NATIONAL CONFERENCES ON GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES 2018

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS & PANEL PROPOSALS

With environmental destruction, institutionalized violence, territorial marginality, and disenfranchisement plaguing the Philippine archipelago, the role of geographically-informed research, public discourse, and activist work have produced different iterations of mappings. New ways of mapping seek to redress various forms of inequalities.

However, going beyond its cartographical usage, mapping as a powerful undertaking has the capacity to uncover and give identity to what is otherwise obscure. Mapping does not only represent a vision of reality that is deemed located only in absolute space. Mapping as a process also created the conditions of possibility for the transformation of places and spaces beyond a singular logic of politics, economy, culture, and ecology. Mapping uncovers hidden socio-ecological entanglements and socio-spatial relationships that make sense of the world as spaces of encounters.

The 2018 National Conference on Geographical Studies (NCGS 2018) aims to unpack the contradictions of the making, unmaking, and remaking of these spaces of encounter. Spaces of encounter have long been the subject of geographical studies that problematize domination, subsumption, destruction, and co-optation, of different societies, communities, subjectivities, and ecologies.

This problematization is prevalent in representation of colonialism, patriarchy, neoliberalism, urbanization, economic restructuring, agrarian transformation, community development, educational systems, etc. While earlier representations of encounters have focused on a particular logic of power relations, scholars are beginning to problematize and understand them differently. Spaces of encounter are now seen as spaces where negotiations, dialogues, deliberations, cooperations, partnerships, among others, take place.

The Philippines is an intricate web of spaces of encounter defined by diverse identities, knowledge, physical and imagined boundaries, and experiences. However, it is when boundaries, identities, knowledge, and experiences are shed or shared that new forms of understanding and counter-strategies that challenge dominant structures emerge.

In NCGS 2018, we seek various and novel ways of mapping, mapping interventions, and productive conversations using diverse theoretical and practical approaches. We also would like to speculate what future spaces of encounter ‘ought to be’ in the context of a highly complex and digitally-mediated world.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Paper Presentations

Abstracts may be submitted to the NCGS secretariat at ncgs.ph@gmail.com on or before September 15, 2018. Submissions must be in Word format and should include an abstract of 150-250 words, keywords (3-5) and the author/s name, affiliation, email address and bionote. Presenters of accepted abstracts are encouraged to register by September 15, 2018 which is also the deadline for the early bird rate.

Panel Sessions

We are also calling for panel sessions that will feature critical social and theoretical issues relevant to geography. For panel session proposals, submissions must be in Word format and should include a 150-250 word description of the panel, keywords (3-5), and at least three panelists, with their names, institutional affiliation, email address and bionote. Decisions on panel sessions will be released on September 20, 2018. Participants of accepted panel proposals are enjoined to register by September 15, 2018 which is also the deadline for the early bird rate. Submit your panel proposals to the NCGS secretariat at ncgs.ph@gmail.com on or before September 15, 2018.