Call for Session Sponsorship – RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2024

The RGS-IBG Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) would like to invite expressions of interest for sponsored sessions for the RGS-IBG 2024 Annual Conference, which will take place in London and online from the evening of Tuesday 27th to Friday 30 August.

The theme for the 2024 Annual Conference, chaired by Professor Stephen Legg (University of Nottingham, UK), is ‘Mapping’. You can find out more about the conference at: https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference.

SCGRG is keen to sponsor sessions that directly relate to the conference theme, as well as make room for a wide range of other issues and topics. We welcome sessions which will be of wide significance and interest to social and cultural geographers, will meaningfully contribute to ongoing debates in social and cultural geography, and demonstrate substantive, methodological or theoretical novelty.

Please take note of the guidelines for session organisers: https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/call-for-sessions-papers-and-posters/guidance-for-session-organisers

Please submit your expressions of interest for SCGRG sponsorship by 5pm GMT on Wednesday 14th February 2024 through: https://forms.office.com/e/iTB8EqtPK9 
We will endeavour to inform applicants of the outcome by Friday 23rd February 2024.

Questions about SCGRG sponsored sessions should be directed to the SCGRG conference officer Rishika Mukhopadhyay: r.mukhopadhyay@soton.ac.uk.

RGS-IBG 2023: Sponsored Sessions

The following are the sessions sponsored by SCGRG at the RGS-IBG 2023 Annual Conference in London.

Feeling at Home in Non-normative Living Spaces

Organisers: Andrew Power (University of Southampton), Sophie Bowlby (University of Reading)

Presenters: Melanie Nowicki, Katherine Brickell, Ella Harris, Peter Hopkins, Robin Finlay, Matthew Benwell, Josefina Jaureguiberry Mondion, Beverley Clough, Henrietta Zeffert, Beverley Clough, Henrietta Zeffert, Aline Desmas, Janet Bowstead

Summary:

This session sought to explore the often difficult processes of home-making that people undertake in settings that do not fit with normative home environments. The call for papers for this session generated significant interest, with a wide range of good quality submissions to present papers (19).  Following a difficult selection process, we selected nine papers for inclusion as well as a discussant slot to explore cross-cutting themes, led by Andrew Power. The two parts of the session (before and after morning coffee) were very well attended by scholars across SCGRG and beyond, with interesting presentations and debate. The non-normative settings presented in the papers ranged widely and included the dwellings of refugees, homeless people, and temporary residents occupying remittance houses. Each paper focused on the novel home-making practices of their respective residents, albeit often at the margins, including cosplay by autistic young people. One paper covered the feminist legal geographies of home-making, which helped to enhance the conceptual engagement with the topic.  We felt that we had hit upon a topic of significance. The methodologies used in the studies that were reported were varied (virtual and face-to-face ethnographies and interviews, conceptual analysis) although not unusual within social and cultural geography. The topic of living in non-normative ‘homes’ is one that clearly brought together the theoretical interests of researchers examining apparently diverse topics. The questions and discussion showed a lively interest in the opportunity for theoretical cross-fertilisation amongst presenters and attendees and an interest in sharing findings and approaches. We hope to facilitate this with some form of publication such as a special issue or book arising from the sessions.

Spaces and Subjects of Impotentiality

Organisers: Vickie Zhang (University of Bristol & Guangzhou University), Thomas Dekeyser (Royal Holloway, University of London), David Bissell (University of Melbourne)

Presenters: Gediminas Lesutis, Paul Harrison, Farai Chipato, Alex Cullen, William Jamieson, Victoria Jones, Vickie Zhang, Merle Matthew Davies, Jonathan Pugh

Summary:

