Category: Latest news

Dissertation Prize 2018: Nominations now open!

The RGS/IBG Social and Cultural Geography Research Group is pleased to offer an annual prize of £100 for the best undergraduate dissertation. In addition, we will announce a runner-up prize. Both prize-winners will receive a year’s subscription to the Journal of Social and Cultural Geography published by Taylor & Francis. Please see the mission statement on the SCGRG website for our definition of social and cultural geography.

Nominated dissertations should be an outstanding theoretical and/or empirical piece of work; usually be 10,000 words or more in length; be submitted for formal assessment in the current academic year to a UK Higher Education Institution for a BA/BSc level Geography degree programme; include a full set of references and images (as relevant); be written in English. We are looking to reward both excellent scholarship and innovation in the study of social and cultural geography. Please note that a department may not submit more than one entry and nominated dissertations should not be submitted for consideration for any other RGS-IBG prizes. 

Submission procedure

Nominations are requested from the Head of Department or Dissertation Convener. All dissertations should be submitted as a single pdf. Please include a post-September e-mail and contact address for the student. Submissions should be emailed to sofie.narbed@rhul.ac.uk with ‘SCGRG Dissertation prize submission’ as the subject header. The winners will be announced in September.

For further queries about the SCGRG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize please contact the dissertation convenor Sofie Narbed at sofie.narbed@rhul.ac.uk, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London. Further information, including previous winning entries, can also be found on the dissertation prize sections of the SCGRG website.

Deadline: Friday 6th July.

 

RGS-IBG Pre-conference AC2018: Austerity politics and the changing landscapes of equality

Tuesday 28th August 2018
12.00 -17.15
Cardiff University

Austerity has been widely discussed as a key factor in Britain’s vote to leave the EU (Dorling, 2016). The ‘austerity agenda’ has exacerbated existing inequalities of housing, health, education and welfare and produced new sites of precarity and vulnerability. Research on austerity in the Global North has drawn attention to its disproportionate effects for a range of groups, such as people of colour, women and young people (Bassel and Emujulu, 2017; Horton, 2016; Hall, 2017). This pre-conference workshop, organised jointly by the RGS-IBG Population Geography and Social and Cultural Geography Research Groups, introduces geographical perspectives on austerity and inequality in the context of a changing global political landscape.

Are inequalities deepening or widening in the context of austerity politics?
How are these patterned and experienced geographically and across the lifecourse?
What are the challenges for devolved and regional landscapes of austerity?
In what ways do people live with or challenge austerity in their everyday lives?

This event brings together academic, activist and policy participants to discuss these questions and the trends, experiences and challenges of austerity and inequality in a changing political landscape.

Confirmed speakers include:
Alison Stenning (University of Newcastle)
Sarah Marie Hall (University of Manchester)
Rory Coulter, (UCL), Sait Bayrakdar (Kings College London) and Ann Berrington (University of Southampton)
Jon May (QMUL), Paul Cloke (University of Exeter), Andrew Williams (Cardiff University) and Liev Cherry (QMUL)
Rosie Walker (University of Brighton), author of ‘The Rent Trap’

Event Details:

Lunch from 12 noon, 12.45-17.15: talks and discussion
(immediately before the opening plenary of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2018)

Registration fees (including lunch): Waged: £30; unwaged and students: £10.

Places can booked as part of your registration for the annual conference here.
To add this workshop to an existing booking, or to attend the workshop without registering for the main conference, please contact the conference organisers at AC2018@rgs.org.

For any other questions, please contact the organising committee: Kate Botterill (k.botterill@napier.ac.uk), Sophie Cranston (S.Cranston@lboro.ac.uk), Leila Dawney (L.Dawney@brighton.ac.uk) and Rhys Daffyd Jones (rhj@aber.ac.uk)

Call for RGS 2018 sponsored sessions are now open!

The RGS-IBG Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) would like to invite expressions of interest for sponsored sessions for the RGS-IBG 2018 Annual Conference, which will take place in Cardiff from Tuesday 28 to Friday 31 August 2018.

The theme for the 2018 Annual Conference, chaired by Professor Paul Milbourne, is Geographical landscapes / changing landscapes of geography.

SCGRG is keen to sponsor sessions that directly relate to the conference theme but also those sessions that engage with broader issues of contemporary concern to social and cultural geographers.

You can find out more about the theme at: http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Chairs+theme.htm

 When designing your session proposals please take note of the following:

  1. A session cannot occupy more than two timeslots on the conference programme unless this has been pre-arranged with the RGS team. Those seeking more than one timeslot should consider co-sponsorship (i.e. splitting sponsorship so as to have a sponsor for each time slot).

  2. Each attendee can only make two substantive contributions to the conference programme (e.g. as paper presenter, panel member, discussant). A substantive contribution is defined as one where the individual concerned needs to be present in the session room, and so can include session organiser if attendance is necessary. For individuals proposing multiple co-authored papers, an alternative presenter must be clearly nominated at the time of submitting the session/paper.

You can find the RGS guidelines for session proposals at: http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Call+for+sessions+papers+and+posters/Call+for+sessions+papers+and+posters.htm

SCGRG is able to sponsor 12 timeslots and you are welcome to propose joint sessions to be co-sponsored by another research group.

Please send expressions of interest including the below information by Wednesday 13th December at 6pm. We will inform applicants of the outcome by 22nd December.

 (i) Title of session;

(ii) Name of Co-sponsoring groups, if applicable

(iii) Name and Contact Details for Session Convenors

(iv) Abstract, outlining scope of session – 200 words max.

(v) Number of session timeslots that are sought – please note:  this year a session may not occupy more than 2 time slots unless this has been pre-agreed with the RGS.

(vi) Indication of session format

 Proposals for, or questions about, SCGRG sponsored sessions should be sent to Laura Prazeres:  Laura.Prazeres@st-andrews.ac.uk

RGS Geography Ambassador Training 22nd November 2017

Nottingham University are holding Geography Ambassadors training on Wednesday 22nd November

The Royal Geographic Society (with IBG) is running a half-day workshop for undergraduates, postgraduates and graduate geographers who are interested in becoming ‘Geography Ambassadors’.

The event takes place on Wednesday 22nd November, 1pm – 6pm at the University of Nottingham. Registration is free and the deadline for registration is 15th November at 12 noon. The RGS will reimburse your travel and resource costs to attend this event.

For more information, see the tweet below from the University of Nottingham.

 

 

The winners of the 2017 Dissertation Prize are…

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2017 undergraduate dissertation prize:

Winner: Anna Knowles-Smith, University College London

Refugees and theatre: an exploration of the basis of self-representation

Runner Up: Thomas Paulsen, University of Exeter

In Search of Danish Atmospheres

If you would like to read our winner’s dissertations, click on the titles above.

The winner receives £100 for the best Undergraduate dissertation while the both the winner and runner-up receive a year’s personal subscription to the journal Social and Cultural Geography, courtesy of the publisher, Taylor & Francis.

Congratulations to both of our winners!

SCGRG Sponsored sessions at the RGS-IBG 2017

The Social and Cultural Geography Research Group are sponsoring twelve sessions at the forthcoming Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) annual conference that will be held from 29th August – 1st September.

You can find when the conference sessions take place by searching for them here.

If you would like to read the abstracts for each of the sessions below, click here.

The list of sponsored sessions are as follows:

‘Placing’ knowledges in Social and Cultural geography: Postgraduate Snapshots
Conveners
Phil Emmerson (University of Birmingham, UK)
Maddy Thompson (Newcastle University, UK)

Educational Landscapes: Nature, Place and Moral Geographies
Conveners
Jo Hickman Dunne (Loughborough University, UK)
Sarah Mills (Loughborough University, UK)

Geographies of the body and technology
Conveners
Lizzie Richardson (University of Durham, UK)
Cordelia Freeman (University of Nottingham, UK)

Dance and the geographies of (de)coloniality
Convener
Sofie Narbed (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

Non-representational geographies: practices, pedagogies and writing
Convener
Andrew S. Maclaren (University of Aberdeen, UK)

(en)Countering change, (dis)Assembling placeness
Conveners
Marc Welsh (Aberystwyth University, UK)
Samantha Saville (Aberystwyth University, UK)

Muslim women’s geographies – decolonizing discourses, re-writing everyday lives
Conveners
Dr Christine Schenk (University of Oxford, UK)
Negar Elodie Behzadi (University of Oxford, UK)
Akanksha Awal (University of Oxford, UK)

Critical perspectives on transnational education and knowledge mobilities in the Global South
Conveners
Johanna Waters (University of Oxford, UK)
Maggi Leung (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

For whom and what do we grieve, when and where: The geo-politics of diverse experiences of death, bereavement and remembrance: human and non-human
Conveners
Ruth Evans (University of Reading, UK)
Beth Greenhough (University of Oxford, UK)
Philip Howell (University of Cambridge, UK)
Avril Maddrell (University of Reading, UK)
Katie McClymont (University of the West of England, UK)

Valuing Heritage in the Postcolonial City
Conveners
Mark Boyle (National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland)
Andrew McLelland (National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland)

A geography of small things: geographies of architecture beyond the high rise
Conveners
Rachel Hunt (University of Durham, UK)
Julia Heslop (University of Durham, UK)

(Re)Engaging Geographies of Religions, Spiritualties, and Faith
Conveners
Stephanie Denning (University of Bristol, UK)
Richard Scriven (University College Cork, Ireland)

SCGRG call for sessions: RGS-IBG Annual Conference, London 2017

The RGS-IBG Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) would like to invite expressions of interest for sponsored sessions for the RGS-IBG 2017 Annual Conference, which will take place in London, between Tuesday 29th Aug – Friday 1st Sept 2017.

The theme for the 2017 Annual Conference, chaired by Professor Sarah Radcliffe, is Decolonizing geographical knowledges: opening geography out to the world.

SCGRG is keen to sponsor sessions that directly relate to the conference theme but also those sessions that engage with broader issues of contemporary concern to social and cultural geographers.

You can find out more about the theme at: http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Conference+theme.htm

When designing your session proposals please take note of the following:

  • A session cannot occupy more than two timeslots on the conference programme unless this has been pre-arranged with the RGS team. Those seeking more than one timeslot should consider co-sponsorship (i.e. splitting sponsorship so as to have a sponsor for each slot).
  • Each attendee can only make two substantive contributions to the conference programme (eg. as paper presenter, panel member, discussant). A substantive contribution is defined as one where the individual concerned needs to be present in the session room, and so can include session organiser if attendance is necessary. For individuals proposing multiple co-authored papers, an alternative presenter must be clearly nominated at the time of submitting the session/paper.

SCGRG is able to sponsor 12 timeslots and you are welcome to propose joint sessions to be co-sponsored by another research group.

Please send expressions of interest including the below information by Wednesday 14th December at 6pm. We will inform applicants of the outcome by 22nd December.

(i) Title of session;

(ii) Name of Co-sponsoring groups, if applicable

(iii) Name and Contact Details for Session Convenors

(iv) Abstract, outlining scope of session – 200 words max.

(v) Number of session timeslots that are sought – please note:  this year a session may not occupy more than 2 time slots unless this has been pre-agreed with the RGS.

(vi) Indication of session format

Proposals for, or questions about, SCGRG sponsored sessions should be sent to Dr Laura Prazeres:  Laura.Prazeres@st-andrews.ac.uk

AHRC Midlands3Cities funding for UK/EU students

The Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (M3C DTP) is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham, Birmingham City University, De Montfort University, University of Leicester, Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham. M3C is awarding up to 87 PhD Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) studentships for UK/EU applicants for 2017 entry. M3C provides research candidates with expert supervision (including opportunities for cross-institutional supervision), research training and access to a wide range of facilities, cohort events and placement opportunities with regional, national and international partners in the creative and cultural sectors.

The School of Geography at the University of Nottingham (see here) invites applications from students whose research interests include:

  • Environmental humanities and landscape studies
  • Animal geographies
  • Cultural economy
  • Geographies of empire, militarism and internationalism
  • Epidemic spaces and cultural-historical geographies of health
  • Heritage sites and legacies of enslavement and colonialism
  • Histories of geographical and environmental thought

For more information please follow the following links for the cultural and historical geography research theme.

The deadline for M3C funding applications is 16 January 2017, by which time students must have applied for a place to study and have ensured that two academic references are submitted to the home university on the correct M3C form.

For full details of eligibility, funding, proposal-writing workshops and research supervision areas (including use of the supervision search tool) please visit www.midlands3cities.ac.uk or contact enquiries@midlands3cities.ac.uk

Please contact Dr Adam Algar at Adam.Algar@nottingham.ac.uk if you have any questions related to doctoral study in geography at the University of Nottingham.

Cambridge Film Festival Microcinema programme

microcinema

In the next moth, the Alchemical Landscape Project are hosting several events at Cambridge University.

Yvonne Salmon who is co-hosting the experimental/microcinema strand of the Cambridge Film Festival with James Mackay who will speak on 18th October regarding the work of producer Derek Jarman. Click here for more information.

Yvonne will also be performing at an experimental lecture event at the Festival of Ideas, click here for more information.

On the 24th October there will be a gallery exhibition of Steve Farrer’s work at the Heong Gallery at Downing College which also references the 50th anniversary of the London Film-makers Coop.

Click on the image above to view the programme.