4^th International Conference on Geographies of Children, Young people  and Families.
San Diego. January 12-15, 2015
http://icgcsandiego.wix.com/ypbw

Paper Session Organizers: Lia Karsten and Willem van Vliet

Session theme: Childfriendly cities: critical approaches

Many of the papers within children’s geographies end with some kind of recommendation for the building of childfriendly cities. But what do we mean by childfriendly cities? In this workshop we want to explore different ways of conceptualizing children, cities, childfriendliness and their interrelationships.

Policies aimed at childfriendly cities presuppose that cities are not childfriendly: cities have to change in order to become child-friendly. This supposition reveals an anti-urban way of thinking. It juxtaposes the urban jungle vs. the rural idyll.These contrasting connotations are very much based on the relatively poor provision of outdoor play facilities in urban environments and their assumed abundance in rural environments. But today, enrichment activities have become more prominent in many children’s everyday life.  Will this emphasis on enrichment activities change the rural into the urban idyll?

Childfriendly approaches/policies/actions  and the conceptualization of children as the ‘same’ as and as ‘different’ from adults. In modernist planning, childfriendly interventions often imply creating child-specific facilities and spaces: designated  especially and ‘only’ for children. This approach views children as fundamentally different from adults. They are defined as vulnerable and in need of specific protection and provision.  Age-specific playgrounds are a good example of this. Another way of creating childfriendly cities is by building inclusive cities in which children’s needs are taken into account without isolating them in their own domains. Wide sidewalks, as advocated by Jane Jacobs, are a good  example.  This second approach views children as essentially similar to adults as citizens of the city.  The question thus arises: Which of these two approaches is better for creating child-friendly cities? This question, in turn, leads to an examination of different definitions of  childfriendliness.

Childfriendly cities and children’s own definitions. What do children themselves consider childfriendly? Do their definitions differ from those held by  adults?  Further, children are not a homogeneous group.  Do we find differences in children’s own definitions of child-friendliness across gender, age group, social class, racial and ethnic background, residential location?  And how can we best support children’s participation in city planning and urban development to promote child-friendly outcomes??

This paper session aims to critically explore different issues related to childfriendly cities.

We invite researchers to send title and abstract of a maximum of 250 words by August 15 to both Lia Karsten (c.j.m.karsten@uva.nl) and Willem van Vliet (willem@colorado.edu  ). We will reply before the 1^st of September and intend to select papers for a special issue of the Journal: Children, Youth and Environments to be published in 2015-16.

Society for the History of Children and Youth
Eighth Biennial Conference: “In Relation: Children, Youth, and Belonging”
shcyhome.org

June 24-26, 2015
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Submission Deadline: October 1, 2014

The Program Committee invites proposals for panels, papers, roundtables or workshops that explore histories of children and youth from any place and in any era. We will, however, give particular attention to proposals with a strong historical emphasis and that bear on the theme of this year’s conference. Relationships are foundational to human lives and to children’s experience of the world. They might involve coercion and suffering, or agency and liberation. Domestic relationships with parents, caregivers, siblings, relatives, and pets shape young people’s sense of self, their experiences and their place in the world. Wider relationship circles, including those with peers and adult professionals such as teachers, doctors, police, and social workers, likewise affect young people’s position in the world in diverse ways. The complex effects of large-scale events and phenomena including colonization, imperialism, war, industrialization, urbanization, and disease epidemics, among others, have both direct and indirect effects on young peoples’ relationships that vary across time and cultural context. Virtual relationships facilitated by letter writing and, more recently, digital technology, provide young people with a distinctive window onto international connections and cross-cultural influences. Relations of power, often uneven and always nuanced by gender, race, class, sexuality, and (dis)ability, flow through all relationships that young people forge and encounter. Historical research that explores the varied meanings attached to the range of relationships young people experience usefully expands our understanding of both the past and present.

Foci for papers and sessions, for example, might explore:

• theorizing relationality as a key concept in the history of children and youth, characterizing intimate as well as global relations
• Indigeneity and relations shaped by colonization and imperialism, as well as Indigenous agency and resilience
• the impact of large and small scale social change on young people’s relationships
• relationships shaped by race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and (dis)ability
• the challenge of historicising emotional aspects of relationships within families, communities and nations
• intergenerational relations in the nature and flow of young people’s lives
• the spatiality of relationships in homes, schools, institutions and other places
• the role of travel, mobility, and migration in forging and maintaining relationships for young people
• the fashioning and living out of childhood and youth as a dialogic or relational process.
• Children, youth, and adult professionals

We strongly encourage, and will give priority to, submissions of complete panel sessions that incorporate international representation and global perspectives. Individual papers will also be considered. We also welcome proposals for non-traditional and experimental panel sessions that extend historical research in unusual directions (eg. research-in-progress workshops, methods and theory workshops, material culture explorations, etc.)

For more information, go to the conference website: http://shcyhome.org/conference/

“Struggle and Style: African Youth Cultures Today”

12 September 2014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Call for papers and sessions

“Struggle and Style: African Youth Cultures Today” is an international symposium organized by the University of Helsinki’s discipline of Social and Cultural Anthropology in cooperation with South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council. The symposium seeks to address current issues concerning youth cultures across Africa from an interdisciplinary perspective, and warmly welcomes contributions from across the humanities and social sciences.

This symposium expands upon the themes in the previously advertised event “Struggle and Swagg: South African Youth Today” which will form one part of the symposium program.

“Struggle and Style” approaches youth as a flexible and often prolonged period of life; according to conventional measures, such as establishing an independent household, many Africans remain reluctantly “youthful” well into their 30s. Yet even by more basic measurements, Africa is experiencing a demographic “bulge” with approximately sixty per cent the population under 24 years of age. Subject to high levels of unemployment and relatively low levels of education, Africa’s youth are alternatively depicted as a “ticking time bomb” ready to explode if new opportunities are not made available, and a vital asset to be harnessed in rapidly developing economies.

It is in the cultural sphere that African youth are increasingly exercising their economic muscle and making their voices heard. Youth are the key producers of popular media and style, and the key market for information and communications technology. Youth culture, particularly popular music, has had an important economic and social impact on African society and the global African diaspora.

It is therefore necessary to understand African youth cultures from perspectives that move beyond the familiar narratives of youth as a social problem or youth as an undifferentiated statistical cohort. This symposium seeks to work towards more nuanced understandings of the cultural lives of young people in Africa, taking into account not just factors such as ethnic and class differences, but questions of consumerism, gender, globalization, media, migration, music, sexuality, spirituality, technology, pedagogy and urbanization.

We invite individual presentations (30 minutes including discussion) and complete sessions (90 minutes). Proposals (abstracts with approximately 250 words) with contact information should be submitted to struggleandstyle@gmail.com by 21 July 2014. Notifications of acceptance will sent on 25 July 2014 by email. News and updates on the program will be available on the project blog (www.southafricanyouthtoday.com).  We have confirmed two international keynote speakers, Alex Perullo (Bryant University, USA) and Benita Moolman (Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa).

The symposium organizers regret that they are unavailable to provide funds for the travel or accommodation costs of participants.

The Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub Wrocław in cooperation with the University of Wrocław invite young scholars (PhD candidates and postdocs), to take part in the SeminarLiterary margins and digital media to be held in Wrocław (Poland) on 15-17 April 2015.

Full information is available at: www.acadeuro.wroclaw.pl  and on www.ae-info.org.

36th Annual Southwest Popular / American Culture Association Conference
February 11-14, 2015
Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center
Albuquerque, NM
http://www.southwestpca.org

The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area welcomes papers,
panels, and other proposals on games (digital and otherwise) and their
study and development. The Area is also offering a three hour workshop
titled “Empathy Game Design: A Quick Introduction” on the first day of
the conference.

– PROPOSAL SUBMISSION –
Possible topics include (but are in no way limited to):

• Advertising (both in-game and out)
• Alternative reality games
• Archiving and artifactual preservation
• Competitive/clan gaming
• Design and development
• Economic and industrial histories and studies
• Educational games and their pedagogies
• Foreign language games and culture
• Game art/game-based art (including game sound)
• Haptics and interface studies
• Histories of games
• Localization
• Machinima
• MOGs, MMOGs, and other forms of online/networked gaming
• Performance
• Pornographic games
• Religion and games
• Representations of race and gender
• Representations of space and place
• The rhetoric of games and game systems
• Serious games
• Strategy games
• Table-top games and gaming
• Technological, aesthetic, economic, and ideological convergence
• Theories of play
• Wireless and mobile gaming

For paper proposals: Please submit a 250 word abstract and brief
biographical sketch to the conference event management site:
http://conference2014.southwestpca.org/. Make sure to select the Game
Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice topic area. The submission
deadline is 11/1/2014.

For panel and other proposals: Feel free to query the Area Chair first
(Judd Ruggill, Arizona State University, jruggill@asu.edu). Panel and
other proposals should also be submitted to the conference event
management site and include the information requested for individual
paper proposals (each on a separate submission form), as well as a
100-word statement of the panel’s raison d’etre and any noteworthy
organizational features.

As always, proposals are welcome from any and all scholars (including
graduate students, independent scholars, and tenured, tenure-track,
and emeritus faculty) and practitioners (developers, artists,
archivists, and so forth). Also, unusual formats, technologies, and
the like are encouraged.

– AWARD –
Graduate students accepted to present in this area may apply for the
conference’s monetary Computer Culture and Game Studies Award. The
full paper is due to the judges on 12/15/2014. For details on this
award and the conference’s other awards for graduate students, see
http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/.

– WORKSHOP –
The Area Research Coordinator is pleased to announce this year’s Game
Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice workshop, “Empathy Game Design: A
Quick Introduction.” The workshop will be led by Carly Kocurek
(Illinois Institute of Technology). Participants will explore the
emerging genre of empathy games, which includes titles such as
_Depression Quest_, _Spent_, _That Dragon_, _Cancer_, and _dys4ia_,
and work collaboratively to conceptualize games of their own. No
technical knowledge or prior experience is necessary.

The workshop is limited to 10 participants, and the goal is for
participants to leave with a game concept and list of potential
development tools. The limited number of participants will ensure that
everyone involved will get the time and attention they need. If you
would like to enroll in the workshop, please email a 100-250 word
statement of interest to the Area Research Coordinator (Jennifer
deWinter at jdewinter@wpi.edu) and Carly Kocurek (ckocurek@iit.edu).
Nota bene: There is no charge for the workshop (for registered
conference presenters/attendees).

The submission deadline is 1/15/15.

– COLLABORATION & PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES –
The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area is international in
scope and emphasizes diversity, an openness to innovative approaches
and presentations, and the energetic practice of post-conference
collaboration and publication.

The Area Research Coordinator would like to note the following
publication opportunities for this year’s participants:

1) The SWPACA’s peer-reviewed journal, _Dialogue: The
Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy_, welcomes
submissions. Please visit http://journaldialogue.org for information
on the journal and submission process.

2) As an official affiliate of the SWPACA, _Reconstruction: Studies in
Contemporary Culture_ always welcomes papers, especially from new
scholars and from emerging disciplines. For more information about the
journal, visit http://reconstruction.eserver.org/.

For more information about these opportunities, or to discuss others,
please email the Area Research Coordinator (Jennifer deWinter,
jdewinter@wpi.edu).