The Latin America Network (GIS, or group of scientific interest) Biannual Conference, Rennes, 2007
Topic: Territories and Societies in the Americas

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS/PRESENTATIONS

After the La Rochelle conference in 2005, the Latin America Network is organizing its second biannual conference in Rennes for 15th to 17th of November, 2007 . The conference will be hosted by the Institut des Amériques (Institute of the Americas) in Rennes.
The purpose of the colloquium will be to examine how Latin American societies envision their relationship to their territory (institutional territories, real space, imagined space); as well as the territorial dimension of social and cultural dynamics. “Territory” will be considered in all its material and immaterial diversity: the physical space of towns and cities, rural areas, borderlands, or natural environments; yet also the immaterial representations of space in the practical experiences of inhabitants: in their values, in their individual and collective models, as well as in their artistic productions.
The following issues will equally be considered: the relationship of individuals to their environment, the role of territory in identity construction, and the political dimension of relationships to space: institutional divisions of territory and territorial conflicts, modes of appropriating space, modes of contact between the different echelons of the territorial grid, from local to global, etc
The colloquium will consider these questions from a pluridisciplinary perspective, as well as in a retrospective light which will integrate prehistoric legacies and the memory of past dynamics with their more contemporary realities.
This conference is open to a broad range of researchers and research professors, but also to doctoral students in order to make this gathering a rich space for exchange.
Presentation proposals should be submitted by March 31, 2007 at the latest. Proposals should include a title, an abstract of no more than one page, and the author’s credentials and contact information.

Proposals should be emailed to the following address:
congres-gis-amerique-latine-2007@uhb.fr
Or sent by post to:
Congrès GIS Amérique latine 2007
IDA-Rennes, Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales
Université Rennes 2, Place du Recteur Henri Le Moal
CS 24307 - 35043 RENNES Cedex - France