The first session opened with a brief introduction by the chair, Thomas Dekeyser, who summarised the impulse behind organising the session as the desire to offer a supplementation to, and modest questioning of, the prevalence – in geographical thinking – of ‘potentiality’ and ‘capacity’ as necessarily possible or desirable. In anticipation of the nine presentations, he formulated three modes of impotentiality: a) as an originary ontological status for (certain) being; b) as a collective structure of feeling characteristic of our contemporary political moment of sensed disempowerment; and c) as localised affective experiences. Picking up on the first of these modes, Paul Harrison kicked off the session with a challenge to ‘lively work’ in new materialism and posthumanist thought, proposing impotentiality as a way of avoiding the lure of redeeming existence. Farai Chipato located impotentiality within the ontological status of black subjectivity, and offered thoughts on how one might, methodologically, look towards attending to such spaces of impotentiality. Gediminas Lesutis and Alex Cullen each approached impotentiality as a feeling of incapacity in the face of wider political forces, examining – respectively – the impossibility of redress in Kenyan mega-infrastructures, and the impoverishment of radical climate action.

We were very pleased that the RGS-IBG were able to include a hybrid session, which meant presenters more distantly located could speak. Things kicked off with a pun with William Jamieson’s exploration of the paradoxical omni(m)potence of Singapore’s territorial expansion, refracted through Marxist analogies of growth and accumulation. Merle Davies Matthew incisively critiqued the politics of the hopeful gesture to potential often made in critical scholarship, questioning its politics by identifying its shared characteristics with the more obviously problematic capitalist versions of attunement to potential. Victoria Jones delivered a moving performance presentation on the underperformativity of emotion for furloughed workers in the UK, whilst Jonathan Pugh and Vickie Zhang both spoke to the idea of non-relational subjectivity, albeit through different conceptual traditions – in Caribbean studies and via continental philosophy respectively. 

We were inspired to see the different versions of impotence emerging in the papers across the two sessions – from critiques of worlding, liveliness and potential, to impotentiality as incapacity to act, as immobility, futility, affective performance, historical inheritance, misplaced attachment, and more. We thank the presenters for their insightful presentations and look forward to engaging with the potent and forthcoming work being undertaken in the orbit of impotentiality.

Session Summary: “Seasonal Cultures: Elements of Change”

Organisers: Hester Parr (University of Glasgow), Shawn Bodden (University of Glasgow), Hayden Lorimer (University of Edinburgh)

Presenters: Helen Wilson, Michelle Bastian, Shawn Bodden, Rowan Jaines, Maximilian Hepach, Frederick Hubble, Felicia Liu, Pablo Arboleda, Scott Bremer, Caitlin DeSilvey

Summary:

At this year’s RGS-IBG conference, we hosted two sessions on the theme of Seasonal Cultures. Our interest in seasonality and experiences of seasonal change took on additional significance within the context of the Chair’s theme of Climate Changed Geographies: in a series of terrific presentations, our sessions’ speakers described how learning to live amid disruptions to familiar seasonal rhythms and the emergence of new weather patterns has produced changing social, cultural, emotional and affective geographies of environmental life. A major theme across a number of the presentations was the importance of local and intimate seasons for understanding the changing cultural geographies of climate change. Presenters shared examples of how gardens, apple trees and bird migration can become sites of intimate encounter with the threat of climate change, but also of struggles to read local environments to discover ways to preserve cherished forms of life. A closely linked discussion emphasised the value of understanding seasons as sense-making in the face of disruption, anxiety and feelings of ‘global weirding’. Through rich examples from a range of geographical locations, such as accounts of a new ‘haze season’ in Southeast Asia or Norwegian beekeepers’ modification of seasonal repertoires of practice, presenters addressed ways in which communities interpreted, named and responded to changing patterns of weather and atmosphere. A final major interest was the digital mediation of seasonality. Public perceptions of seasonal patterns and disruptions can be shared through social media platforms, offering insight into experiences of climate change as well as opportunities for innovative, participatory and creative-led research methods. This is also reflected in the development of new forms of popular digital media to simulate seasonal atmospheres, such as Yule Log videos and other ‘ambient’ media. Seasons are not simply times of year we find ourselves in: people watch, learn from, respond and even seek to make them. The Seasonal Cultures sessions suggested new avenues for studying changing experiences of seasonality and opened up a number of key questions about how to learn from those particularly affected by seasonal change—be it through their profession, location, or mental health—and how to build new forms of supportive seasonal life together.

Mapping for a changing world: qualitative, arts-based, participatory methods

Organisers: Heather Miles (University of Manchester), Barbara Brayshay (Royal Holloway, University of London), Mike Duggan (King’s College London)

Presenters: Alice Gorman Eveleigh, Buck-Matthews, Ersilia Verlinghieri, Chiara Chiavaroli, Rachel Andrews,  Jina Lee, Heather Miles, Clare Qualmann

Summary:

The Mapping for a Changing World double session sought to showcase, and consider challenges and further development, of diverse and innovative mapping approaches. Different mapping approaches can focus on contrasting forms of data and knowledges, often simultaneously and as such are an important transdisciplinary method. The mapping approaches are valuable methods for social and cultural geographers to use together, with other geographers and other disciplines, and with other communities, when these collaborators have contrasting practices of knowledge-making. The mapping approaches explored in the sessions included creative arts-based mapping, deep mapping, GIS and qualitative GIS, body mapping, participatory creative mapping and walking approaches.

As such, our presenters and audience came from a range of different backgrounds, including different academic disciplines as well as practitioners outside academia, and from a range of mapping traditions, from GIS to art. The sessions attracted a large number of attendees (around 30) and each presentation, workshop and the end of session discussion prompted many audience questions and contributions. The discussions included the topics of positionality, project and map legacy, and how such projects can shape policy.

The double session provided both presenters’ reflections on using their different mapping methods (Session 1), as well as providing attendees with practical experience in using a creative and a walking method of mapping (Session 2). The creative aspects of the session reflected the recent increased uptake of creative methods in geography and explored the distinctive contribution such methods make to understanding people’s experience of place, space and environmental processes and practices.

The critique of critique: new perspectives on the future of critique

Organisers: Victoria Ridgway (Durham University), Philip Conway (Durham University)

Presenters: Victoria Ridgway, Philip Conway, Mark Jackson, Gediminas Lesutis, Maria Rusca, David Seitz

Summary:

This session discussed various modalities of critique, the possibilities to do critique otherwise or to let go of critique altogether. Several papers traced brief genealogies of critique, which emphasized its position as a prominent feature of the edification of the Enlightenment and its related subject positions, as well as its conflation with negative modes of interpretation that debunk and reveal. Participants’ engagements with the question of the ‘critique of critique‘ or ‘critique after critique’, mainly varied along the line of the possibility to carry on with critique, and the general critical ethos that supports much of academic work today. While some argued in favour of bettering critique either through more ambivalent, rigorous or ethically informed modes of interpretation, others argued for the subversion of critique through an engagement with more collective and caring modes of knowing. The papers contributed to advancing our understanding of what it means to be critical in cultural and social geography. They specifically engaged with the questions of what doing critique otherwise would look like, and how shifting our understanding of how different modes of criticism are already deployed outside of academia can help us better understand how people relate to the world. Furthermore, the discussion engaged through this session directly spoke to recent debates within cultural geography which question the mobilization of hope and affirmation in critique and politics, by opening this debate for further considerations of what more ambivalent modes of criticism could resemble.

Sounding Elements I & II :Listening to weathers, waters, atmospheres, and Listening across scales, measurements

Organisers: Samuel Hertz (Royal Holloway, University of London), Indira Lemouchi (Royal Holloway, University of London), Sasha Engelmann (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Presenters: Samuel Hertz, Indira Lemouchi, Sasha Engelmann, Nicola Di Croce, Eleni-Ira Panourgia, Carla J. Maier, Ivo Louro, Kat Austen, Kaya Barry, Margarida Mendes, Alex De Little

Summary:

The two sessions comprising our SCGRG-sponsored block ran successfully—with both sessions having an impressive turnout—and to an enthusiastic and engaged audience. Totalling nine presentations from 11 presenters over the two sessions, the block offered a wide range of experimental responses to concepts of sonic materialism and the elemental, fusing fields such as activism, public policy and data science to artistic responses in the form of architectural installations, field recording and dance film. Researchers and artists framed the ways in which sound offers new perspectives on grappling with changing landscapes, and in particular offered examples of how a sonic elementalism/sonic materialism may function as a geographic method itself.

The common trait shared amongst all presentations in the two sessions was an acknowledgement of sound’s potential to uncover new relationships between the practical effects of anthropogenic climate and environmental change, and the broader cultural and geographic ontological viewpoints that can be derived from participatory and experiential sonic methodologies. The presentations gracefully reinforced each other through a complex and

diverse set of practices, and both shared points of reference as well as shared terminologies suggested a strong conceptual and practical coherence between the previously undiscussed practices among the two sessions. Topics discussed included atmospheric acoustics of traditional Portuguese windmills, to workshops on inter-scalar listening, hacked instruments for listening to water as well as landscapes of drought.

The presenters and the conveners alike were very enthusiastic about each other’s presentations, and there was an immediate conversation following the end of the second session on developing further work in the form of a publication or special issue. The conveners are planning to meet at the end of September to discuss further possibilities and potential avenues within which to continue these exciting and generative conversations.

Indigenous ontologies, decoloniality and the naming of difference

Organisers: Mat Keel (Louisiana State University), Mitch Rose (Aberystwyth University)

Presenters:  Emily Hayes, Kate Maclean, Dumisani Moyo, Mariana Reyes, Mitch Rose

Summary:

The aim of the session was to explore new geographic work on indigenous ontologies. In particular we asked authors to explore the potential paradoxes imminent to the study of ingenious thought – i.e., the problem of acknowledging the radically different thinking of others without falling into the trap of essentialism. This was a theme that came through many (if not all the papers). For example, Emily Hayes’ paper explored Viveiros De Castro’s concept of multinaturalism and its antecedents in 19th century geographical thought. Kate Maclean, meanwhile, focused on the complexities of indigenous political identity, particularly when it intersects with political economies that exclude the experience of indigenous women. Similarly, Mariana Reyes examined two Brazilian museums – the Museum of Tomorrow and the Rio Art Museum – to illustrate the singular and reductive manner that indigeneity is represented within a museum space. In a slightly different vein. Dumisani Moyo, drew upon Mdembe’s notion of ‘necropolitics’ to query the appropriateness of concepts such as ‘indigeneity’ to characterize economic practices that are also exploitative. And Mitch Rose queried the alternative future that is often promised by work on indigenous ontologies, as well as critiqued the overall idea that there can be ‘better’ or ‘worse’ ontologies. All together the papers brought some critical questions to bear on the notion of indigeneity as well as its mobilization in various decolonial practices. Indeed, for many papers, the concept of indigenous ontologies – while useful for engaging how others think – also had the danger of reinforcing the strong ontological divides which are a hallmark of Western conceptions of difference. 

More-than-human archives: reflecting on geographers’ archival interventions

Organisers: Lena Ferriday (University of Bristol), Austin Read (University of Bristol)

Panelists:

Lena Ferriday, Austin Read, Jessica Lehman, Catherine Oliver, Merle Patchett, Hayden Lorimer

Summary:

This panel session on more-than-human archives and geography’s archival interventions prompted a rich and interesting discussion, featuring four mini presentations by each of the panellists where they presented a more-than-human archive that they work with, followed by a wide-ranging discussion involving the audience. The session drew upon and developed several key themes of cultural and social geography, including:

  1. Corporeality. The presentations and following discussions foregrounded, in multifaceted ways, the presence of raced, gendered and specied bodies in the archive. What emerged through the session was that geographical engagements with the archive are particularly crucial for sensing the fleshy, corporeal more-than-human bodies that both do archival work and are present in the archives. 
  2. Labour. The session focused both on the labour of the archival researcher and the other kinds of labours that make their research possible – in the session we heard about the labour of archivists, oceanographers, chickens, birds of paradise and rocks. This discussion of labour was conceptually rich and theoretically adventurous – for example, prompting musings about whether if a chicken egg is an archive, is a chicken an archivist? What emerged here was that cultural geographic approaches to more-than-human archives, then, are perhaps particularly useful for reflecting both on method – the work it takes to do historical research – and for analytically foregrounding the different forms of more-than-human work that the archive can lead us to. 
  3. Power. The session focused on the importance of taking a critical approach to archives, given that archives and archival work are both always-already saturated with power. We’ve also had been cautioned about taking an overly celebratory approach to “alternative” archives – even creative and insurgent archives have territorialising functions, silences and gaps. What emerged through this session was the importance of not trying to escape silences, instead paying attention to them by foregrounding the patches and the gaps in our knowledges and archival sources. We heard from multiple critical geographies, including affective and postcolonial geographies, but feminist analyses emerged as particularly essential. Feminist fieldwork ethics seems to inform how many social and cultural geographers are approaching the archive, foregrounding awareness of situated knowledges, of strong objectivity that does not fetishize “truth” or authority whilst remaining committed to the integrity of careful research and of notions of care and caregiving.  
  4. Particularity. The session celebrated source-led commitment to materials – including map collections, eggs, and feathers. They also reminded us of the importance of beginning with particular histories rather than abstract ontologies. Each panellist drew on passion, love or some other form of affective connection when present the archive that they work with.

In sum then, the session contributed to social and cultural geography by staging a broad discussion about one of its key methods – archival research – that opened expansive, creative dialogue on some of social and cultural geography’s key concerns, including questions of gender, power, race, affect, humanism, materiality, care, knowledge, and many others. 

Upcoming events: early career teaching development

We are pleased to announce an upcoming event for early career geographers, with guest speakers providing insight into their experiences of establishing a career in academia.

When: Wednesday 1 November 17.00 to 18.00 (GMT) ONLINE

Speakers: Aled Singleton, Swansea University, Jamelia Harris, University of Warwick, Anna Guasco, Cambridge University, Chris Herring, University of California Los Angeles

Convenor: Chen Qu

Click HERE to register: https://jbs-cam.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwodu-gpzkiEtEI1KHldEnbSFVRyLaOCrPC#/registration

Aled Singleton worked in community regeneration and local economic development for over a decade. This experience deepened his interests in the attachments to space and place that we all make across the lifecourse. In 2016 he pursued this latter topic through a PhD at Swansea University. Since 2021 he has been a Research Assistant, Researcher Fellow, Research Officer and now a Tutor in Human Geography at Swansea University, Wales, UK.

In this talk Aled balances his experience of both research and teaching, including the experience of applying for funding and FHEA recognition. He also gives some context about teaching and working in Wales.

Jamelia Harris is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Research (IER), University of Warwick. Before joining IER, she was a Research Economist at Fiscus Ltd and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Warwick. Jamelia has taught at various universities – including the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Warwick, University of Oxford, ISM University (Lithuania) and Fourah Bay College (Sierra Leone). She also worked as a researcher at the University of the West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago) and the University of Oxford, and has gained significant policy experience in international development as an economist working on projects in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Trinidad and Tobago.

Jamelia will speak on the importance of teaching to academic career development, and how to manage teaching with research.

Anna Guasco: Reflecting on accessibility in teaching and learning: a postgraduate perspective.

Anna Guasco is a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of Cambridge. Her dissertation analyses gray whale migration and conservation on the North American Pacific Coast. Her teaching broadly has focused on environment and society topics, including political ecology, food geographies, and Anthropocene studies.

Chris Herring is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California Los Angeles. His research focuses on poverty, housing, and homelessness in US cities. He teaches courses in Urban Sociology, Punishment and Society, and the Sociology of Poverty at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Chris will discuss the division of teaching labour across different types of colleges and universities in the United States, and its role for different types of emerging scholars going on the job market or just starting their careers.

Please email SCGRG@outlook.com for inquires.

