As part of our commitment to making the conference as sustainable as possible and exploring new approaches to conference practice, particularly given this year’s theme of Climate changed geographies, we are piloting remote hubs as ways to participate in the conference.
The ‘hubs’ model is one approach designed to combat fatigue with online conferences, while still benefiting from some of the opportunities online participation offers for accessibility, inclusivity, and sustainability. Regional groups are encouraged to meet in local hubs to have in-person experiences, connected to a wider online event. If you are interested in hosting a hub please get in touch with us at ac2023@rgs.org.
Distributed chair's plenary, Wednesday 30 August
We are planning a distributed plenary on Wednesday 30 August. This will run over three plenary session timeslots, with each session featuring speakers and panellists from across the globe. There is more information on our Chair's plenary lectures page.
Melbourne hub
The Melbourne RGS-IBG hub will be an in-person event (10.00 to 16.00 AEST), plus plenary 17.00-19.00 AEST) for Melbourne geographers (particularly from Melbourne, Monash, LaTrobe, RMIT and Deakin universities) to explore how the climate crisis is changing geographical research. The proposed theme for the event, which aligns with the wider RGS-IBG conference, is The future of climate geography at work. The purpose of the day will be threefold: first, to create a network of climate-focused human geographers in Melbourne. Second, to challenge and stimulate this group of researchers to progress their thinking on the future of the climate challenge to their work as geographers, both individually and collectively. And third, to connect to the RGS-IBG event taking place in London. A number of potential outputs, to be determined by participants on the day, include: a formalised network, a research agenda, and/or an academic paper.
Logistics: the event will be held in the Manhari Room, level 7, Melbourne Connect, 700 Swanston Street, Carlton, University of Melbourne, from 10.00 to 19.00 (including 17.00-19.00 connection to London). We will limit (to help create some desirability) attendance of up to 50 people for the daytime sessions, but will open up the evening connection with the London meeting to a wider audience. Tea, coffee, a light lunch and afternoon snacks will be provided.
The day will be broken into four parts.
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The first part will be for HDR and ECAs. This cohort is the future of climate geographies in Australia, and will be maturing as academics as the climate crisis intensifies, yet we have also experienced unprecedented levels of professional disruption in recent years due to Covid-19 and other university funding pressures.
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The wider day, for all attendees, will then begin with a series of provocations about the future of climate geography at work, from several Melbourne-based professors of Ggography. It will consist of a discussion panel, with three senior geographers invited to provide provocations and then a series of round-table discussions to respond.
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After lunch, the third part of the day will engage with geographers’ connection to place and environment on Wurundjeri Country. In thinking about how the climate crisis is changing geographical research, participants will be invited to choose from a series of reflective walking tours in the urban environment. Walks will focus on city infrastructure, climate changed urban ecologies, colonialism and disaster resilience in the place known today as Melbourne.
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After the wrap up of the in-person part of the day, the final session will comprise the plenary and crossover with the other hubs and main RGS-IBG conference event in the UK. Professor Lauren Rickards and Dr Svenja Keele will deliver a short combined plenary talk on Local sites of far-reaching climate knowledges: Critical geographies of adaptation work, and then participate in the wider plenary discussion panel.
Nairobi hub – Inaugural UTA-Do conversation event
The Nairobi hub will be an in-person event, running 09.00-18.00 EAT, at Unseen Nairobi on Wood Ave in Kilimani, Nairobi
The inaugural UTA-Do conversation event aims to interrogate how Africa features in global theory on and policy practices of climate change and related phenomena, including the Anthropocene and 'green transitions'. In particular, we seek to foreground how the experiences within African cities can nuance these discourses and practices.
UTA-Do? is a sheng slang phrase from Kenya meaning ‘what are you going to do about it?’ (said defiantly). For us, UTA-Do is a call to ask ourselves what we are going to do about the inequalities in our cities. We also use the term to reference a collective process that involves engaging with Urban Theory in Africa, as well as recognising the doing that informs and enriches it.
We seek to elicit more voices in framing and debating climate emergencies in Africa, including from activists and scholars who don't work in the field. There is an urgent need to localise and decolonise our experiences of climate emergencies in both theory and practice. For the next generation of African urban scholars, it is important for us to work towards co-creating imaginations to stem — and theorise — the many interrelated challenges that continue to make our cities and scholarship unequal.
We invite grassroots activists, practitioners, students and academics (in particular, early career scholars) to participate in this one-day event. The conversation will centre around what we need to change in climate emergency discussions so that they may reflect our urban realities.
The programme includes a keynote panel discussion: Crisis of imagination / (re)imaginations for (climate) crisis. This keynote event, part of the international hub plenary of RGS-IBG conference in the UK along with the African Centre for Cities and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, will bring together scholars in Nairobi, Bengaluru and London.
You can view the full programme and sign up here. Please apply to participate by 31 July.
La Mojana Hub, Colombia
La Mojana Hub met on 19-20 August 2023 in San Marcos, Sucre, in La Mojana region. The hub congregates two high school research groups working on environmental issues, fishers from La Mojana, researchers from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Universidad del Norte and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History. Our workshop was called "The production of knowledge in times of climate change" and we discussed the specific projects each institution develops and the problems the people from La Mojana face. Among these problems, mining-related pollution, wetland drainage, flood control, and hydropower generation stood out as main concerns which intertwine with climate change. We also explored people's perceptions about climate change and problematized the complicated meanings of this idea.
Remote viewing hubs
In 2023 we will be offering a new registration fee category of remote viewing hub. Those organising a remote hub will have access to view livestreamed and recorded content at a reduced registration fee rate. The intention is that colleagues will gather at their nearest remote viewing hub to watch livestreamed sessions together, using these as an anchor for their own in-person discussion and additional programming. We encourage remote hub organisers to use social media and the networking tools within the online conference platform to share their discussions with others participating in the conference.
Please note that if you are planning to present in an online session, you will still need to register separately and pay the appropriate virtual-only registration fee.
The fee for hosting a remote viewing hub is £150.
Further reading
You may be interested in the following free to access articles about hub conferencing models: