Royal Geographical Society (GS) annual international conference 2012

The three day Annual International Conference of the RGS-IBG attracts over 1,200 geographers from around the world.

Conference Chair: Chris Philo, University of Glasgow

Among the call for papers is: The role of security in disaster risk reduction for natural hazards.

The session aims to explore: What can we learn from studies in security to make natural hazard evacuations more effective? How do hazard mitigation efforts impact upon, for example, food security? And, How do disasters create and/or exacerbate issues areas around biosecurity, war, and conflict?

Theme: Security of geography/geography of security

The theme is to explore the many intersections between geography and security: meaning both the security of geography and the geography of security. The idea is to work between an ‘inward-looking’ concern for the well-being of geographical research, learning, teaching and communication, and an ‘outward-looking’ concern for how worldly geographies are deeply implicated in achieving or compromising the security of environments, peoples and communities.

Attention should be given to ways of securing the subject of geography in the face of educational restructuring at schools and financial restructuring of university teaching and research, as well as set against growing governmental (and even popular) demands to show impact, relevance and applicability. Success in this respect may then depend on demonstrating what a geographical perspective – spanning the sciences through to the humanities – can offer attempts at understanding and countering multiple sources of insecurity (environmental, climatic, economic, ‘national’, digital, personal).

A critical sensibility is needed, however, to ensure that the will to create security, whether for an academic subject or in real-world situations, does not descend into simplistic drawing and policing of boundaries around whatever is to be secured.

The invitation to all geographers, physical and human, is to ask challenging questions about matters of geography and security which advance intellectual and practical agendas, addressing issues of major scientific and social significance, while also cultivating the institutional supports upon which our own ability to contribute as a subject necessarily depend.