Upcoming vacancies on the SCGRG Committee

The following roles will be available from September this year. Elections to
the Committee will be held at the Annual General Meeting. Nominations for
Committee membership will be accepted up to September the 8th, ahead of the AGM on Sept 13th 2023.

Nominations must be in writing and include the names of the proposer and
seconder, please send nominations to the SCGRG Secretary, Will Andrews at w.j.a.andrews@keele.ac.uk

If you have any questions about the roles listed below please do not hesitate to get in touch with the SCGRG Secretary.

Vacancies:
Chair   (3 years)
In this leadership role you will guide and direct the activities of the Research Group. The work includes but is not limited to, Chairing Group meetings including the AGM, distributing workload for planned events and activities evenly across the committee, proposing and leading any discussions needed related to the Research Group.
Along with the Treasurer and Secretary this role makes up the Executive, this is the group to whom any official communication for the RGS-IBG is sent, to be distributed with the wider committee.
We invite applications for Chair from academics at any career stage, however please note that some leadership experience or experience as part of similar Groups/committees will be beneficial.

Secretary   (3 years)
This role includes scheduling meetings and overseeing the links between different officer roles and the Chair, in particular helping to oversee the Committee’s participation in the decision-making processes for Dissertation Prize and Conference Session sponsorship. Along with the Treasurer and Chair this role makes up the Executive, this is the group to whom any official communication for the RGS-IBG is sent, to be distributed with the wider committee.

Dissertation Prize Officer  (1 year)
This role involves advertising the SCGRG Dissertation Prize, organising the anonymisation of submitted dissertations and distributing these to members of the committee during the judging process. In this role you will organise and oversee this judging process, with support from the Chair and Secretary, and will act in the final decision-making process.

Conference Officer  (1 year)
The Conference Officer is responsible for coordinating Research Group sponsored sessions at the Annual International Conference and acting as a central point of contact with the conference organisers; coordinating (with assistance from the rest of the Committee), any Research Group organised conferences and events.

Early Career & Mentoring Officer  (3 years)
The ECM role affords the representation of the needs and interests of early-career academics and may include the potential to organise PG-focused events. Previously we have seen this the Officer in this role work closely with the PG Rep(s) with a shared interest in the transitional stages between PG and early career research and teaching. In previous years, the ECM Officer and PG Rep have run sessions at the RGS-IBG conference as space for a range of career-stage scholars to share their work and to facilitate early networking opportunities. 

Postgraduate Representative (1 year)
This is one of two PG Rep roles, so you will work alongside another postgraduate. The aim of this role is primarily to offer guidance from a PG perspective within any decision-making or event organising. This role will also give you the opportunity to represent the needs and interests of current postgraduates and may include the potential to organise PG-focused events. In this role it is also a good idea to maintain links with the wider Geography postgraduate community through the RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum.

*********
As noted above, nominations must be in writing and include the names of the proposer and seconder, please send nominations to the SCGRG Secretary, Will Andrews at w.j.a.andrews@keele.ac.uk by Sept 8th 2023.

Upcoming vacancies on the SCGRG committee

The following roles will be available from September this year. Elections to the Committee will be held at the Annual General Meeting. Nominations for Committee membership will be accepted up to the beginning of the AGM (August 24th). Nominations must be in writing and include the names of the proposer and seconder.

