***** Apologies for cross-posting ***Paper Session: *The Corporation *Session Organizers:* Benjamin Goldstein (chair), Sanaz Chamanara, and Joshua Newell
*Description: * The Dutch East Indies Company. Standard Oil Company. General Motors. Google. Since the ‘long 16th century’, the corporation has made an indelible mark on the world. Once founded by kingdoms and courts, the world’s biggest corporations now dwarf many countries in terms of economic clout, personnel, and cultural influence (Goldstein and Newell, 2019). Channeling immense flows of people, information, capital, materials and energy around the planet, corporations sculpt material, cultural, socio-economic and mental landscapes (Dicken, 2011). A cobalt miner in the Congo, a smelter in Mongolia, a factory worker in Taiwan, a cellphone user in Frankfurt, and an e-waste recycler in Ghana are linked across time and space by the financial and material exchanges of companies large and small. Through capital accumulation, corporations drive uneven development (Smith, 2008). Despite their salience to understanding the environmental and social dimensions of the contemporary economy, corporations are seldom ‘first-class’ subjects in the academy (Goldstein and Newell, 2019). This objective of this session is to delve into the anatomy that is the corporation. We welcome submissions on a range of theoretical, conceptual, methodologically, and empirical inquiries on the corporation and its practices. We envision this session will connect disparate researchers from across Geography and other disciplines who are studying corporations. We encourage submissions on a range of possible topics, including but not limited to: - Global production networks (GPNs) and the corporation - Global value chains (GVCs) and the corporation - