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RGS-IBG medals and award nominations

RGS-IBG medals and awards recognise excellence in geographical research and fieldwork, teaching and public engagement.  Any Fellow or member of the Society may make a nomination, and Research Groups are welcome to support nominations. The deadline for nomination is the end of February. The list of medals and awards is as follows:
·      Gold Medal – Founder’s and Patron’s Medals for the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery. The two Gold medals are both approved by Her Majesty The Queen.
·      Victoria Medal for conspicuous merit in research in Geography Busk Medal for conservation research or for fieldwork abroad in Geography or in a geographical aspect of an allied science
·      Cherry Kearton Medal and Award for a traveller concerned with the study or practice of natural history, with a preference for those with an interest in nature photography, art or cinematography
·      Murchison Award for publications judged to contribute most to geographical science in preceding recent years
·      Back Award for applied or scientific geographical studies which make an outstanding contribution to the development of national or international public policy
·      Cuthbert Peek Award for those advancing geographical knowledge of human impact on the environment through the application of contemporary methods, including those of earth observation and mapping
·      Gill Memorial Award for the encouragement of geographical research in early career researchers* who have shown great potential (*defined as within 10 years of completing their PhD)
·      Ordnance Survey Awards in recognition of excellence in Geography education at the secondary level Taylor and Francis Award for excellence in the promotion and practice of teaching and learning in Higher Education
·      Ness Award for travellers, particularly those who have successfully popularised Geography and the wider understanding of our world and its environments
·      Fordham Award for distinguished contributions to the field of cartobibliography (this is not awarded every year)
·      Geographical Award for a company or individual that had provided outstanding (non-commercial) support for individuals or groups learning through scientific expeditions; or for an expedition(s) that has had a significant impact in inspiring and raising the understanding of geographical issues among schools or the public
·      Honorary Membership for outstanding services and contributions to a geographical dimension of public life Honorary Fellowship for service to the cause of Geography or to the work of the Society
Nominations should consist of a completed nomination form with a statement of 200-300 words outlining why the candidate should receive the award, a CV of the candidate and written support of approximately 200-300 words from two additional Fellows or members of the Society (ideally from different institutions/departments). Membership numbers of the proposer and supporters should be included in all correspondence. Full details and nomination forms can be found at:http://www.rgs.org/AboutUs/Medals+and+awards/Medals+and+awards.htm  
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SIID 5thAnnual Postgraduate Conference: 2nd Call for Papers.

 “Multidisciplinary Insights into International Development: Reconciling the Divided Priorities of One Global Nation.” 25thMarch 2014, University of Sheffield. Keynote Speaker: Duncan Green, Oxfam GB
The Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) would like to announce the second call for papers for the 5th Annual Postgraduate Conference. This event aims to provide a friendly academic atmosphere for postgraduate students from all over the UK to share and discuss their current research in areas related to development studies. If you wish to present a paper, please visit the link below for details on this year’s theme and how to submit. The deadline for submissions is Friday 24th January 2014.
For this year’s Conference, there will be a chance to win the Best Paper Award (further details can be found in the link below). Applicants who wish to be considered for this will need to submit an additional abstract of 650 words by Friday 21st February 2014.
Details of how to register your attendance will be released shortly.
 
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Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Sheffield Institute of International Development (SIID)

Postdoctoral Research Associate. Grade 7 £28,972 to £36,661 per annum . The Sheffield Institute of International Development (SIID) is seeking to appoint an exceptional Postdoctoral Research Associate to help shape, develop and lead SIID’s research agenda. You will hold a PhD in a relevant subject (or have equivalent experience), have experience of developing research activity and be developing a substantial external reputation.
 
This will be built upon through: generating research income and direction for self and others, conducting high quality research, producing research publications of exceptional quality and impact, taking forward knowledge exchange activities,
participating actively in the development and implementation of the SIID and the University research strategy.
 
