Of particular emphasis at this conference is the focus on exploring cultural connections, and foremost amongst those are the links to Indigenous communities. In pursuing the theme of geographic connections, the conference also turns the spotlight on the discipline itself, to inquire where Geography is heading from national and international perspectives.

Abstract Submission

If you wish to submit an abstract for consideration by the Organising Committee, you must also intend to register for the Conference. Online submission is the only method of receipt of abstracts. {https://kaigi.eventsair.com/QuickEventWebsitePortal/iag2015/iag2015/Speaker|More on abstract submission} (Scroll down for details)

Agenda

Parallel Sessions

Nexus-related sessions

-Session title: Critical approaches to the resource nexus Convenors: Tira Foran and Kara Hussey This session invites critical, interdisciplinary inquiry into the resource nexus (linkages between climate, land, energy, water, and food) and people. As a policy or research agenda, how well does the 'nexus' deal with power, and other aspects of how people are situated in integrated systems approaches to development? -Session title: Practical solutions for enabling nexus synergies to promote sustainable livelihoods Convenor: Eleanor Bruce Initially emanating from the World Economic Forum 2011 and Bonn 2011 Nexus Conference, the water-energy-food nexus seeks to highlight the interdependencies across the water, energy and food sectors. The session organisers welcome papers addressing the inter-linkages between nexus sectors where practical solutions have been implemented. Such applied research may present lessons learned from both positive and negative nexus scenarios i.e. where implementing practical solutions to manage the trade-offs and/or synergies between nexus sectors have contributed to enhancing livelihoods.

