Please see the 2nd CFP below for the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Tampa, FL. Apologies for cross-postings.
*New Geographies of Philanthropy and Giving* Organizers: Elyse Gordon, University of Washington Helen Olsen, Rutgers University Discussion of philanthropy and giving are often silo-ed to nonprofit management and public policy circles. However, scholars attuned to theories of social justice, poverty, relationality, policy mobilities, and urban/community development are all keenly positioned to address the changing geographies of philanthropy. On the heels of the Great Recession, the political economy of nonprofits and service provisioning looks quite different than it did a decade ago. On a broad level, disparities in available funding are on the rise due to diminishing resources to address inequality. Nonprofit organizations have responded to this climate of austerity through a variety of means. More specifically, advances in digital technology, increasing reliance on individual donors, crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter, and the growth of social justice funding sources mark some of the changes to the geographies of giving. Rather than addressing philanthropy through a series of measures, metrics, or reports, this session is more interested in new relationships and approaches to giving ushered in during this particular economic and cultural moment. Beyond the question of *how much do individuals give, and to what?*, this session seeks to examine more critical questions: How have nonprofit organizations adapted to diminished foundation and grant funding streams? How do digital technologies enable new geographies of giving? What are the relationships between middle-class and low-income individuals and philanthropy? How do individual donor values and ideologies come to bear on the work of organizations, social service agencies, and/or disaster relief efforts? How are individual donors relating to the places and people to whom they give, especially across distance? Theoretically, our session is grounded in literatures on the shadow state, the neoliberalization of social services, and community/urban development in both the Global North and the Global South. We see this topic as worth revisiting, particularly through the lens of relational poverty studies, feminist care ethics, digital technologies, and/or policy mobilities. We explore the values, relationships, technologies, and politics of giving in this current (post)neoliberal moment. This session aims to explore new geographies of philanthropy through empirically grounded and/or theoretical epistemologies of ‘giving’. Topics may include, though are not limited to: - the political economy of nonprofit funding and the changing demographics of donors & giving - relationships and encounters between donors/participants, including those facilitated by digital technologies - policy transfer and mobilities informing funding ‘best practices’ - ideological and discursive analyses of funding structures, materials, publications, and forms of outreach - urban governance of social services and public/private partnerships - radical and/or intentional social justice funds - new geographies of giving or caring across distance *Submissions: *Please submit paper abstracts of no more than 250 words to Elyse Gordon ([email protected]) no later than *Friday,* *November 1st, 2013* . -- Elyse Gordon Department of Geography University of Washington Box 353550 Seattle, WA 98195-3550
