Abstracts accepted in English and Spanish.
Lucía Argüelles
María Heras
In her novel “Autobiografía del algodón”, Rivera-Garza (2022) reviews the environmental history of the eastern Mexico-U.S border, telling stories of migration and deportation, land access and eviction, plagues and pesticides, through the cotton peasant farmers who cultivated the land in this region in the early 20th century. Inspired by this political ecology expression from the fictional arts, in this session we aim to expand the geography scholarship that has nurtured the fertile relation between the discipline and speculative / science fiction (e.g. Adamson 2018, Kallis and March 2016).
Drawing on recent scholarship on story and story-telling (Cameron 2012) and narrative political ecologies (Harris 2022), we argue that realistic fictions also have tools to further understand and engage with human-nature relations. Through imagination, fiction might also help us transform such relations and encompass “the condition of both the known world and the horizons of possible worlds” (Daniels 2011). Importantly, as a group of Spanish critical writers have recently argued “we need fiction to narrate the realities that remain invisible” (ElDiario.es, 2022).
We invite papers, stories, and artistic interventions that explore the ground between (realistic) fiction and political ecology and social/environmental justice.
Contributions may respond to questions including, but not limited to, the following:
● How do fictional works re-imagine socio-ecological relationships? Which types of worlds are brought into being through fictional stories?
● Which are the interactions of geography with literary studies, ecological humanities, or narrative arts?
● How and why certain stories are told? How do stories prefigure present political ecology anxieties and challenges?
● Which are the political impacts (e.g. reactions, contestations) of fictional pieces?
● Which are the effects that certain stories have on our senses of self, or our community (e.g. motivating action)?
● Which are the emotions that one feels by engaging with a story? How does it affect / shape our research or action?
References
Adamson J (2018) Environmental Fiction. In: Castree N, Hulme M and Proctor J (eds) Companion to Environmental Studies. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge
Cameron, E. (2012). New geographies of story and storytelling. Progress in Human Geography, 36(5), 573–592
Daniels, S. (2011) Geographical imagination: boundary crossings. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36(2) 182–187
ElDiario.es (2022), Riveiro, A. (2022). Ficción para contar las realidades que no se ven. https://www.eldiario.es/eventos/festival-eldiario-es/ficcion-contar-realidades-no-ven_1_9560518.html
Harris, L. M. (2022). Towards enriched narrative political ecologies. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5(2), 835–860
Kallis, G., & March, H. (2015). Imaginaries of hope: The utopianism of degrowth. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2), 360-368
Rivera Garza, C. (2022). Autobiografía del algodón. Ciudad de México and Barcelona: Penguin Random House