Other sessions

-Session title: Resources and community development: theory and methods Convenors: David Fleming and Rachel Chapman Some Australian regions, as well as other parts of the world, faced a considerable mining boom in the last decade and the prospects of large natural gas development in the near future. As consequence of these, regional communities have and will face important challenges for their sustainability, especially considering that resource booms are temporal but the social and economic consequences that they leave can last for decades. In this session we will have papers looking at different issues that commuities face in the wave of resource booms and how we should understand their causes and approach their assessment. Theoretical focused and empirical papers will be presented in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding for geographical research and regional planning. -Session title: Critical geographies of development Convenor: Andrew McGregor Development can be thought of as a set of practices, an industry, and an imaginary. Development provides the rationale to continually seek change in search of betterment, and to form powerful transnational development networks that connect diverse peoples and places across space and scale. Development, then, is inherently geographical. -Session title: 'Antipodean geographies of development partnerships: opportunities and challenges' Convenor: Susanne Schech This session presents new Antipodean perspectives on development partnerships in a context of changing geographies of development cooperation, with a focus on cultural and relational issues. -Session title: Assembling floods, flood risk, and flood management Chair: Brian Cook This session welcomes anyone interested in floods, flood risk, or flood management, particularly those working to connect their conceptualisations and associated methods with the experiences and requirements of those who experience and attempt to govern floods. -Session title: Responses to forced displacement in the Asia Pacific Convenor: Brooke Wilmsen Concentrating on one region, Asia-Pacific, but identifying strategies with potentially wider global application, the panel includes empirically-based case studies that explore the interplay of international and national policies, laws and norms in local sites through local responses to displacement. -Session title: Legal Geography: law, science, nature Convenor: Robyn Bartel and Daniel Robertson Legal Geography is a growing sub-discipline of Geography with interests emerging in particular at the intersections of law, science and nature with both human and physical geography. -Session title: Connecting landscapes of mobilities Convenors: Tara Duncan, Maria Borovnik and David Bissell This year marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Marc Augé's seminal book Non-places: an introduction to supermodernity. This year therefore provides us with a timely opportunity to revisit questions of how mobilities and landscapes relate. Complex politics and geographies entwine research on both mobilities and landscape. -Session title: Moving bodies for geographical thought Convenors: Elaine Stratford and David Bissell Following a study group conference in 2014 and successful recent IAG sessions that have explored relations of bodies and movement, this year we want to build on this momentum by inviting papers that examine the myriad and diffuse relationships between bodies and movement in contemporary geographical thought. -Session title: New directions in cultural geography Convenors: David Bissell, Danielle Drozdzewski and Scott Sharpe Cultural geography comprises a wide-ranging group of geographical sub-disciplines. Cultural domains of geographical research continue to grow in breadth and depth, with expanding theoretical formulations, methodological approaches and fields of interest. Cultural geographers embrace the material, discursive and sensory moments of spatiality. -Session title: Micropolitics of desire and sensation Convenors: Scott Sharpe, Maria Hynes and JD Dewsbury The recent revival of interest in 'big picture' geographies presumes that the discipline has lost perspective through an over-attentiveness to detail. Alongside this trend, however, is an emergent interest in the 'micro', and specifically the 'micropolitical'. Such theories challenge the illusion of a higher order reality 'out there' awaiting our apprehension, attending instead to the constitutive role of forces in shaping contemporary reality, often in barely perceptible ways. This session will explore the idea of micropolitics, with a focus on the problems of desire and sensation. -Session title: AURIN Urban information workshop Convenor: Jack Barton -Session title: GIScience, spatial analysis and modelling Convenor: Shawn Laffran The ongoing data explosion means that there is a rapidly increasing amount of georeferenced data available across application areas relevant to many geographers. Allied to this is the constant development of new geospatial analysis methods to deal with these data to address both old and new research questions. In light of this, papers on any aspect of GIScience, spatial analysis and modelling are sought for this special session. -Session title: Military geography Convenor: Stuart Pearson The military have an increasingly complex role and the emergence of strategic military geography will be explored in this session. Papers will be broadly invited that have some military connection and this may include the land and sea management of Australian Defence Force (ADF) lands, Military policy responses to climate change, role of women in conflict resolution, the application of new technologies to natural resource management, heritage and warfare. A Strategic Military Geography Framework will be discussed as a part of the session. Papers on the geography of past, present and future military geography are invited. -Session title: Cities in a changing climate Convenor: Sarah James Australia's population density is significantly urban and coastal. Predicted climate change in the next century and beyond threatens to change urban life as we know it. Affecting issues as diverse as food, housing and transport, climatic change and associated environmental impacts is likely to affect all the systems that keep our cities functioning. -Session title: Citizenship, participation and opposition: re-democratising cities Convenor: Crystal Legacy Monno and Khakee (2012) recently declared a "crisis of participatory planning" suggesting that urban politics has transitioned into a post-political context rendering citizen participation in urban change processes void of substance and influence. This has produced a focus on 'consensus politics'. -Session title: Rural mobilities Convenor: Rae Dufty Jones As Milbourne and Kitchen (2014) suggest 'Mobility represents an important shaper of rural lifestyles and rural places. Recent work within mobilities studies has pointed to the ways in which mobility shapes people's identities and everyday lives. Much of the recent geographical scholarship on mobilities, has focused on the city, with 'the urban' constructed as the archetypal space of hyper-mobility. Less attention, however, has been given to mobilities in the context of rural spaces and places'. This session therefore seeks to address this and invites conceptual and empirical work that speaks to this topic. -Session title: The International Year of Soil - remembering the role of nature in ecosystem services and industries Convenor: Meg Sherval In 2014, FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva stated that "the multiple roles of soils often go unnoticed. Soils don't have a voice, and few people speak out for them. With 2015 declared the International Year of Soils, we now have an international platform on which to raise awareness of the importance of healthy soils and to advocate for sustainable soil management. This session invites papers that speak to this important topic. -Session title: Natural resource management, land use change and governance in peri-urban and high amenity rural areas. Taking stock. Convenors: Shaun McKiernan and Nicholas Gill In 2012 Abrams et al reviewed the environmental implications of amenity migration to rural areas, concluding that it 'is perhaps best conceptualised as a redistribution of (variably-defined) environmental harms and benefits at multiple scales, due to….

