---- Forwarded Message -----
From: "martin dodge" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 8:07:48 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Mapping Underground cfp for the RGS-IBG conference
Hello maps-l,
this call for papers might be of interest to some.
cheers
martin
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Call for papers - 2010 RGS-IBG Annual International Conference,
1-3rd September 2010, London, UK
Mapping Underground
Representing Subterranean Spaces, Practices and Cultures
Session organisers:
Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins
Geography, School of Environment & Development, University of Manchester
Context:
What lies beneath the ground is hidden and usually unrepresented but is
vital for many spaces and practices occurring above. In these concealed
and largely impenetrable subterranean spaces lurk unknown dangers and the
possibilities for adventurous exploration; moreover they serve as
potentially profitable resources, as engineering challenges to overcome,
as risks to be mapped and managed, as a spring of spiritual well-being or
the site of death and burial, as the source of artefacts of the human past
to be recovered and conserved, and as a scientific record of geologic
histories. The diversity of subterranean spaces, practices and cultures
have attracted scholarly attention including concern for symbolic and
multi-layered mythologies of representation (Rosalind Williams, David
Pike), the strangely sublime nature of underground infrastructures like
drains and ducts (Paul Dobraszczyk, Geoff Manaugh), the psychic anxieties
of the unmappable underground (Steve Pile), the political economy and
social ecology of subterranean facilities and flow (Matthew Gandy, Maria
Kaika). Beyond the academy there is also burgeoning 'amateur' interest in
charting the subterranean extent of cities (with substantial books
documenting the arcane underground features of, for example, Liverpool,
London, Manchester and Manhattan), along with obsessive collecting
behaviour of enthusiasts mapping out all the tunnels and 'lost' stations,
and recording war-time bunkers, emergency shelters and other forgotten
subterranean heritage.
On most topographic maps the representation of space stops at the ground
level but there are many specialised geographic visualizations of the
underground. Examples include colourful and cryptically labelled
geological maps, complex engineering plans of tunnels and sewers,
volumetric models, and profiles of strata employed in oil exploration and
mineral extraction, geo-physical subsurface displays produced with
reflected mapping of radar and sound waves penetrating the solid ground
surface. We seek theoretically informed papers that consider how and why
the underground has been mapped (and not mapped), relating characteristics
of subterranean spaces to different forms of representational practice and
visual culture.
Suggested themes might be across the following binaries:
· Mapping the underground as spaces of weapons and war / representing the
underground as a safe refuge and as peaceful resting place
· Mapping subterranean transportation, flow and mobility / mapping hidden
infrastructures of governance, control and monitoring
· Subterranean spaces of scientific knowledges: geological, geophysical,
mineralogical, archaeological, climatic science, speleological, and
palaeontological mapping practices / mythological understandings, deeper
senses and alternate ways of knowing what lies below
· The underground as impenetrable, secret, and unknown / urban
exploration, photographic exposure and subterranean touristic experiences
· The Hadean underworld symbolized as site of death and damnation / the
earthly underground charted as source of life, rebirth and healing
· Aesthetic and artistic challenges to envision the underground /
technological capacities to more accurately survey subterranean spaces
· Subterranean sanitary potential for clean water and cleansing wastes /
underground spaces seen as soiled, pathogenic, polluted and polluting
· Mapping space for rubbish dumps and disposal / representing
subterranean resources and potential extractive riches
· Mapping human / non-human animal underground practices
· Mapping underground spaces of punishment and imprisonment / representing
subterranean escape and evasion
· Mapping the everyday mundane subterranean city / representing the
inexplicable, exotic or fantastical things lurking down below
· Imagined and romanticised undergrounds / mapping the materially
engineered and mechanical reality of subterranean services
· Mapping organic, active and living underground ecologies / solid
subterranean spaces seen as lifeless voids or inert geological matter
· Mapping the liminal boundary between above / below
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Proposed papers with a title and short abstract (250 words maximum) should
be submitted to Martin Dodge ([log in to unmask]) by 31 January
2010. Further details on conference are at www.rgs.org/AC2010
Martin Dodge
Geography
School of Environment and Development,
The University of Manchester,
Oxford Road,
Manchester, M13 9PL
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