1255 | | Reflecting on The Influence of Geographical Knowledge on Civil Society Actions | Massimiliano Tabusi (1); Jonas Birke (2)
The global challenges of the 21st century are more diverse than ever, and solving them has now become essential if future generations are to improve their quality of life or, at least, to have the same as current societies. Civil society and everyday actions play a central role in solving such local as well as global problems. Geography can make a great contribution here due to its multi-perspective and interdisciplinary view of the entirety of planet Earth and by taking a spatial, scale and temporal level and thus holistic way of thinking, especially with regard to civil society everyday action. Even if often the academic context (for example in its assessment procedures) does not encourage active involvement and direct social engagement, geographical knowledge (and geographers) can play a role in several contexts. Particularly worth mentioning here are the socio-ecological transformation, political, ecological and social conflicts, and issues of justice and inequality.
However, the actual influence of geographical ways of knowing and thinking in this context have been little researched so far and also the social perception of geography is still to be classified as insufficient. The topics mentioned here as examples also occur spatially differently and must therefore also be thought of and researched in a differentiated manner in a spatial context, also in view of cultural differences.
For this reason, contributions on the above-mentioned topics are to be presented and critically discussed in the session. The goal is to share strategies, case studies, objectives and results of the influence of geographical knowledge on civil society actions, considering both the relationships within the discipline (scientific praxis, evaluation procedures, scales of values, actions of universities, research centers and geographic societies) and those between scientific geography, civil society and public opinion. Both theoretical and empirical contributions are welcome, as well as contributions with practical examples and a concrete spatial reference.
During the discussion in Barcelona all contributors will be asked to conclude their speech with a short sentence and few keywords of their view for the future, and the same to those who followed the session, with a view to continuing the discussion of the session’s theme even after the Eugeo Congress.
Presentations with open discussion. English (requests for speeches in other languages, with slides in English, may be considered.)
Massimiliano Tabusi (1); Jonas Birke (2)
(1) Università per Stranieri di Siena, (2) Universität Koblenz
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