Call for papers for themed sessions at the 6th International Conference on Population Geographies

The IGU Commission on Population Geography plans once again to sponsor and actively promote some themed sessions at the bi-annual international population conference to be held in Umeå, Sweden in 2011. The Commission proposes three themed sessions linked to the commission’s core interests in ‘Population and Difference’ and ‘Population and Vulnerability’.

A. Population and Difference

This theme provides an opportunity for dialogue on a range of demographic issues pertinent to the present context of globalization. The theme emphasizes the rethinking of ‘population’ as a heterogeneous concept open to constant reworkings through diverse socio-cultural, political, and economic framings. The interest here is to interrogate the various intersecting inflections of ‘difference’ within population studies – age, nationality, ethnicity, race, class, gender, sexuality,  etc. – and to appreciate how these arise from the shifting imaginaries, practices and experiences of inclusions and exclusions between groups and across geographic scales.

Papers on any aspect of the theme are welcome, but (given the location of the conference) researchers are especially encouraged to offer papers on two sub-themes: 

  1. 1. Population and Difference in Remote Rural and Marginal Environments

Key questions might be ‘How do remote rural and marginal environments ‘make’ populations different?’ and ‘How is ‘difference’ experienced, negotiated and resisted in these geographical contexts?

  1. 2. Mobilities and Difference

Key questions might include ‘To what extent does migration intensify the social and economic divides of sending and receiving locations?’ and ‘How does mobility make possible new ways of connecting across difference?’

B. Population and Vulnerability

This theme has been explored in several IGU Commission meetings over the last few years including conferences on topics as diverse as ‘making sense of vulnerability’, ‘risks and hazards’, ‘climate change’, ‘successful ageing’ and ‘marriage migration’.

Once again papers on any aspect of the Population and Vulnerability theme are welcome (see Population, Space and Place, vol 11, pages 429–39 for a mapping of the topic), but the commission would be especially glad to welcome papers by geographers with a focus on how vulnerability is produced, reproduced and resisted by Asylum Seekers and Refugees.

Offers of papers on any of these themes should be directed to Professor Allan Findlay (a.m.findlay@dundee.ac.uk). Enquiries about the conference should be sent to Gunnar Malmberg (gunnar.malmberg@geography.umu.se) by February 20th 2011. Authors of papers should indicate that the papers are intended for the IGU themed sessions listed above.