Call for papers: Diverse Transitions

Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers Annual International Conference: 1st-3rd September 2010, London.

Session co-sponsored by the following RGS-IBG research groups: Planning and Environment Research Group; Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group; Space, Sexualities and Queer Working Group; and the Participatory Geographies Research Group.

Session convenors: Gavin Brown, Peter Kraftl, Jenny Pickerill and Caroline Upton (all University of Leicester, UK)

The concept of 'transition' has acquired increasing prominence in recent years amongst diverse constituencies of academics, policy makers and activists. The term is, perhaps, currently being discussed most in relation to 'sustainability transitions' (to a post-carbon society), particularly through engagements with the Transition Towns movement that seeks to create resilient localised economies as a grassroots response to climate change and peak oil. However, geographers have also discussed transitions in many other contexts. These include the management and planning of various processes of socio-technical transitions (Smith 2007); the legacies of post-socialist transitions (Pickles and Smith 1998; Bradshaw and Stenning 2004); young people's transitions to adulthood (Valentine 2003); and the experiences of trans people 'transitioning' from one gender identity to another (Lim and Browne 2009). In some of these contexts geographers have celebrated the potential of 'transition' as a process of progressive social change, while in others, geographers have done much to challenge the notion that transition is a universally beneficial (or even neutral) act. To date, little work has examined the inter-relationships between these diverse concepts of and perspectives on transition, or sought to directly compare different forms of transition and the distinct spatialities and temporalities involved in them. Thus, despite the diverse scales, networks, processes, communities and sites involved in contemporary transitions, there has been little attention to the diverse geographies of transition. The recognition that transitions can (and do) take many forms, prompts us to question both the contemporary emphasis on 'sustainability transitions' at the expense of other forms of transition, and the normative assumptions that are frequently made in discussions about sustainability transitions about the needs, interests and identities of the social actors involved.

Key to understanding diverse transitions is the notion of participation - who participates, whose voices are heard, who is marginalised by certain processes of transition? Moreover, such an approach requires us as geographers to get involved, be participatory ourselves, to examine how processes of transition actually operate, and in so doing enable our work, as geographers, to contribute to others' endeavours to diversify transitions processes.

This session seeks to do two things:
* To initiate a dialogue between diverse theories and concepts of transition
* To challenge the normative assumptions of many contemporary movements for sustainability transitions' to consider how they might better meet the needs of diverse publics (differentiated by age, class, dis/ability, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality etc.)

We welcome papers on a broad range of topics that address these themes from diverse perspectives. We also welcome both theoretical and empirical papers examining these themes.

Key words: transition, transformation, participation, diversity, sustainability

Please end abstracts of not more than 250 words to Gavin Brown at gpb10@le.ac.uk, by 12th February 2010.