[URBANTH-L] CFP: Are We Too Many? Sustainability and the Politics of Population

[Angela Jancius]

Final Call for Papers

Are We Too Many? Sustainability and the Politics of Population

Deadline: April 30, 2009

In-Spire, the postgrad-led journal of law, politics and societies, calls for 
contributions for a special issue for on-line publication in summer 2009. We 
are looking for original academic articles that critically engage with the 
question of sustainability and population politics or one of its countless 
aspects. We encourage contributions from a broad range of disciplines in the 
social sciences, including (but not limited to) political theory, 
criminology, sociology, international relations, law, and gender.

The question deals with two fundamental crises afflicting human societies on 
a global scale: a crisis of the global biosphere and a crisis of the 
regeneration of resources, especially energy, food and water. One of the 
most controversial ways of dealing with the problem of resource-finiteness 
in the past has been by controlling the growth of human populations. A wide 
range of population politics in all its variants, from birth control to 
migration regulation to city planning have characterised modern societies.

To what extent, and on what justification, will population politics 
determine the future development of societies around the globe? What, in 
particular, is the relation between population politics and one of the most 
important signifiers of contemporary political vocabulary: sustainability? 
Can global capitalism only become "sustainable" if human populations are 
stabilized or even reduced?

We invite contributions that deal with questions including:

-discourses about population and overpopulation
-means of regulating population and (the construction of) "environmental 
crimes"
-planning and transformation of cities in the context of over-population
-issues of environmental justice and morality
-feminist responses to issues of population control and sustainability
-issues of climate chaos, environmental refugees and resource distribution.

For a more detailed version of this call and for details on our formatting 
style please see the In-Spire website at: www.in-spire.org.
Articles, including a 200-word abstract, should be submitted in word format 
(or equivalent) to the managing editor, at l.j.thompson at pol.keele.ac.uk no 
later than 30th April 2009.

In-Spire Journal of Law, Politics and Societies

www.in-spire.org

Keele University Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice
Staffordshire
UK

Email: l.j.thompson at pol.keele.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://www.in-spire.org/articles/summer09cfp.doc