The Population Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Bob Woods Postgraduate Dissertation Prize.

The prize is named in honour of Professor Bob Woods, who passed away in 2011. Bob was an esteemed population geographer, with interests across the sub-discipline. He made an invaluable contribution to population geography for many decades.

The prize is open to any taught postgraduate (Masters) dissertation with a population geography focus and the winner of the award will receive £100.

Please send copies of dissertations to Dr Sam Scott (Sam.Scott@exeter.ac.uk), Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ.

Deadline 29 February 2012.

Geographical, social and area type mobility:  trajectories of selective sorting over time by health status and ethnic group

ESRC White Rose DTC Network Studentship – University of Leeds, School of Geography

Session 2012-2013 – Closing Date 17 February 2012

Principal Supervisior: Dr Paul Norman, University of Leeds

Co-Supervisor: Dr Dimitris Ballas, University of Sheffield

For Further details, contact Paul Norman – Tel: +44 (0)113 34 38199, Email: p.d.norman@leeds.ac.uk

CALL FOR PAPERS

  Innovative Perspectives on Population Mobility:

Mobility, Immobility and Well-being

2^nd-3^rd July 2012

Hosted by the University of St Andrews

under the auspices of the Population Geography Research Group (RGS-IBG) and the ESRC Centre for Population Change

The ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC) and the RGS-IBG Population Geography Research Group invite contributions for a conference on innovative perspectives on population mobility. This conference will be held in St. Andrews on 2^nd and 3^rd July 2012.

Population mobility is one of the key components of demographic change in contemporary Western societies. Given the strong links between mobility and spatial processes in housing and labour markets, the current economic crisis and rapidly rising levels of ethnic diversity provide impetus for looking afresh at how we conceptualise and investigate population mobility. Motivations for moving arise from an entangled mix of economic and non-economic factors. Understanding why people move and the (un)intentional consequences of mobility therefore requires consideration of perceptions of subjective wellbeing, as well as economic gain.

Increasingly diverse household structures and more complex life course trajectories (across educational, employment and housing ‘life careers’) make it ever more important to understand migration events and the impacts of moving within the context of long-term individual and household biographies. Furthermore, understanding how the outcomes of mobility vary for different social groups and across different geographical spaces is also of value.  Developing new longitudinal techniques and harnessing new sources of data on migration decision-making and behaviour are therefore key mechanisms to help understand the new geographies of mobility. As Western populations age, understanding why people do not move and the consequences this immobility could have for individuals, households and geographical regions is also of great policy relevance.

The conference will have two strands. The first strand will showcase and critically discuss the principle findings of the first three years of the ESRC’s Centre for Population Change research programme, with particular reference to population mobility and well-being (mainly focussed on UK-based research using a range of secondary datasets such as the BHPS). Rapporteurs will evaluate and critique a range of innovative research undertaken under this multi-disciplinary programme.

The second strand, which is the focus of this call for papers, invites other researchers (such as members of the RGS PGRG) to present papers on a range of new approaches to the study of population mobility, immobility and wellbeing, as well as on other innovative concepts or data sources relevant to analysing mobility. International case studies will be particularly welcome. Contributions in this strand could address (but are not limited to) the following topics:

1)    Population mobility and human wellbeing

2)    New data sources and techniques to analyse mobility decision-making behaviour

3)    Population (im)mobility in times of economic uncertainty

Abstracts of 100-200 words should be submitted to Rory Coulter, Department of Geography and Sustainable Development, School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews: e-mail <rcc28@st-andrews.ac.uk> by 29th February 2012.  Notification of abstract acceptance will be acknowledged by email by 8^th March 2012. Rory Coulter and Allan Findlay <amf21@st-andrews.ac.uk> are also happy to answer any questions about the meeting.