Vacancies:
Dissertation Prize Officer (1 year) – see role description below

RGS-IBG SCGRG Role Description 2020

MonthTaskActionContactDeadlineStatus
January     
February     
March     
AprilIn response to RHED (RGS-IBG), update call for nominations for dissertation awardUpdate call for nominations text (with deadline) and provide for RHEDRHED  
Confirm continuation of Social & Cultural Geography subscription arrangement with Taylor FrancisTaylor Francis
MayEncourage submissionsCirculate call for nominations via membership list and appropriate mailing lists and social mediaMembership secretary  
Crit-geog-forum and other geography mailing lists; Web Officer; Social Media Officer  
June     
July        Coordinate assessment of submissionsCirculate sign-up for judging rounds to members   
Collate submission entries and organise in Dropbox folder; collate contact details for entries   
Send submissions & evaluation matrix to prize panel members,
with target deadlines for assessing submissions (2 rounds)
Prize panel members (expected to be all committee members)  
AugustAgree on award of prize (winner and runner-up)With Secretary and ChairBefore AGM 
Report to SCGRG AGM: number of entries, submitting institutions, prize winner and runner-up, and any other commendationsChair  
SeptemberAward prizeInform successful individual and all submitting departments of outcome   
Put prize winner in touch with RGS-IBG and Taylor Francis to receive prizeTreasurer Taylor Francis  
Update website and tweet news; do profile of winner and runner-up for website (see previous examples); send link to RGS-IBG for information.Web officer  
October     
November     
December     

Conference Officer (1 year) – see role description below

RGS-IBG SCGRG Role Description 2020 – Conference Officer

MonthTaskActionContactDeadlineStatus
JanuaryDecide on SCGRG sponsored sessions Prepare and disseminate submitted expressions of interest for SCGRG sponsored sessions to committee members in a timely fashion for decision re sponsored sessions in accordance with RGS guidanceSCGRG committee  
Communicate outcome with sessions proposers in a timely fashionContacts for EOIs
FebruaryLiaise with session convenorsLiaise with session convenors if requiredSession convenors of SCGRG sponsored sessions  
MarchLiaise with session convenorsLiaise with session convenors if requiredSession convenors of SCGRG sponsored sessions  
AprilInform RGS of sponsored sessions upon request RGS  
MayCheck conference timetableCheck conference timetable for clashesRGS  
Session convenors of SCGRG sponsored sessions  
JunePublicise SCGRG sponsored sessionsLiaise with session convenors, Web Officer, and Social Media officerSession convenors of SCGRG sponsored sessions  
Web Officer
Social Media Officer
July     
August     
September     
October     
NovemberPrepare call for SCGRG sponsored sessions for the RGS Annual ConferenceAwait announcement re RGS Annual Conference for following August. Discuss call for sponsored sessions with other officers and agree timeline (including meeting to decide . Prepare call for sponsored sessions based on agreed timeframe and instruction from RGS.RGS, Chair, Secretary  
DecemberDisseminate call for sponsored sessions. CRITGEOG, Web Officer; Social Media Officer, SCGRG list.  

Website & Social Media Officer (1 year)

Update the SCGRG website on a regular basis and share information via Twitter.

For more information on this role, please contact tracy.hayes@cumbria.ac.uk

Postgraduate Representative (1 year)

Information to be added.

SCGRG sponsored sessions at RGS-IBG 2022

This is a summary of the sessions sponsored by SCGRG at this year’s conference. For more information please see the conference programme available here https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/programme/

Session number Session title Session Organisers Format 
243, 251 Plural Environments and the Interdisciplinary Study of Disaster Amy Johnson et al In-person 
82 The ‘Green Shoots’ of Recovery: Signposts from Everyday Life in a Global Pandemic Rebecca Collins, Katharine Welsh Online 
181, 216 Geography’s Hidden Animals/Hidden Animal Geographies Hannah Dickinson, Catherine Oliver Hybrid 
86 Cultural and Social Geographies of Infection Prevention and Protection within interspecies communities (viral, microbial, plant, animals) Charlotte Veal, Emma Roe Hybrid 
214, 226 (Re)Imagining Crisis and Recovery: Social and Cultural Responses to Climate Change Amy Robson, Charlotte Veal In-person 
287 Food for thought: The political potentiality of mutual aid networks of food provision Oli Mould, Jenni Cole, Adam Badger In-person 
30, 308 To speak of love… Paul Harrison, Anna Secor, Mikko Joronen In-person 

Geographies of Disabilities/Geographies with Disabilities  workshops in September 2022

Thirty years on from early work in geography on disability, in collaboration with the RGS-IBG, we are holding two online discussion sessions which aim to create space and time for open discussion about geographies of/with disabilities. The first of these discussions will be focused on Geographies of Disabilities for those who research disabilities. The second session will be on Geographies with Disabilities which is open to anyone across the breadth of human/physical geographies and allied disciplines. Whilst these conversations are split between two workshops these will inevitably intersect. For more information and to register please use the links below:

Organised by Bethan Evans, Morag Rose, Amita Bhakta, John Horton, Faith Tucker, Catherine Waite, in collaboration with the RGS-IBG.

