Call for Papers – Flows: Second Annual Environmental History Workshop
Date: 13 September 2019
Venue: Northumbria University, Newcastle
This one day event hosted by Northumbria University will bring together academics, early career researchers and PhD students for the Second Annual Environmental History Workshop, which aims to continue the work begun at the 2018 inaugural workshop, providing space and stimulus for dialogue between UK-based environmental historians.
The world around us today is shaped by a multitude of flows. Flows know no nation and create a transnational world. The way in which humans, animals, money, commodities, and natural resources have moved around our landscapes, and the way in which these movements have been managed, has left its mark on today’s world. Disease, organisms and bacteria have also been moved around by humans, voluntarily or involuntarily. Moreover, humans are connected to the environment through the flow of water, food, and air, and by technological infrastructures such as pipelines and electricity cables that bind local environments to global networks. Flows are not just material, however. Time, ideas, and information also flow and intersect with the material world and the environment.
This workshop will examine, in the broadest possible terms, how environments are shaped through material and abstract flows. Papers are encouraged to explore points of convergence, disruption, and cross-over. Others might explore how flows have been regulated or redirected in the past and how we might transform our more environmentally destructive flows in the future. The concept of flow might also be interrogated as one of many abstract templates for understanding the natural world.
We welcome papers which address the following topics at local, regional, national and global scales:
- Flows through landscapes, both urban and rural
- Movements of people through environments
- Energy and water
- Animal movements and migrations
- Dangerous flows; risks, vulnerabilities and solutions
- Interrupted flows; conflicts and compromises
- Capital, commodities and economic flows
- Environmental regulation and climate change
- The body, trans-human interaction
- Technology, transport and infrastructures
- Consumption, material objects and waste
We intend for these themes to be understood broadly, so that the programme represents the wide variety of environmental histories being researched in the UK today. Papers presenting work in progress, and including interdisciplinary elements are particularly encouraged, as are those by PhD students and early career researchers.
Submission Information and Guidelines:
Please send abstracts of 250 words, and a short biography of no more than 300 words to environmentalhistoryworkshop@gmail.com by 18 March 2019.
A number of small travel bursaries will be available to support PhDs and ECRs attending the workshop.
The Second Annual Environmental History Workshop is organised by Guillemette Crouzet (University of Warwick), Jane Rowling (University of Hull), and Rebecca Wright (Northumbria University).
The Environmental History Workshop is an annual event hosted at different institutions. For further information, and to get involved, visit the workshop website.