Further Particulars: The St Andrews meeting is timed to fit with the RGS Annual Conference, being held in Edinburgh 3-5th July 2012. The St Andrews conference session on Tuesday 3rd July will finish in time to allow those delegates who wish to travel to Edinburgh to arrive for afternoon sessions on 3rd July. Registration and details about booking accommodation (in New College, St Andrews) will be circulated in early March.

Population Geography Research Group-sponsored sessions at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2012

Please find below CFPs for paper sessions sponsored by the Population Geography Research Group (PopGRG) at the 2012 RGS-IBG Annual Conference in Edinburgh (3^rd-5^th July). The deadline for submission of abstracts to session convenors is 20^th January 2012. The PopGRG will also sponsor a panel session on the emerging challenges and opportunities facing population geography – the abstract is provided below.

The PopGRG in collaboration with the ESRC Centre for Population Change will also co-host a pre-Edinburgh meeting at St. Andrews University, focused on migration. This meeting will take place on 2^nd-3^rd July 2012. Further details and calls for papers will be circulated shortly.

Calls for Papers – RGS-IBG 2012 paper sessions

Dismantling diasporas: rethinking the geographies of diasporic identity, mobility and development

Session convenors: Elizabeth Mavroudi, Loughborough University; and Anastasia Christou, University of Sussex

This session wishes to re-energise debates on the conceptualisation of diasporas in geographical scholarship and beyond. In particular, there is a need to engage with the potential tension between ‘roots and routes’ that those in diaspora often face and geographers are in an excellent position to further such debates. This session aims to open up discussion on the complex ways in which diasporas create and maintain connections and spaces with each other and their homelands, how they construct and imagine place, and the repercussions in terms of homeland involvement and development. Perhaps more importantly, it stresses the need to consider diasporas as dynamic and evolving, rather than as static entities or categories. In this way we can pay attention to the power relations, inclusions and exclusions that take place within and beyond diasporas. We therefore want to shed more light on the conceptual use of diaspora but also on the changing geopolitical/social/economic/cultural role diasporas play in contemporary home/host societies through empirical case studies.

Themes we would like to focus on include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Constructing diasporas: ambivalence, in-between-ness, actively creating, invoking and using identities, homes, belonging, nationalism, national identity and place
• Affecting diasporas: embodied diasporas, emotionalities, defying representation and categorization
• Dividing diasporas: power relations, tensions, disunities, fragmentation, inclusions, exclusions within and between diasporas
• Extreme diasporas: how and why diasporas may become involved in extreme, strategic activities, such as terrorism, extreme and exclusive notions of nationalism, geopolitics and geographies of security involving diasporas
• Bridging diasporas: symbolic, material, virtual socio-cultural, economic and political connections and spaces within, between and beyond diasporas
• Returning diasporas: physical/virtual return, circular migration, brain circulation, brain exchange, transnational/translocal homecoming visits
• Empowering diasporas: agency, impacts on homeland/host country socio-cultural, economic and political development and security, conflict resolution, self-determination, liberation movements.

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Liz Mavroudi (E.Mavroudi@lboro.ac.uk) and Anastasia Christou (A.Christou@sussex.ac.uk) by 20^th January 2012.

Calls for Papers – RGS-IBG 2012 paper sessions

Rethinking the (In) security/ Migration Nexus

Session convenors: Nir Cohen, Bar Ilan University (Israel); Ibrahim Sirkeci, Regents College London (UK).

While the migration / security nexus is hardly new, as exemplified by anti-migration laws implemented in some countries during both World Wars, the last decade has witnessed a considerable increase in interest in its various forms and manifestations. Driven largely by the events of September 2001, the US-led so called ‘War on Terror’ and, more recently, the global financial crisis, migrants – including asylum seekers and refugees – are often conceived as a threat to the socio-economic, cultural and political security of ‘Western’ nations. Vilifying, xenophobic discourse, anti-migrant riots, and tightened, high-technology border control systems geared to ‘contain’ in-migration flows are now a daily spectacle in an ever-growing number of countries and cities. Nevertheless, concerns of (in) security are not limited to wars or armed conflicts; indeed, a broader definition of conflict – including latent or explicit forms of it (e.g. community level tensions, individual disagreements, disputes) – provides a useful framework to understand the perception of insecurity and its relevance to human mobility. Migrants and non-migrants alike react to the perceived insecurities around them, be they economic (e.g. lack of suitable jobs), political (e.g. paucity of participation channels), or socio-cultural (e.g. ethnic discrimination).

