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II European Geographies of Sexualities Conference: Call for papers

Sexualities have become a legitimate and significant area of geographical research, across diverse areas ranging from cultural, social and feminist geographies, to political and economic domains. One of the main characteristics of studies on sexualities has been its critical and reflexive perspective, namely questioning hegemonies and modes of sexualised power relations. Although this work has brought some significant changes and developments, still, many of the contemporary modes of knowledge production reflect inequalities and hegemonies that need to be challenged.

The II European Geographies of Sexualities Conference wants to create a space of debate, discussion and questioning to explore how we might attempt to move beyond such normative domains and practices.

Conference sessions and papers will contribute to the questioning and debating the following topics:

• The hegemony of heteronormativity in social relations and everyday environments, and across various other spaces;
• The hegemony of the ‘Western’ views, the relative invisibility, and lesser significance of research on sexualities in other social and cultural contexts, as constraints in exploring cross-cultural variations on sexual diversity and complexity;
• The hegemony of English in academic publishing and wider modes of knowledge production systems; work on sexualities in diverse languages has become obscured and thus devalued, as reflected in invisible citation records and general knowledge about its very existence;
• The hegemony of large publishing companies which although profit- rather than ethos-driven do influence and control the academic knowledge, decide on its relevance, influence academic career and funding prospects;
• The hegemony of globalisation discourses; ‘sexual citizenship’ and its relation to the key sites of contemporary sexual politics and theoretical debates on sexuality in relation to consumption, space and globalization;
• The hegemony of whiteness and how it mediates other social categories such as gender, sexuality, religion, social class and so forth;
• The male hegemony in the ‘power positions’ in academia, and as valued knowledge producers; intersections of gender and sexualities research;
• Knowledge production through quantitative methods, measuring sexualities.

A comprehensive text of this call for papers is available at Beyond hegemonies.

We encourage contributions in a diverse range of formats. Alongside traditional academic conference papers, we welcome panel discussions, open space discussions, film screenings, installations and other contributions. We seek to foster networking, debate and discussions across national borders, across language communities, and across academic disciplines.

Language: we currently do not have funding for the translation at the conference. We plan a multilingual conference, and encourage participants to present in the language they feel most comfortable in using.

Interested contributors should send a max. 300-word abstract of a paper, or a max 500 word proposal of a session/panel discussion/other activity/format via online submissions  by 28th February 2013 – Sessions and 31st March 2013 – Papers.

The conference is organised by:

• Centre for Geographical Studies, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Lisbon (CEG-UL)
• e-GEO, Research Centre for Geography and Regional Planning, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
• Space, Sexualities and Queer Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers)

In 14/02/2013

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