Tag Archives: call for papers

Call for Papers: The Environment in the Middle East and North Africa

Special Issue of the International Journal of Middle East Studies: The Environment in the Middle East and North Africa

Guests editors: Tessa Farmer and Jessica Barnes with IJMES editors Akram Khater and Jeffrey Culang

From arid cities to irrigated fields, hot deserts to Mediterranean mountains, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) encompasses a range of environments for thinking through the relationships between nature and society, people and animals, human and nonhuman worlds. Yet, while research on various aspects of the material world has a long history in the scholarship of the MENA, research on the environment as such has been relatively limited. Reflecting growing interest in the environment as a topic of concern, this special issue of IJMES will bring together scholarship from anthropology, geography, sociology, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and related disciplines on current environment-related themes in the region.

Deadline: November 15, 2016

Continue reading →

Call for Papers: The Regional Studies Association Winter Conference 2016

The Regional Studies Association Winter Conference 2016
NEW PRESSURES ON CITIES AND REGIONS
Thursday 24th – Friday 25th November 2016
London, UK

Follow the conference on Twitter:  #RSAWINTER2016

Deadline: August 24, 2016

This conference provides an intellectual and policy-relevant platform for scholars around the world to address the new and emerging challenges facing cities and regions. Continue reading →

Call for Papers: Smart + Sustainable? A critical look at digitally-enabled green urbanism

Conveners: Alexander Aylett (National Institute for Scientific Research, INRS-UCS) and Andrés Luque-Ayala, (Durham University)

American Association of Geographers 2016 Annual Meeting
San Francisco, California, USA
March 29 – April 2, 2016

Is the “smart cities” movement delivering on its aspirations of creating environmentally sustainable cities? One of the pillars of smart urbanism has been the claim that smart cities can also be radically more sustainably. New urban digital technologies, data-driven governance, and digitally-enabled citizenship are celebrated for their ability to increase resource efficiency and enable innovative shifts towards more deeply sustainable cities. But no sustained critical attention has been paid to the potential and pitfalls of this digitally-enabled green urbanism.

This session provides a critical overview of the successes and challenges of creating cities that are both smart and sustainable. It looks at how digital processes—and the urban embedding of computational logics—affect the environmental capabilities of cities and citizens. It also explores the broader socio-political implications of creating an interface between sustainability and digital narratives as a driving force behind current approaches to urban issues. Continue reading →