The purpose of this session is to rethink old and debate new linkages between migration – and other forms of mobility – and security at multiple scales. Informed by recent understandings of security as both a strategic objective and a socio-political value (Huysmans & Squire, 2009), we seek papers that articulate security as a broad array of real and imagined practices, technologies and discourses that manage, control and govern people’s migratory experiences. We are particularly interested in papers that embed securities in urban contexts and attend to the contested politics of securitized spaces and places in cities. Possible topics include:

• Security in/of/through borders and barriers
• Economic (in)security and migration
• Migration as a threat to national security
• Migration and personal (in)security
• ‘Compromising our lifestyle’ – migrants as threat to cultural security
• Securing migratory routes
• Migration and (in)security in cities
• Securities in/of/for households
• (In)securities at destination
• Gender and (in) security
• (In)security and return migration
• Remittances and (in)security
• Perceptions of (in)security

Please send abstracts (up to 300 words) to Nir.Cohen@biu.ac.il and Sirkecii@regents.ac.uk by 20^th January 2012.

Calls for Papers – RGS-IBG 2012 paper sessions

The geographies of graduate migration and mobility: dealing with (in)security, uncertainty and globalisation

Session convenors: Aga Szewczyk (Loughborough University); Kate Botterill (Newcastle University).

There has been a growing internationalisation of higher education systems with increasing numbers of people attending university within and beyond their country of origin. At the same time, graduate unemployment is on the rise and migrants experience differential access to labour market opportunity, related to national qualifications frameworks, immigration policies and border security. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the emerging geographies of graduate mobility and migration and how such factors encourage, constrain or inhibit mobility to particular places.

This session wishes to engage in the geographies of graduate mobility and migration, both in terms of policy frameworks and at the individual level. The session aims to highlight the role of mobility and migration in the lives of graduates in times of global economic uncertainty. One of the anticipated outcomes of the session is to gain insight and develop a better knowledge of the constraints and opportunities graduates face in pursuit of their life goals.

The session committee invite proposals for papers from those working in or (in)between the fields of Geography, Politics and Migration, Diaspora Studies and Education. Postgraduate students are especially welcome and encouraged to participate. In particular, we are interested in papers addressing the following issues:

-          Migration and mobility of graduate students and graduates from A8 countries

-          Social and spatial mobility of graduates within European Union and beyond

-          Links between highly skilled migration and graduate migration

-          Theories of graduate migration and mobility

-          Graduate identities in the context of mobility, e.g. the emotional and social constructions of home and belonging, personal transitions through mobility

-          Impacts of graduate migration and mobility on host country and homeland contexts , e.g. economic growth, development and security, community integration

-          The graduate labour markets within EU and of international contexts

-          Graduate career development across the space of their home countries and in wider EU and international contexts

-          Graduate migration and mobility in relation to transnationalism and diaspora, and transnational flows, networks and connections

The prospective presenters are asked to submit their paper proposals (please try to keep abstracts to 250 words) by 20 January 2012 to Aga Szewczyk (A.P.Szewczyk@lboro.ac.uk) and Kate Botterill (katherine.botterill@newcastle.ac.uk).

Calls for Papers – RGS-IBG 2012 paper sessions

The spatial and job mobility nexus ‒ Migration and securing security

Session Convenors: David McCollum, University of St Andrews; Darja Reuschke, University of St Andrews.

The nature of labour market trajectories in post-industrial economies has been the focus of much academic interest, as have the moves that individuals make for career motivated reasons. However, less attention has been paid to the interrelation between spatial and job mobility, especially in the context of unease surrounding job security in the face of economic restructuring and more recently the global economic crisis. Existing evidence generally points to a positive association between career driven migration and labour market outcomes, although some research suggests that economic restructuring has blurred the correlation between spatial mobility and occupational outcomes. Conventional understanding postulates that individuals move to generate greater returns for their labour. However, the global economic crisis may have reconfigured the nature of the spatial and job mobility nexus in significant ways, for example through uncertainty perhaps encouraging individuals to seek to retain their current employment rather than pursue opportunities for short-term upward mobility elsewhere through migration. Thus financial security might become more important in influencing the choices that individuals make when weighing up options regarding spatial mobility.

This session seeks to explore the relationship between spatial and job mobility, specifically in the context of migration as a strategy to secure individual and household security. It also attempts to explore the outcomes of mobility from the perspective not only of career progression but also in terms of the extent to which migration secures financial security. The two key themes of interest are thus: security and migration decisions and migration and security outcomes.

Papers are welcomed which provide empirical or theoretical insights into these themes. We are seeking paper contributions on topics that include (but are not limited to) the following:

‒          Spatial mobility or immobility as a strategic response to (in)security

‒          Whether or how migration (or immobility) secures security

‒          Housing (in)security and migration

‒          Career strategies, job security and migration

‒          Changes in employment status and security as a driver or consequence of internal migration

Abstracts of 250 words (including the paper title and the author’s contact details) should be sent to David McCollum (dm82@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Darja Reuschke (dr35@st-andrews.ac.uk) by 20^th January 2012.

‘Pop’ goes Population Geography

Session convenor: Darren Smith (Loughborough University).

For the last few decades, reviews of the state of population geography have been provided seemingly every ten years (e.g. Findlay and Graham, 1991), often highlighting the advances within the sub-discipline and offering some fruitful ways forward.  In this panel session, invited contributors will consider how the agenda outlined by Graham and Boyle (2001) has been embraced over the last decade.  Contributors will outline: the emerging research challenges facing population geography and policy relevance of population geography; opportunities and constraints tied to developments in other sub-disciplines which have increasingly engaged with issues often viewed as the remit of population geographers; the vibrancy of population geography’s close relationship with Demography and quantitative research; and, how population geography can contribute to many of the global challenges facing developed and developing world contexts.

IGU – Cologne 2012 – 26–30 Aug.

https://igc2012.org/

The aim of the session is to discuss the consequences of the current move by numerous countries from traditional decennial censuses to population register and targeted surveys.

This move has many advantages but also potential drawbacks for population geographers: some variables that were collected for decades disappear as they are not recorded in population registers, some populations might be underrepresented, and surveys might be inadequate to study phenomenon such as ethnic, professional or cultural discrimination at a detailed geographical scale.

The session aim is twofold:

1/ Establish a state of the art of data collection trends and of the move toward post-census data collection systems.

2/ Exchange experiences about the positive and negative aspects of that move for population geographers

3/ Establish a “best-practice” list that would clarify the needs of population geographers and that would be useful for statistical offices worldwide.

https://igc2012.org/frontend/index.php?ses_id=3e91eb3b6b991bd4eb97ef67c9034e38&cs=12&page_id=393

Abstract submission close on 15 December 2011

https://igc2012.org/frontend/index.php?folder_id=84&ses_id=b150de36c0a410d039a30b60e556664e

For more information please contact Etienne.piguet@unine.ch

Etienne Piguet

Professeur

Institut de géographie

MAPS – Maison d’analyse des processus sociaux

Université de Neuchâtel

Espace Louis-Agassiz 1

2000 Neuchâtel

Switzerland

++41 32 7181919

Http://www.unine.ch/geographie