Author: SCGRG

Dear All,

We are looking forward to seeing many of you at the forthcoming RGS-IBG annual conference next week.

The Social and Cultural Geography Research Group is delighted to be sponsoring and co-sponsoring the following sessions at the RGS/IBG conference in London 31 Aug – 2 Sept 2011.

• (Re)Imagining Materialities
• Geographies of Humour and Humorous Geographies.  Session 1, session 2.
• Mobile Geographies of Art: Bodies, technologies and transnationality.  Session 1, session 2
• ‘Emerging from the dark’: explorations into the experiences of the night.  Session 1, session 2, session 3, session 4
• Emerging geographies of animal-technology co-productions
• Exhibitionary Geographies and the Post-Museum.  Session 1, session 2
• Geographical perspectives on the British Diaspora
• Geographies of Friendships.  Session 1, session 2, session 3, session 4
• “Getting lost on the way to Farmville”: Virtual, mobile and online spaces of interaction
• Meteorological Imaginations: Towards geographies of affective practices of weather, atmospherics and landscapes. Session 1, session 2, session 3
• Moving Geographies: Film and Video as Research Method. Session 1, session 2, session 3

The SCGRG Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday 1st of September in the Lowther Room, from 1.10pm to 2.25pm.  The meeting agenda will be circulated at the start of the meeting.  It will include a brief report on the group’s activities this year, elections to the committee, dissertation prizes, submissions for event support  and planning for the Edinburgh 2012 meeting.  If you have any proposals for consideration for events support, please get in touch with Gail Davies (gail.davies@ucl.ac.uk), the chair, prior to the meeting. If you have any other items you would like to raise, please send me an email about these too.

Next year’s RGS-IBG annual conference will be held in Edinburgh.  It will be earlier and smaller, with less room for research group sponsored sessions in the main conference.  We thus particularly want to encourage your input into how we should select these sessions, and how we might supplement the conference presentations with a dedicated SCGRG pre or post conference event.

Wishing you an enjoyable and productive conference.

Gail Davies, Chair

 

The annual general meeting for the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group will be held during the forthcoming RGS/IBG annual conference in London.  We will be meeting in the Thursday lunch time slot (1.10-2.25pm) on the 1st of September in the Lowther room at the RGS. SCGRG members do not have to register for the conference to attend the SCGRG AGM only.

In the meantime, if you have any agenda items for discussion or report, please let myself or Russell Hitchings know.  We are always looking to members for innovative ways to support and enhance research in Social and Cultural Geography.  We will also be looking to appoint a new postgraduate representative for the group.  If you would like to discuss this role or the way we might support your research, please get in touch.

Gail Davies (Chair, SCGRG)

The following event may be of interest to members ….

 

EXCURSIONS – TELLING STORIES AND JOURNEYS

An Interdisciplinary Symposium

Thursday 8th and Friday 9th December 2011

School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow

‘Excursions: telling stories and journeys’ is a two-day interdisciplinary symposium dedicated to the critical appreciation of the arts, acts and politics of telling. The event is intended to re-situating storytelling in scholarly research, through the crafting of unusual journeys, material narratives and disruptive geographies.

Speakers include:

• DEREK McCORMACK on being lighter than air
• SARAH PINK on slow cities
• MILES OGBORN on tales and tails.
• ERIC LAURIER on video blogging
• HESTER PARR on the missing
• HAYDEN LORIMER on scaring crows
• DEE HEDDON on buddy walks
• CAITLIN DeSILVEY on mending broken things
• LYNN ABRAMS on northern isles
• CALEB JOHNSTON on family memory
• and KATHLEEN STEWART (keynote) on regionality, in a small town

Cost of registration: £20 for academic staff and waged and £10 for postgraduate students and unwaged

Deadline for registration: 1st October 2011

This event is organised by the Human Geography Research Group, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow.

If you would like to attend the symposium please register by e-mail with Leenah.Khan@glasgow.ac.uk

Any questions or queries about the event to: Hayden.Lorimer@glasgow.ac.uk or Hester.Parr@glasgow.ac.uk

Each year the Social and Cultural Geography Research Groups is given a small number of complementary passes to distribute to contributors to the conference who are either from a non-UK or non-geography background. We are delighted to be able to support the following ‘Research Group Guests‘ in their contribution to the conference this year.

