CFP: Planetary Rural Geographies

Call for Papers: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference, London, 29 August – 1 September 2023

Planetary Rural Geographies

Convenors:     Michael Woods, Aberystwyth University, m.woods@aber.ac.uk

Damian Maye, University of Gloucestershire, dmaye@glos.ac.uk

Chi-Mao Wang, National Taiwan University, chimaowang@ntu.edu.tw

Session Sponsored by the Rural Geography Research Group

Abstract:

The provocative thesis of planetary urbanization has been countered in recent literature by calls for geographies of planetary ruralization (Krause, 2012; Gillen et al, 2022; He and Zhang, 2022). Yet, in focusing primarily on human activities such calls arguably have missed the potential for planetary thinking in rural geography, as well as food and climate geographies, to foreground the more-than-human assemblages that constitute the rural and which connect rural and urban spaces globally. This session aims to bring together papers that explore a new ‘planetary rural geographies’, examining the horizontal and vertical relations that connect human and non-human, and rural places with the earth, atmosphere, oceans, and cities. In particular it seeks to investigate the significance of rural places and processes in planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, food security, and energy and water sustainability – understanding the planetary rural as a space of crisis, but also, recognizing rural agency, as a space of conflict and a space of hope. Contributions might also discuss the cultural representation of the planetary rural, the politics, governance, ethics and justice elements of these new relations, the constitutive role of non-human actants and global connections in rural economies and societies, or the more-than-human ruralization of the urban. Empirical examples from any part of the world are welcome, as are contributions from different epistemological, theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Submission information:

Please send your title, abstract (max. 300 words) and author details to Michael Woods (m.woods@aber.ac.uk) by 10th March. Authors will be notified of accepted papers by 15^th March.