SIID is an inter-disciplinary centre, based within the Faculty of Social Sciences, which aims to bring together leading researchers in international development to expand the volume of excellent research in this field, support postgraduate activities and studies, provide a forum for debate and analysis of the pressing issues in global development and encourage a series of outreach, advisory and engagement activities. SIID’s research themes include:
•    development as global justice
•    citizenship, human rights (including the rights of the very vulnerable) and democracy
•    governance and participation
•    human dimensions of global environmental change
•    poverty and the international political economy of development.
Deadline 6th February
 
For more details on how to apply visit http://siid.group.shef.ac.uk/opportunities/#PDRA
 
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CFP RGS IBG The Shifting Power of Indigeneity: exploring the (co)-production of both rural and urban spaces

The Shifting Power of Indigeneity: exploring the (co)-production of both rural and urban spaces

Call For Papers for RGS IBG annual conference 26-29 August 2014

Sponsored by the Developing Areas Research Group DARG

This session is interested in the multiple and shifting articulations of indigeneity in the contemporary period. It recognises the inherent tensions as well as conflicting understandings of indigeneity, which are articulated and claimed by multiple actors in different countries, histories, political economies and political ecologies.  International legislation often defines indigeneity as identity category bound to ancestral claims to land, relationships to nature and collective decision making. These definitions are often criticised by academics, activists, and indigenous peoples themselves for essentialising cultures, removing people’s agency and grouping together different peoples that are, in fact, living in very different circumstances. However, indigeneity is still being used and claimed by many groups as a political category to gain political recognition, power and rights. Both rural and urban groups, often those who feel marginalised and in the minority, rely on indigeneity as a key political category. This session will explore the multiple and contrasting ways in which indigeneity is being used by various socio-political actors, situated in the global South and North, to shift existing power relations and to (co)-produce rural and urban spaces. Using theories that explore the relationship of indigeneity to political power and wider political economies and ecologies, it is interested in analysing how indigeneity is being articulated in conflicts over land and natural resources, in processes of development, in times of rapid planetary urbanisation, and in moments of political unrest and/or change.

We invite papers that investigate the various ways that indigeneity is articulated and mobilised by multiple actors and the ways it is being responded to by states. We want to explore the spatial impact that this is having in the current political economic and ecological contexts. When addressing these aspects, papers should take into account the following questions: In what contexts and how is indigeneity gaining legitimacy and power? How are relations between ‘indigenous’ and ‘non-indigenous’ actors articulated in different spaces? What role does indigeneity play in the (co)-production of different rural and urban places?

Please send 300 word abstract to the session convenors, Jessica Hope and Philipp Horn by the 3rd of February 2014, including your name and contact details

Jessica.Hope-2@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk  

Philipp.Horn@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

For further information about the conference, please see http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Annual+international+conference.htm

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CFP RGS IBG 2014 Collaborative research for an increasingly mobile and ageing world

Collaborative research for an increasingly mobile and ageing world

CFP for RGS IBG annual conference 26-29 August 2014

Sponsored by the Developing Areas Research Group DARG

Tanja Bastia

University of Manchester

Migration has significant consequences for the family members ‘left behind’, not just children but also the elderly.  However, thus far the literature on the social consequences of migration for the ‘left behind’ has focused overwhelming on children.  In this session we propose to shift the focus towards the elderly.  What are the consequences of migration for the older generation?  What strategies do they employ to juggle their multiple responsibilities?  How are societies and communities reorganised to take into account the absence of the younger generation?  In addition, the migration literature has also overlooked the migration of older people.  How do older migrants experience work and life abroad?  What challenges and satisfactions do they encounter?

The panel seeks innovative studies that push the boundaries of current knowledge on ageing and migration.  In addition, it also welcomes studies carried out collaboratively with older people, organisations working with older people such as NGOs or service departments, including action research with a view of discussing alternative research formats that can feed into policy or service provision.

Please send 300 word abstract to Tanja.Bastia@Manchester.ac.uk by 24th January 2014, including your name and contact details.