• Miriam Burke is an independent artist, contributing to the session on ‘Art – Science and the Geographical Imagination’.  Miriam has been working collaboratively with the glaciologist Professor Peter Knight from Keele.  Her paper will draw out the value of art-science collaborations to the historical and contemporary study of physical.
• Jane Dyson is an independent anthropologist, contributing to the session on ‘Geographies of Friendships’.  Jane works ethnographically on friendship, focusing on girls’ work in the Indian Himalayas.  Her work was recently published in the American Ethnologist (July 2010).
• Ben Gallan, from the Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research (AUSCCER), University of Wollongong, Australia, is contributing to the session on ‘Emerging from the dark’: explorations into the experiences of the night.  Ben is PhD student working on temporality, cultural infrastructure and the right to the city.
• Ralph Hoyte is an independent artist, contributing to the session on ‘Art – Science and the Geographical Imagination’.  Ralph works as a performance poet, and will be presenting a paper on his recent project SATSYMPH. Satsymph is a collaboration with composer Marc yeates and coder Phill Phelps which will allow people to create their own “satellite symphony” through an iPhone app.
• Nicola Triscott is the director of London-based Art-Science organization Arts Catalyst.  She is contributing to the session on ‘Art – Science and the Geographical Imagination’.  Nicola will be talking about the work of the Arts Catalyst and taking part in a panel addressing the relationship between art and geopolitics in the book Arctic Geopolitics.

 

Dear All,

RGS-IBG members will by now have received their voting ballot papers for the RGS elections.

Members of the social and cultural geography research group committee would encourage all fellows read their voting papers carefully and vote accordingly to ensure the continued accessibility, diversity and funding of academic and educative work that the RGS currently supports.

With thanks,

Gail Davies & Jo Norcup

 

With the 2011 conference still to come, it might seem premature to be talking about the 2012 conference.  However, with the earlier date and venue outside of London – moved due to the Olympics – the RGS is already planning the conference and there is already work for research groups to think about.

The first task is to put the date in diaries.  The conference will be held 3-5th of July 2012 in Edinburgh University.  This is two months earlier than normal, so all other deadlines, for session organisers and paper presenters will also be earlier. We will put these dates here when we here more. You can also keep track of developments on the RGS conference website.

The change of venue also means that the conference for 2012 will also be smaller, requiring a large group like the SCGRG to make some difficult decisions about which sessions it will sponsor.  We will therefore have some discussion about the conference sessions for 2012 at the 2011 summer AGM.  We look forward to your thoughts then.

with best wishes, Gail

 

 

The RGS are asking us to show our support for geography by logging onto the Department of Education’s important current National Curriculum Review – call for evidence consultation. This is seeking the views of the public on which subjects should be in the school curriculum, studied to what age, and your ideas for curriculum content. The key part of the questionnaire is on pages 11/12 (Question 17a-f) where there are tick boxes about geography. This, together with completing the background information at the start of the questionnaire, will take you less than five minutes. (If you want to complete the whole 21 pages be prepared to spend at least an hour; but we are not asking that you do this.)

The RGS want to demonstrate the real depth of support for geography that exists, so are requesting responses, now, online at W: http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations.

The Society has been in discussion with the Schools Minister and Secretary of State and is submitting its views on the curriculum content. We believe passionately that geography is vital in the curriculum as a compulsory National Curriculum subject from age 5 to at least age 14 (that is, at key stages 1, 2 and 3) and preferably to age 16 (key stage 4).

So please respond to this consultation by the closing date of mid April and encourage others (your colleagues, students at all levels, alumni etc) to do so. Please help us to spread the word about the consultation far and wide.

If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact us. We have posted some details to the Society’s web site (the announcement, timetable through to September 2014 etc). We warmly welcome the appointment of Professor Nigel Thrift to the National Curriculum Review Advisory Panel.

W: http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Advocacy+and+Policy/Education+policy/schools+policy.htm

Best wishes
Rita and Catherine

There are a number of forthcoming RGS and SCGRG deadlines which may be of interest to group members.

25th February is the deadline for submission of session details – including all paper titles, abstracts and presenters – for SCGRG sponsored sessions.  More details here.  Registration for this year’s RGS/IBG conference will open in March, with information on Research Group guests posted here in May.

28th February is the deadline for the nominations for the RGS-IBG medals and awards. More information available here.

28th February is also the deadline for application for the SCGRG small events fund. There are more details of this on the events section of the website.

Finally, the dates for the 2012 RGS-IBG annual conference have now been announced. Due to the 2012 Olympics, the conference is being held in Edinburgh in 3-5 July 2012. All deadlines for the conference for 2012 will move 2 months forward. This means we will be discussing conference session ideas for 2012 at our AGM in the summer 2011.  Please put these dates in your diaries now!

This page will be updated regularly with readings and other information that provides background to the theme of ‘the new empirics’.

Presentations:

Alan Latham (UCL) introduces some of the issues raised by the ‘New Emirics’ in a brief powerpoint which opened the second day of the SCGRG event.

Generating and gathering data in face of excess (led by Owain Jones and Chris Bear)

Contemporary research practices are facing up to excess in a number of different ways. For some researchers the issue is the sheer volume of data that is now produced. New technologies, particularly the growth of the internet, and the desire for transparency and accountability, have multiplied the quantity of data available. Yet the notion of excess can also encompass the sensory, emotional, and affectual experiences of the non-representational and the more-than-rational that are negotiated during research and writing. How, then, do we deal with excess, how do we navigate it as both a quantity and quality of data? How is excess incorporated into our research, if at all? What are the implications of trying to keep up with ever-growing ‘bodies’ of information? Do we end up gathering and simplifying data, rather than generating it?