Find out more about SCGRG

Ahead of our AGM, the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society will be hosting an informal online session for anyone who would like to find out more about what being part of our research group entails and the opportunities it may offer. All are welcome, particularly postgraduates, early career researchers and researchers from under-represented groups within the discipline, who have an interest in social and cultural geography.

The session will be hosted on Zoom 1300-1400 BST on Monday 22nd August 2022. You can register for this online session using the following Eventbrite link:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/find-out-about-us-rgs-social-and-cultural-geography-research-group-tickets-392970243577

Registered attendees will be emailed a link to the Zoom meeting prior to the event.

There is no obligation to join our research group following this event. The event is simply designed as an informal opportunity to find out more about us ahead of our AGM. We know that the formal setting of an AGM can be intimidating, with people feeling they need to step forward and take on roles/tasks if attending. This informal session hopes to be the opposite of that.

Come and chat with the Chair of our research group – Tara Woodyer – about what the group has been doing in recent years, the support it offers to its members, and opportunities for getting involved, either in a formal role on the committee, or through more informal means.

As a first step, you can find out more about being part of a Royal Geographical Society Research Group here.

Please feel free to share this widely amongst your networks.

SCGRG AGM online

Our online AGM will be held on Wednesday 24th August. 

Anyone interested in social and cultural geography is welcome, but will need to register in advance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/royal-geographical-societys-social-and-cultural-research-group-agm-tickets-388110919207?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

The event will be held on Zoom. A link to the online meeting will be emailed to all registered attendees prior to the event. 

From 09.00-10.00 we’ll have an informal coffee and chat session for anyone interested in meeting others working within social and cultural geography. 

From 10.00-12.00 will conduct our usual AGM business. An agenda and list of committee vacancies will follow. 

People are welcome to attend both the informal and formal sessions, or just one. 

Call for RGS-IBG 2022 sponsored sessions

The RGS-IBG Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) would like to invite expressions of interest for sponsored sessions for the RGS-IBG 2022 Annual Conference, which will take place in Newcastle from Tuesday 30 August to Friday 2 September 2022.

RGS-IBG recognises that: ‘This year’s conference will not be ‘business as usual’ given everything that has happened over the last two years, from COVID-19 to Black Lives Matter, and from COP26 to concerns about cultures and behaviour within disciplinary spaces. So before we open the call for sessions and papers, we want to encourage everyone to pause and think about the conference, what it means, and what it offers to those attending. We too will be thinking widely and expansively about sustainability, inclusivity and accessibility in and around the conference and our broader activities with Research Groups and the geographical community. Please see our chair’s statement on inclusivity and safety.’

You can find out more about the conference at: https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/#

The conference will consist of a strong in-person element, and with hybrid and online ways to participate.

The theme for the 2022 Annual Conference, chaired by Professor Rachel Pain, is Geographies Beyond Recovery.

SCGRG is keen to sponsor sessions that directly relate to the conference theme, as well as make room for a wide range of other issues and topics. We welcome sessions which will be of wide significance and interest to social and cultural geographers, will meaningfully contribute to ongoing debates in social and cultural geography, and demonstrate substantive, methodological or theoretical novelty.

Please take note the guidelines for session proposals and conference participation: https://www.rgs.org/research/annual-international-conference/call/

Please take time to familiarise yourselves with the guidelines and to design your session proposals accordingly.

Please submit your expressions of interest for SCGRG sponsorship by 17:00GMT on Friday 28th January through: https://forms.office.com/r/xmjc0Lbd8a

We will endeavour to inform applicants of the outcome by the 4th February.