<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear All,<div><br></div><div>I hope you can find the following CFP of your interest. The conference is the Association of the American Geographer Annual Meeting (AAG), <span style="font-family: Arial; ">2014, Tampa, Florida, April 8-12th.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; ">Abstract are due by the 16th of October (early fee) or the 15th of November (full fee).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; ">Regards,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; ">Michele</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial; "><a href="mailto:michele.lancione@uts.edu.au">michele.lancione@uts.edu.au</a></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><strong>Call for Papers</strong>: Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting 2014, Tampa, Florida, April 8-12th</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Organised by Michele Lancione (UTS, Sydney; Cambridge University from Feb. 2014)</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><strong>Assembling life at the “margin”: Critical assemblage thinking and urban marginality</strong></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><strong><br></strong></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Ethnographers, sociologists and urban geographers have mainly looked at the city as the inanimate backdrop against which social, cultural, and economical marginality takes place. Although the literature provides examples of fine-grained and situated accounts of urban poverty and marginality (e.g. Desjarlais 1997; Gowan 2010), it still falls short in taking the urban machinery fully into consideration in the instantiation of life at the margin (Lancione 2013). What role does the urban play in the daily processes of marginalisation? How do more-than-human agencies (Farías and Bender 2010), affective atmospheres (Anderson 2012), resilient materialities (Chattopadhyay 2012), prosaic technologies (Swanton 2013), and the power of care (Darling 2011; DeVerteuil 2012), affect the life of marginalised people? What kind of policy insights can derive from taking the city back into our understanding of the above processes?</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">This CFP aims to shed new light on how urban marginalities come into being; how they are performed; and constructed/de-constructed in the relational entanglements between the self and the city. The aim is to investigate marginality not as a static condition that can be labelled a-priori (“the homeless”; “the poor”; “the refugee”; etc.) (Ruddick 1996), but to render it in its on-going nuanced development open to the more-than-human and the unpredictable (Bennett 2010). In this sense, one should always be speaking of becoming marginal, and being theoretically and empirically ready to welcome unpredictable changes (Anderson et al. 2012). From this standpoint it will then be possible to confront the normative categorisations that mostly inform public policy making, and provide empirical evidence to support a constructive critique of their drawbacks (Russell, Pusey, and Chatterton 2011). In this sense, we are interested in investigating marginality from an assemblage-like perspective to engage in a positive critical urbanism (McFarlane 2011), aimed at the identification of new possibilities and agencies, and also at the de-framing of canonical knowledge and policies (Amin 2012).</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><b>Potential topics include:</b></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• Theorisation of critical assemblage theory and urban marginality</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• Methodological insights on an assemblage-driven urban ethnography at the margin</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• How does a vitalist approach to marginality differ from canonical scholarship?</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• The production of more-than-human subjectivity at the margin</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• Contesting categories through theoretical and empirical work</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• Becoming marginal</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• Passivity, disconnection, and urban marginality</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">• Power and assemblage theory</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Please do not limit to these suggestions; we welcome abstracts with expansive interpretations of these topics and themes (in regards both to cities of the Global North and South). <b>It is envisaged that an edited book proposal – on assembling life at the margin – may be crafted starting from the presented papers.</b> To facilitate discussion, and to be considered for the book proposal, <em>presenters will be encouraged to submit their draft papers to the Organiser at least two weeks prior the beginning of the AAG conference</em>.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><b>Please send proposed titles and abstracts of up to 250 words to Michele Lancione (<a href="mailto:michele.lancione@uts.edu.au">michelelancione@gmail.com</a>) by October 16th, 2013. </b>Selected abstracts will be accepted by October 18th in order to allow participants to meet the early bird registration deadline (October 23rd). The deadline will be then extended to the 15th of November, for the ones registering paying the full registration fees.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><br></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "><b>References</b></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; "></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Amin, A. 2012. <em>Land of Strangers</em>. Cambridge: Polity press.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Anderson, B. 2012. “Affect and Biopower: Towards a Politics of Life.” <em>Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers</em> 37 (1): 28–43.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Anderson, B., M. Kearnes, C. McFarlane, and D. Swanton. 2012. “On Assemblages and Geography.” <em>Dialogues in Human Geography</em> 2 (2): 171–189.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Bennett, J. 2010. <em>Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things</em>. Durham: Duke University Press.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Chattopadhyay, S. 2012. <em>Unlearning the City. Infrastructure in a New Optical Field</em>. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Darling, J. 2011. “Giving Space: Care, Generosity and Belonging in a UK Asylum Drop-in Centre.” <em>Geoforum</em> 42 (4): 408–417.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Desjarlais, R. 1997. <em>Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood Among the Homeless</em>. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">DeVerteuil, G. 2012. “Does the Punitive Need the Supportive? A Sympathetic Critique of Current Grammars of Urban Injustice.” <em>Antipode</em> 00 (00): no–no. doi:10.1111/anti.12001. <a href="http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/anti.12001">http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/anti.12001</a>.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Farías, I., and T. Bender, ed. 2010. <em>Urban Assemblages: How Actor- Network Theory Changes Urban Studies</em>. London: Routledge.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Gowan, T. 2010. <em>Hobos, Hustlers and Back-sliders: Homeless in San Francisco</em>. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Lancione, M. 2013. “Homeless People and the City of Abstract Machines. Assemblage Thinking and the Performative Approach to Homelessness.” <em>Area</em> 45 (3): 358–364.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">McFarlane, C. 2011. “On Context.” <em>City</em> 15 (3-4): 375–388.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Ruddick, S. 1996. <em>Young and Homeless in Hollywood. Mapping Social Identities</em>. New York: Routledge.</div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" style="font-family: Arial; ">Russell, B., A. Pusey, and P. Chatterton. 2011. “What Can an Assemblage Do?” <em>City</em> 15 (5): 577–583.</div><div style="font-family: Arial; ">Swanton, D. 2013. “The Steel Plant as Assemblage.” <em>Geoforum</em> 44: 282–291. </div></div>
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