Advance readings for session: Law, J. (forthcoming), Making a mess with method. Discussion questions:

1. How have you experienced ‘data excess’ in your own research? Where does the ‘excess’ come from?
2. Have you developed any particular strategies to deal with this excess? What does data excess mean for practical data collecting and data analysis processes?
3. Does the growth of digital technology contribute to data excess and/or is it the answer to it (in handling terms)?
4. How closely does the issue of excess relate to John Law’s notion of mess?
5. What would happen if research did not try to control, limit, boil down, summarize, represent but rather followed the unruly? Have you attempted to do this/How would you go about this? What practical, theoretical and ethical problems has it raised/might it raise?
6. What are the implications of carrying out ‘messy’ social science when communicating research to wider audiences?
7. What are the implications of ‘mess’ and ‘excess’ for the ways we draw boundaries around our research topics?

Experimentality, encounters and ethics (led by Jo Norcup and Amanda Rogers)

Ideas of experimentation and creativity have recently come to acquire great currency across geographical research. These notions push the boundaries of methodological practice, particularly through visual and performative methodologies introduced through a cross-section of different art forms. How do such encounters refigure our notion of the empirical through the type or form of data collected? How does our understanding of research practice, or research quality alter in this process? Often such practices also create unexpected changes in, or challenges to, the subjectivity of the researcher, forcing attention to new complexities of collaboration and engagement. How might the nature of ethics change as a result, and indeed, how are ethics understood or engaged with differently by different parties? What tensions does that create for us as researchers?

Collaborating and distributing expertise (led by Gail Davies and Emma Roe)

Collaborative research and writing are increasingly common across the academy, entailing working with or beyond the discipline with other academics; taking more seriously the role of non-human others during research; and engaging beyond the academy. With a growing attention to impact and knowledge transfer, it is increasingly important that we critically engage with different forms of collaboration, but what are the challenges of engaging others in our research both within and beyond the academy? For instance, what are research findings for an academic audience and for an industry or policy-orientated audience? Are they the same? What journey of translation between the two is required? Does this affect research practice or change our utilisation of theory – if so, how?

Questions for discussion:

1. What might the role of the social science academic be in an arena in which there is already huge amounts of information/large no of actors already available/active?
2. Are we involved in gathering together existing data, generating new data, identifying gaps and problems between existing forms of framing, and seeking new connections?
3. Are there limits to evidence based policy, in the sense that the desire to have data for everything can be an argument for inaction?
4. How do we research, frame research questions etc. more generally for an interdisciplinary audience and/or for an industry audience?
5. What research findings do we communicate to the wider non-academic audience / other disciplinary audiences?
6. What interests do we feel less inclined to share with non-academic audience?

Interpretation and the challenge of making sense (led by Elaine Ho and Russell Hitchings)

In the face of a growing volume of data, a proliferation of its forms, and the inclusion of a variety of stakeholders, making ‘sense’ of our research is an ever-more complex challenge. As researchers we often celebrate complexity, but such messiness also changes existing ways of thinking about, practicing and disseminating research. Does the changing nature of the empirical create shifts in the type of research outputs we now produce? How do we value such shifts? Does communicating research to different audiences affect or challenge our understandings of relevance? How might changes in the data we collect and the outputs we create pose challenges to the skill and practice of writing? What other forms might such writing take and how does it impact upon our interpretative processes?

Session facilitators: Gail Davies and Emma Roe

General Background Readings:

Adkins, L and Lury, C (2009) Introduction: What Is the Empirical? European Journal of Social Theory 12(1): 5-20 [also see the other papers that make up this special issue]

Davies, G. and Dwyer, C. (2007) ‘Qualitative methods: are you enchanted or are you alienated?’ Progress in Human Geography 31(2): 257–266.

Davies, G. and Dwyer, C. (2008) ‘Qualitative methods II: Minding the Gap’ Progress in Human Geography 32(3): 399-406.

Dwyer, C. and Davies, G. (2010) Qualitative methods III: animating archives, artful interventions and online environments Progress in Human Geography 34: 88-97

Law, J. (forthcoming) Making a mess with method

Savage, M and Burrows, R (2007) The Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology Sociology 41(5): 885-899

Damming the ‘data deluge’ (Times Higher, 7th October 2010)

Domesday data scenario denied (Times Higher, 28th October 2010)
A report on a US/UK scheme that aims to give digital archivists the tools they need to keep up with technology and deal with the changing nature of how we generate data and the demands that places on traditional forms of archives and the technologies therein.

JISC briefing papers on Data Deluge

Related events:

Speed Data-ing: The Effects of the Rapid Rise of the Data Society (British Academy panel discussion, 1st December 2010)