Sheffield Space & Place Workshop – May 2016 – local call for papers

The Sheffield Hallam University Space & Place Research Group are planning an ‘awayday’ workshop at the end of Semester 2. Whilst the event is largely targeted at SHU staff, all are very welcome if you are in the Sheffield area and the day takes your fancy.

Here’s our CALL FOR PAPERS

Does your discipline engage with matters of space and place?

 Most do, albeit at a variety of scales, in myriad ways and for many divergent reasons.

The interdisciplinary SHU Space and Place Group was set up in 2012 by Jenny Blain (Sociology), Luke Bennett (Natural & Built Environment), Cathy Burnett and Carol Taylor (Education) to explore the common ground between our various interests in space and place. It meets 3-4 times a year to discuss conceptual, methodological and practical issues around the question “how do we make sense of the spaces and places within which stuff of interest to us happens?”.

In his 2012 book, The Memory of Place, Dylan Trigg suggests that an interdisciplinary ‘place studies’ has emerged in recent years at the intersection of philosophy, geography, architecture, urban design and environmental studies. But in our experience the ambit of place studies is even wider, for our group also includes SHU place-researching academics from education, management studies, law, sociology, psychology, real estate and performance studies. We are always keen to welcome new voices into our conversation and we’ve organised our (informal) ‘conference’ on 11 May 2016 as a way of widening participation in the Group’s endeavours. It will also showcase what we’ve already achieved through our group’s open and creative collaborations.

So, if you’d like to come along and speak for 15 minutes on what space and place research means to you and/or how you have investigated space and place in your research, please submit a title and an up to 150 word abstract to Luke Bennett (l.e.bennett@shu.ac.uk) by 29 February 2016. A committee of SHU SPG members will then select speakers by mid March. In the afternoon session we intend to explore SHU’s new Heart of the Campus area, and use a variety of research methods to do so. The group attempted something similar at the former Southbourne building in 2013, and one of the papers arising from that – Jon Dean’s study of the assignment management zone and its sociality – has recently been published in the journal Qualitative Inquiry http://qix.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/19/1077800415605050.

 

All are very welcome – please forward to anyone interested in participating. We will circulate a full programme once finalised and give directions on how to book a place. The event will be free to attend, but may be on a bring or buy your own food and drink basis. There is indeed rarely such thing as a free lunch.

 

 

Image source: https://hermosodesign.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/sheffield-hallam-university-heart-of-the-campus/

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