This session aims to explores the multifaceted nature of home as a space where private and public spheres converge, emphasizing its significance in geographical studies at the intersection of cultural, social, and retail geographies, as well as urban development. The focus is on understanding how geographies of home are shaped by political, commercial, and cultural factors, as well as inequalities related to culture, race, location, social class, gender, and sexuality. Case studies in diverse contexts and innovative approaches that transcend traditional boundaries are welcome. 

Argument

The International Geographical Congress will continue the tradition of previous congresses in recognising that our world faces many common natural and societal challenges that can only be dealt with through global action, understanding and sharing. The theme of our congress is ‘Celebrating a World of Difference’ and is strongly focused through our academic and fieldwork programme on supporting intercultural awareness and understanding; promoting intellectual diversity as a strength; bringing geographic research and thinking beyond the congress walls; and grappling with the complex interconnections between people, place and the natural world.

This proposal deals with the home, as a space of intimacy that nevertheless constitutes a meeting place of the private and the public spheres. Home is woven into the very fabric of our lives and is an important site for geographical studies, at the intersection of cultural, social and retail geographies as well as urban development. Our understandings of the home are deepened by a social geographic focus that foregrounds the relations between material culture and spatial practices. Current researches on the home are thus concerned with the political significance of domesticity, encompassing scales from the domestic to the global. They explore the ways geographies of home are not only shaped by politics and commerce, but also by inequalities in terms of culture, ‘race’, location, social class, gender and sexuality.

Geographies of home being both material and symbolic, we welcome case studies in different contexts, and innovative approaches that transcend conventional boundaries. We invite contributions on a broad array of topics, including but not limited to:

• Analyzing the role of architecture and urban planning in shaping the domestic place.
• Analyzing the cultural and social standardisation of home furniture through the geography of objects and the commercial offers by global and/or local companies.
• How the notion of home evolves within diasporic communities, probing the interplay between homeland and hostland.
• Scrutinizing the gendered facets of home and their intersections with class, age, sexuality, and race, revealing patterns of inclusion and exclusion.
• How home and cultural identities intersects.

Convenor

Ph.D candidate Clara Cerdan (Paris 8 University, Sainy Denis, France), Professeur Nathalie Lemarchand (Paris 8 University, Sainy Denis, France)

Submission guidelines

As we move forward in the planning for 35th International Geographical Congress, we want to ensure you are aware of some deadlines for the submission of your research for presentation at the congress.

Abstract Submission Key Dates

• Call for Abstracts Opens: Tuesday 3rd October 2023

• Call for Abstracts Closes: Friday 12th January 2024

• Notification of Authors: Monday 19th February 2024

Presentation formats: oral papers, poster presentations.

Abstracts must be submitted to sessions associated with congress Commissions – full details of the sessions per Commission are available here.

Summary of Minimum Requirements

• Title: 25 words maximum.
• Abstract: 250 words maximum. Please ensure that your findings are described to a level sufficient for reviewers to make an informed decision on quality. Abstracts that fail to meet these criteria will be rejected.
• Congress Commission and Session: Please select from the list of Commissions and their associated sessions.
• Authors/co-authors and presenting author: Please identify appropriately.
• Presentation format: Oral paper, Poster presentation
• Also required: Up to five keywords.
• If adding references, please use Harvard referencing. Example: Thagard, P. (1990) ‘Philosophy and machine learning’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 20(2), pp. 261–276.

All abstracts must be written in English. Abstracts are submitted via an online submission system. Register with the abstract submission website and establish your username and password.

Please note that the presenting author must register in full to attend and present the abstract at the Congress. The presenting author must register by Friday 8th March 2024.

Review

To ensure a fair and scientific review of abstracts we will use a blind review process. Abstracts will be reviewed for the level of innovation/contribution to the field and the general standard of academic writing of the abstract.

We wish to provide a rich and varied scientific programme. Authors may be listed on as many abstracts as they wish – however authors may be the presenting author on one presentation only.