains de toute l’Amérique du nord.

Nous pouvons d’ors et déjà annoncer la participation des conférenciers suivants: l’historien du mouvement environnementaliste Donald Worster (Université du Kansas), le cinéaste et anthropologue spécialiste de l’Arctique Niobe Thompson (Clearwater Media, Edmonton), et la poétesse canadienne aux nombreuses récompenses Louise Halfe (Saskatoon).

Élargissant les limites géographiques du 1er colloque, UWS 2 continuera d’explorer les diverses facettes des recherches effectuées dans le domaine de l’environnement (humanités, littérature, sciences humaines et naturelles, études nord-américaines et droit). Nous encourageons également toutes les soumissions de projets artistiques, créatifs et non-académiques.

Sujets de communications possibles (liste non-exhaustive):

• Pétrole et culture, pétro-culture
• Climat et culture, culture du climat
• Agriculture, nourriture et santé alimentaire
• Marché de la viande et enjeux politiques
• Semences naturelles et semences brevetées
• Droits relatifs à l’utilisation de l’eau
• Collaborations entre communautés scientifiques et non-scientifiques
• La technologie en tant que construction sociale
• Technologies environnementales
• Économies environnementales
• Biodiversité urbaine
• Invasions «sauvages» dans les villes nord-américaines (ex.: Detroit)
• Énergies vertes
• Communautés: résilience et solidarité
• Amérique du nord autochtone
• Animaux sauvages et animalité
• Action directe et activisme
• Restauration/assainissement/reconversion de territoires
• Nature ou écologie?
• Les jeunes et l’activisme
• Discours communautaires
• Notions de lieu et d’appartenance
• Bio-régions nord-américaines
• Frontières et questions transnationales
• Droits de la nature
• Sciences et disciplines de l’environnement
• Droit et politique en Amérique du nord
• Perspectives historiques
• Manifestes environnementaux, racisme et justice
• Automobiles/Transports
• Nouveaux modèles météorologiques en Amérique du nord

Après le colloque UWS 2, une sélection de communications sera regroupée pour publication sous la forme d’un recueil ou de numéro spécial d’une revue.  (L’anthologie des communications du colloque UWS 2010 est en cours de publication aux Presses de l’université Wilfrid Laurier.)

Les soumissions de communication ne devraient pas dépasser 250 mots, et elles doivent être envoyées en pièce jointe (format .doc ou .docx).

Des propositions de lectures, de tables rondes ou d’ateliers seront aussi acceptées.

Veuillez envoyer vos propositions de communication aux professeurs Robert Boschman ou Mario Trono: rboschman@mtroyal.ca, mtrono@mtroyal.ca.

N’oubliez pas de consulter les mises à jours qui seront faites régulièrement sur le site Internet du colloque: <www.skies.mtroyal.ca>.

Date limite des soumissions: 23 janvier 2012

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Final Call for papers AAG 2012: Powers of Environmental Impact Assessment

Organizers: Nicole Becker (University of Arizona), Kevin A. Gould (Concordia University)
Paper and panel sessions at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, New York City, February 24-28th, 2012

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is carried out in the name of reducing unwanted impacts of proposed projects on environments, populations and cultures. Yet many of the most destructive development projects in the world have been subject to a barrage of EIAs and ultimately approved. Some conclude that this occurs because EIAs are too lax or because institutions that carry out EIA are complicit. While such critiques are important, we contend that they do not go far enough to grapple with the power of EIA. This session will bring together approaches that explore how EIA itself is implicated in environmental, economic and social impacts and transformations. Specifically, we hope to bring together scholars who, in different ways, seek to understand how power works through the material and meaning-making processes of EIA. In this session, we welcome varied theoretically informed and empirically grounded perspectives. However, there are four approaches that we see as especially promising.

Knowing EIA. We are interested in studies that will reveal the logics at work in EIA. How do these logics constitute new subjects, territories, and especially socionatures, and with what effects? Related studies would also trace how the work of EIA helps to constitute experts and scientific institutions as well as new relations and configurations of corporations, states and universities.
Marketing EIA. We are interested in connections between EIA and capitalism. How might EIA and its practices contribute to transforming or making markets not only for commodities, e.g., minerals and timber but also for environmental impacts, e.g. wetlands banking? How is EIA articulated in regimes of (neoliberal) capitalist accumulation?
Colonizing EIA. We invite postcolonial scholarship on EIAs. How does EIA naturalize the dispossession of aboriginal lands and resources? How are the logics of EIA linked to military and policing power that protect such regimes of extraction? How is the power of EIA disrupted or appropriated by anti-colonial and other types of resistance to resource extraction?
Mapping EIA. Finally, we invite empiricist studies of EIA. Where are the centers of EIA production? What environments and what lives are at stake in contemporary EIAs? How do the shifts in EIA practices across uneven geographies reveal the contours of corporate and state power as well as resistance? How are exceptions to EIA negotiated?
We ask that presenters consider the practices of EIA in the context of the complex historical and geographical conditions which have and continue to allow EIA to gain traction. Assembling a collection of papers that engages with the power of EIA from different theoretical perspectives is not meant to be merely an intellectual exercise. Rather, it is an attempt to confront the tremendous and at times subtle influence that EIA has to order lives and landscapes, often in violent ways. We focus on EIA for several reasons: because it is ubiquitous, because it is rarely studied critically compared to its enormous influence, because it serves as a connection across a wide array of environmental issues from mining to urban sustainability, and because EIA is so often connected to socio-environmental injustices.

We would like to put together a session and a panel based on this call for papers. If you are interested in either, please submit an abstract no longer than 250 words to Nicole Becker (nicolebecker@email.arizona.edu) and Kevin Gould (kgould@alcor.concordia.ca), no later than the 26th of September 2011.

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