Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference

February 24 – 25, 2017

University of Kentucky | Lexington, Kentucky, USA

The University of Kentucky Political Ecology Working Group invites you to participate in the seventh annual Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference (DOPE) February 24-25, 2017, in Lexington, Kentucky, USA. DOPE has become a key international forum for graduate students and faculty at all stages in their careers, fostering critical interdisciplinary discussion of urgent topics including: rural social movements; food systems; complexity in ecological and social systems; decolonization, knowledge, and difference; science and technology studies; neoliberal natures and climate justice;  and feminist political ecologies, among many more. Over 300 scholars, activists, and environmental professionals attended DOPE 2016, representing dozens of disciplines and more than 100 institutions spread over four continents.

We encourage you to contribute to the intellectual vitality and continued success of the conference by organizing a session for DOPE 2017. The conference is open to any topical, theoretical, or methodological framework that brings together scholarship on the ecological dimensions of political, social, and economic research, as well as the social aspects of natural sciences.

The DOPE organizing collective is thrilled to announce two of this year’s featured speakers:

• Keynote Speaker: Dr. Sandra Harding (UCLA Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education and Gender Studies and Michigan State University Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy).
• Welcome Address: Dr. Paul Robbins (UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies: Director).

Call for Organized Sessions

The DOPE Organizers strongly encourage participants to organize their own sessions, or to join sessions organized by other participants, rather than submit individual ‘orphan’ papers. To organize your own session, please:

1. Draft a Call for Papers (CFP). For guidance, reference the wide variety of CFPs from previous DOPE conferences, available via our website.
2. Email your CFP to the DOPE Organizers at ukpewg@gmail.com. You should distribute it among your colleagues and to relevant listservs. 
3. Conference registration will open in October 2016. All participants in your session must have registered and paid by the final registration deadline (December 1, 2016). As such, we suggest that you establish a session deadline of November 24 or earlier.
4. After you have submitted your call, we will send you a Google Form that you will have to complete. This will confirm the final composition of your panel, including participants’ names, institutions, abstracts (300 word limit), titles, keywords, discussants, organizers, chairs, and other relevant information. We will ask that you be as detailed as possible and send this information before the final registration deadline (December 1, 2016).

Guidelines and Suggestions for Session Organizers

• When planning, remember that each session is 100 minutes long, and we strictly limit organizers to two session slots.
• While we welcome conventional paper sessions, we also encourage organizers to consider workshops, panel discussions, lightning talks, or other session styles.
• Each DOPE participant may present in one session, and also serve as a discussant or panelist in ONE additional session. We ask that participants limit themselves to two conference activities.
• Undergraduate students are asked to submit their papers to our Annual Undergraduate Symposium.

Individual Abstracts

We strongly encourage participants to submit abstracts in response to CFPs being circulated (follow listservs and check our website for new CFPs); however, we will accept individual abstracts. Abstracts submitted to the conference individually rather than in response to specific CFPs will be sorted thematically, and cannot be guaranteed placement in the conference schedule.

Abstracts or proposals should be no more than 300 words in length and include titles and three to five keywords.  Please submit only one abstract to ukpewg@gmail.com. The deadline for abstract submissions is the conference registration deadline (December 1, 2016).

Registration

Registration will be linked from our website starting in October 2016, and ending December 1, 2016, with no extensions. The conference registration fee is $45 for graduate students, and $90 for faculty and non-academics. There is no fee for undergraduate participants. All University of Kentucky students register for free.

Follow us on Twitter at @ukpewg or on Facebook as the University of Kentucky Political Ecology Working Group. Visit our website www.politicalecology.org.

Please send any questions to the DOPE Organizers at ukpewg@gmail.com.

Tags: CFPs 2017