In-Spire Journal of Law, Politics and Societies
www.in-spire.org

Are We Too Many? Sustainability and Population Politics

In-Spire, the postgrad-led journal of law, politics and societies, calls for contributions for a special issue for on-line publication in summer 2009. We are looking for original academic articles that critically engage with the question of sustainability and population politics or one of its countless
aspects. We encourage contributions from a broad range of disciplines in the social sciences, including (but not limited to) political theory, criminology, sociology, international relations, law, and gender.

The question deals with two fundamental crises that seem to afflict human societies on a global scale: a crisis of the global biosphere and a crisis of the regeneration of resources, especially energy, food and water. One of the most controversial ways of dealing with the problem of
resource-finiteness in the past has been by controlling the growth of human populations. A wide range of population politics in all its variants, from birth control to migration regulation to city planning have characterised modern societies.

To what extent, and on what justification, will population politics determine the future development of societies around the globe? What, in particular, is the relation between population politics and one of the most important signifiers of contemporary political vocabulary: sustainability?  Can global capitalism only become ‘sustainable’ if human populations are stabilized or even reduced?

We invite contributions that deal with questions including (and not limited to):

- discourses about population and overpopulation
- means of regulating population and (the construction of) ‘environmental
  crimes’
- planning and transformation of cities in the context of over-population
- issues of environmental justice and morality
- feminist responses to issues of population control and sustainability
- issues of climate chaos, environmental refugees and resource distribution.

For a more detailed version of this call for papers and for more information about the journal and details on our formatting style please see the In-Spire website at: www.in-spire.org.

If you are interested in reviewing a book for our Summer issue, we have a list of books available.  Please email bookreviews@in-spire.org for an up to date copy of the list, we would love to hear from you. 

Articles, including a 200-word abstract, should be submitted in word format (or equivalent) to the managing editor, at l.j.thompson@pol.keele.ac.uk by 30th March 2009. 

Thanks,
Lucinda Thompson
In-Spire Journal of Law, Politics and Societies
www.in-spire.org
�
Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice
Keele University
Staffordshire
United Kingdom
ST5 5BG
l.j.thompson@pol.keele.ac.uk