Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Call for Papers 2

Organizers: Samuel Randalls (University of Birmingham), Jeffrey C. Brunskill (Middlebury College), Akiko Yamane (Monash University)

Session Title: Weather and Society: Changing Weather Knowledges

Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers 2006 - March 7th-11th, Chicago, IL.

Description:

One critical aspect in understanding weather and society is to appreciate the different types and changing nature of weather knowledge. Over the last century modern forecasting, theory and analysis has created a body of weather knowledge that is, in many ways, distinct from what might be termed everyday, commonsense weather knowledge. This relationship may be characterized in many ways – expert naïve, scientific/folk, technology based/experience based, and the like. There are a variety of issues that come to light regarding the interaction between these qualitative knowledge domains, particularly in the context of weather communication, visualization, prediction, risk assessment (climate change / forecasting), and scientific/lay uses of weather information. The relevance of such domains is evident in the recent impact, and perceived impact, of Hurricane Katrina in the Southeastern United States.

Building upon last year’s session, we invite critical research papers that consider the broad relationship between modern meteorological/climatological theory and social, cultural and conceptual dimensions of weather knowledge. This includes the social, political and economic aspects surrounding the distinction (of e.g. expert/lay) and the ways in which they create cultures, politics and economics of the weather. The session aims to be explicitly interdisciplinary, combining both scientific and social scientific knowledges. Papers may include, but not be limited to:

- Large-scale versus small-scale/locally derived weather knowledge
- Direct experience versus technologically derived knowledge and concepts of the weather
- Forms of communication (visual, terminological, media)
- Forecasts and assessments of climate change (as they relate to the connection between climatology and weather/climate knowledge)
- Perceptions of Risk and Vulnerability
- Risk and extreme weather
- Cultures, economics and politics of the weather
- Historical study – evolution of modern theory and relations to everyday and ‘folk’ theories?
- Future Applications – decision making, visualizations, representations

Please send copies of your abstract (no more than 250 words) to either Samuel Randalls (scr857@bham.ac.uk), Jeff Brunskill (jbrunski@middlebury.edu) or Akiko Yamane (Akiko.Yamane@arts.monash.edu.au) by the 5th of October. We welcome any informal contact or ideas for papers prior to this date. An illustrated paper session can be arranged if there is sufficient interest. Details of paper time allocations, poster information etc. can be found at the AAG Homepage. The conference will take place from March 7th to 11th 2006, details on location and registration costs etc. can also be found on the AAG's site.

Session Organizer Contacts:

Samuel Randalls – scr857@bham.ac.uk
Jeff Brunskill – jbrunski@middlebury.edu
Akiko Yamane – Akiko.Yamane@arts.monash.edu.au