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consequences of the uneven processes of recreating rural places'. This review sought to expand upon existing research and provide a basis for more nuanced accounts of the trajectories and forms of socio-environmental change. Moreover, the review emphasised the need to look beyond peri-urban and high amenity areas themselves and to consider their relationships to other places. In this session we wish to take stock of the progress of research in this field and invite conceptual and empirical work that speaks to this topic. -Session title: Rural futures - what next? Convenor: Tony Sorensen This topic sees dramatically different economic and social futures for Australia's ruralities and asks pertinent questions about how they can best embrace the swarming new technologies we're about to encounter and avoid downside risks. -Session title: The policitcal economy of making a living in the Asia-Pacific Convenor: Tim Sharp -Session title: Governing contestable spaces Convenor: Robyn Bartel and Meg Sherval Development, resource exploitation and climate change continue to threaten fragile spaces and places globally. How these spaces are to remain protected from further exploitation depends largely on political will and strict governance regimes. This session invites conceptual and empirical papers which examine these issues nationally or internationally. -Session title: Hazards, risks and disasters session Convenor: Christine Eriksen In recent years, numerous natural hazards have triggered disasters in the Australia - Pacific region including tropical cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, heatwaves and bushfires (amongst others). Climate change is expected to drive changes in the frequency and magnitude of some weather-climate related events. Societies, businesses and governments are rapidly coming to terms with the idea of a changing 'riskscape' and are grappling with how we might adapt to and mitigate hazards and their associated disasters. -Session title: Exploring connections in health geography Convenors: Neil Coffee and Francis Markham This session brings together new contributions to the study of health geographies. Papers will address the difference that space and place make to the incidence of ill-health, health-related behaviour, dangerous consumption, the production of risky or therapeutic environments or health policies. Methodological and applied contributions are invited, with papers which bring critical theoretical inquiry to issues of health and ill-health in the context of space and place particularly welcome. -Session title: Spatial accessibility in geography: measurement issues and applications Convenor: Neil Coffee and Francis Markham The spatial accessibility of services, sites of dangerous consumption and urban amenities such as open space have been linked to a vast range of health and social outcomes. Yet the concept of spatial accessibility is often poorly theorised and insufficient attention is paid to the manner in which the operationalization of 'accessibility' impacts on analytic outcomes. This session invites applied and methodological contributions to the study of accessibility in the context of health and wellness. -Session title: Indigenous geographical research methodologies and ethics Convenors: Jessica McLean and Sandie Suchet-Pearson Indigenous geographical research methods and ethics are context specific, focus on engagement, and often speak to the core of what it is to do research in geography. Researching Indigenous geographies in an ethical way invites us to rethink what research can do, and reposition power relationships in research processes. Indeed, 'decolonized Indigenous geographies may reveal their potential to nurture, enliven, teach and transform.' (Coombes, Johnson and Howitt , 2014: 851). We welcome contributions to this session that connect to — and reflect upon — multiple nurturing, enlivening, instructive and transformative approaches within Indigenous geographical methodologies and ethics. Coombes, B., Johnson, J. and Howitt, R. 2014. Indigenous geographies III: Methodological innovation and the unsettling of participatory research, Progress in Human Geography 2014, Vol. 38(6) 845—854. -Session title: Contemporary research in Indigenous peoples' rights and knowledges Convenors: Jessica McLean and Sandie Suchet-Pearson In this session, we invite participants to talk to their contemporary practice in researching Indigenous peoples' rights and knowledges. What are the questions driving your research and what approaches are you taking to answer them? Who participates in and benefits from this research? How are Indigenous peoples' rights and knowledges driving your work and what are you learning? Can these learnings contribute to transformative change and social justice? -Session title: Urban metabolism: a useful metaphor for understanding socia-material dimensions of changing urban environments? Convenor: Ruth Lane While the metaphor of the city as organism has a long history it has gained particular prominence in recent decades as a research paradigm in industrial ecology where it informs the study of matter and energy flows through urban environments and the calculation of the ecological footprint of cities (Pincetl et al. 2012). However other paradigms for research into socio-material transformations also draw on this metaphor. For example, a political ecology paradigm focuses on the way in which such flows are underpinned by power relations that serve to manipulate resources in the interests of economic and political elites (Gandy 2004, Heynen et al. 2006, Houston and Ruming 2014), an urban ecological security paradigm around ensuring access to materials and energy needed for economic prosperity (Hodson and Marvin 2009); a paradigm of resilient cities that can withstand various environmental and climate stresses (Gleeson 2008, Ahern 2011) — and there are many more! While cities are increasingly conceptualised through socio-material frameworks, the metaphor of metabolism highlights the vitality and dynamism of the material side of this equation, directing attention to the multiple ways that materials (organic and inorganic) are produced, used, decay, reused and transformed as they move through urban environments. Researchers working across different paradigms are invited to contribute papers to this session with a view to reflect on the value of the urban metabolism metaphor for guiding research into the socio-materiality of cities and transforming urban environments. Matters of concern might include water, CO2, construction materials, waste materials, microbes, food, plants or animals, etc. -Session title: Australian cities: urban geographies Convenors: Nicole Cook and Kurt Iveson The session is designed to showcase the wide range of research that is currently undertaken by geographers working on Australian cities, through a gathering of papers that explore different dimensions of urbanisation across the full range of Australian urban environments. We welcome papers that draw on a variety of concepts and frameworks for analysis, which include, but are by no means limited to: assemblage, policy mobility, neoliberalism, post-colonialism, post-politics, affect, social diversity, encounter, materiality, political economy, political infrastructures and governmentality. The session also welcomes papers the bring urban geographical frameworks to bear on wider policy fields. -Session title: Mapping the precarious city: using GIS to document and analyse social and economic diversity in cities Convenors: Sarah Taylor, Nicole Cook and Colin Arrowsmith Brown and Knopp (2008) have argued that geographical information systems (GIS) in social research could be seen in terms of 'colliding epistemologies'. While recognising the potential for such methods to reinforce a positivist epistemology, their work highlights the broader potential of socio-spatial analysis to document populations who may be otherwise marginalised in representations of urban life. Quantitative data collection and analysis have also been critical in documenting and understanding the nature and dynamics of urban change more broadly. This includes work that has revealed the relationship between urban restructuring and global change (Fagan and Webber 1995; Pavlovskaya 2002), the uneven character of economic growth between cities and regions (McGuirk and O'Neill 2002), the relationship between social and economic marginalisation and voter-behaviour (Davis and Stimson 1998) and industrial and social change (Gordon 2014). It also includes mapping projects highlighting hidden geographies of race (Crutcher and Zook, 2009), sexuality (Brown and Knopp 2008) and gender (Kwan 2002), as well as mapping phenomenon such as graffiti (Haworth, Bruce and Iveson 2013), and access to public space (Bagheri 2013). Building on these approaches, this session welcomes papers exploring social and economic diversity, inequality or marginalisation through GIS. The session seeks to build on the quantitative and socio-spatial geographies of the 1990s, establishing the nature and extent of change in Australian cities in the early 21st century. The session is particularly interested in gaining a more coherent understanding of the broad trajectories of social inequality in what some have argued is an age of precarity (Waite 2009). In doing so it recognises that precarity may be 'less useful as a descriptor of life in general and more useful when attempting to understand particular groups in society who experience precarious lives' (Waite 2009:414). In order to better understand contemporary cities, the session is interested in papers working with data at the city-scale or at scales within the city-scale (for instance, at the suburb level, LGA/SLA, and less fixed boundaries such as those generated through interviews with communities and residents). The session also invites participants to discuss the methods underpinning such research. This may include databases that combine unusual or hard-to-get data, new research tools (mobile and other technologies); or the use of established data sets (ABS and similar). We are particularly interested in hitherto under-explored populations and processes; marginal or little-researched social groups, industries and activities in a contemporary or longer time-frames; or papers that incorporate recent trends and latest census sweeps. -Session title: Practising visual methods: applications, experiences, encounters Convenors: Peta Wolifson and Danielle Drozdzewski The past decade has seen considerable innovation in the development and use of methods both employing visual technologies and studying elements of visual culture in urban landscapes. This session hopes to mobilise discussion around both the practical use of these methods as well as their potential for adding depth to geographic research, including approaches to comparative urbanism. We intend for the session to have an informal format, where presenters can discuss the use of visual methods in their own studies, issues of concern with visual methodologies as well as any breakthroughs the participants may have had with the application of new techniques. The session hopes to encourage a sharing and development of ideas and is open to all those interested in the use of visual methods. We particularly encourage postgraduate research students to apply. We would also like to urge researchers dealing with different issues of temporality in their use of visual methods to apply, and those whose research is conducted in both the majority and minority world.

Panel Sessions

-Session title: Pedagogic dilemmas in development studies Convenors: Sarah Wright and Paul Hodge This session, sponsored by the Critical Development Study Group, will stimulate discussion on pedagogy within Development Studies. The interactive session will ponder some thorny pedagogical issues particularly as we work with future development practitioners. Nominated presenters will be asked to present for 5 minutes on a pedagogical dilemma. -Session title: Theoretical intervention in development studies Convenors: Paul Hodge and Sarah Wright This session, sponsored by the Critical Development Study Group, will engage a range of theoretical angles and openings that resonate within contemporary development studies. Faced with the reality of intractable poverty – in both the Majority and Minority worlds – heightened global security, rising migration flows of people and things, as well as heterogeneous manifestations of development's promise, theoretical interventions (explanations, enactments, performances) continue to proliferate. Nominated presenters will be asked to present for 5 minutes on a theoretical intervention in development studies. -Session title: Report from the National Committee for Geographical Sciences Convenor: Alaric Maude The National Committee for Geographical Sciences is a committee of the Academy of Science, and its role is to foster the geographical sciences in Australia, to link the Academy to Australian geographers and relevant scientific societies, and to serve as a link between Australian and overseas geographers, primarily through the International Geographical Union. Over the past year the Committee has made some significant decisions.