For further information about the conference, please see http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Annual+international+conference.htm

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New book

Two of the speakers from the DARG sponsored session “Beyond Securitisation: Military actors in development” at the 2013 RGS-IBG conference have just published a book related to their presentation.
Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi and Glen Segell (eds.) Civil-Military Relationships in Developing Countries. (Lexington Books) ISBN 978-0-7391-8280-2 (hardback) / 978-0-7391-8281-9 ( e-Book)  Publishers Web: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739182802
For details please contact: Glen Segell” <glen@segell.com
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New MSc Programme in Environment, Politics and Development to begin September 2014

New MSc Programme in Environment, Politics and Development to begin September 2014. 
Applications now being accepted!
 
This programme takes a critical political ecology frame and examines environmental policy and its intersections with development from a social justice angle. It is taught and convened by leading political ecologists and offers a critical analysis of key issues including water, climate, fisheries, agricultural production, biodiversity, conflicts and energy supply.
The masters asks important questions including:
•    Can we govern The Commons?
•    How does the environment Intersect with global  poverty, wealth and questions of inequality?
•    Can Carbon trading offer a solution to managing climate change?
•    How does access to water intersect with dynamics of wealth and poverty?
•    Is wildlife conservation implicated in social injustices?
•    What role can and do environmental movements play in development?
•    Is there a link between environmental change and violent conflict?
 
The MSc programme’s emphasis on transferable analytical skills has been of great benefit to the many graduates who have returned to, or taken up, professional careers in development in international organisations, government agencies and non-government organisations. Students also benefit from the wide range of courses on offer, both within the Department and across the School, allowing them to create individualised interdisciplinary programmes.
The MSc Environment, Politics and Development has four components: two compulsory courses; one full-course option or two half-course options; and a dissertation of 10,000 words. Please see Postgraduate Courses for details on core and optional courses taught within the Department: http://www.soas.ac.uk/development/programmes/mscenvironpoldev/
For further information please contact: Professor Rosaleen Duffy, rd38@soas.ac.uk
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International Fieldwork in Development Contexts: Postgraduate Training Workshop Newcastle University, 6th-7th February 2013

International Fieldwork in Development Contexts: Postgraduate Training Workshop. 
North East Doctoral Training Centre: ESRC Advanced Training Module. This will be held on the 6th -7th February at Newcastle University, Post Graduate Training Suite, 7th floor Daysh Building. To register please contact Ann Williamson-Forster DTC Administrator:hass.pgtraining@ncl.ac.uk.
Speakers include: Cheryl MacEwan (Durham University); Matt Baillie Smith and Katy Kenkins (Northumbria University); Nina Laurie and Susanne Speak (Newcastle University).
 
The workshop also involved a number of peer learning panels including presentations from and discussion with PGs who have recently completed fieldwork as well as an interactive  active panel with a number of students currently ‘in the field’.
 
All presenters will draw on personal experience and fieldwork case studies. A workshop pack will include further reading, key contacts and summaries.
 
Topics to be covered include:
·      Theoretical and Methodological Considerations.
Conceptualising the field; fieldwork at home and abroad; researcher positionality; politics of fieldwork; research in challenging situations (e.g. conflict areas), reflexivity.
·      Access and Ethics
Gaining entry and access to information, research sites, resources, subjects, communities; collecting sensitive, personal information; dealing with gender issues; confidentiality; peer pressure on research subjects; avoiding bias; social relationships of field research; research fatigue; expectations that the research will produce economic outcomes. 
·      Practical issues.
Bureaucratic requirements; visas; vaccinations; risk assessments; cultural considerations; safety for lone researchers; safety for women in the field, families and fieldwork.
·      Data Analysis and ensuring research has an impact (makes a difference)
This will explore what we can understand impact to be in development contexts and include examples from individual and collaborative research.
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5th Annual Postgraduate Conference to be held on Tuesday 25th March 2013 at the University of Sheffield

The Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) would like to announce the call for papers for the 5th Annual Postgraduate Conference to be held on Tuesday 25th March 2013 at the University of Sheffield.
The deadline for the call for papers is 24th January 2014
This event aims to provide a friendly academic atmosphere for postgraduate students from all over the UK to share and discuss their current research in international development. The meeting will showcase postgraduate research that has emerged from a range of disciplines. Active dialogue will be promoted between postgraduates at different stages in their research building a greater understanding of research at all levels.
The conference seeks papers that address Multidisciplinary Insights into International Development: Reconciling the Divided Priorities of One Global Nation.
If you wish to present a paper, please submit an abstract of 250 words to the organizing committee (development-studies@sheffield.ac.uk) with the subject heading “SIID Conference Abstract’ by January 24th 2014. Further details regarding abstract submission and costs are attached. 
Further details will be made available in January.
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CFP RGS/ IBG Learning from Small Cities: New urban frontiers in the global south

Learning from Small Cities: New urban frontiers in the global south

Ayona Datta (University of Leeds)

Abdul Shaban (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)

For the last decade or so urban studies has been preoccupied in decentring its western bias and advocating a postcolonial lens in studying cities of the global south. Mega-cities such as Mumbai, Shanghai and Johannesburg are now ‘champions of urbanity’ (Banerjee-Guha 2013) in global urban studies.  Yet, around half of the ‘urban’ population in Africa, Asia and Latin America lives in small and medium cities with populations of less than 500,000 (Satthertwaite 2006). Seen as provincial, parochial, even communal and on the peripheries of urban studies, small and medium towns nevertheless are the new frontiers of urbanization of postcolonial states. They service urban consumers, act as national trade centres, support global manufacturing processes or serve as regional administrative nodes. In recent years, the focus of postcolonial states on cities as engines of neoliberal development and economic growth (Kennedy and Zerah 2008), has also spurred rapid transformation of small and medium towns into new urban utopias of eco-city, smart-city, satellite city and a number of other corporate sponsored city-making initiatives. They therefore face a “triple challenge” (Veron 2010, 2833) of the impacts of increased urbanization, development and under-development. While they are characterised by the absence of local democratic institutions, poor urban infrastructure and continued ‘elite capture’ (Kundu 2011) of land for development projects, a broad range of grassroots struggles in these places are also working to redefine rights and justice through active citizenships. The indifference in urban scholarship however to the ‘smallness’ of cities have institutionalised  existing inequalities between mega- and small cities, between urban regions and their urbanizing hinterlands, and between the centre and peripheries of urban studies itself.

In this session, we view small cities not as homogeneous, structurally and demographically defined entities, but rather as places with their specific social, cultural, political, historical contexts of ‘smallness’ that are produced through their particular relationships with neoliberalisation, globalization, urbanization and the postcolonial state. We invite papers that address but are not limited to the following questions:

  • What we can learn from small cities and how can this ‘learning’ decentre the practices of ‘doing’ urban studies?
  • What are the new frontiers of knowledge and action that are produced when we learn from small cities?
  • What are the politics of being and becoming ‘small’, and what does it mean to challenge the injustices of ‘smallness’ in these cities?
  • How do aspirations for ‘bigness’ in small cities produce new urban inequalities?
  • How are urbanization of mega-city regions and transformations in the political, cultural, social and economic life of small cities co-produced?

References

Banerjee-Guha, Swapna 2013. ‘Small Cities and Towns in Contemporary Urban Theory, Policy and Praxis’, in R.N. Sharma and R.S. Sandhu (eds), Small Cities and Towns in Global Era: Emerging Changes and Perspectives, 17-35. Jaipur: Rawat Publications.

Kennedy and Zerah, H. 2008. The Shift to City-Centric Growth Strategies: Perspectives from Hyderabad and Mumbai, Economic and Political Weekly, September 27, 110-117.

Kundu, A. 2011.  Politics and Economics of Urban Growth, Economic and Political Weekly, May 14, 10-12.

Satthertwaite, D. 2006. Outside the Large Cities; The demographic importance of small urban centres and large villages in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Human Settlements Working Paper Series Urban Change No. 3. IIED, London

Veron, R. 2010. Small Cities, Neoliberal Governance and Sustainable Development in the Global South: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda, Sustainabilities, 2, 2833-2848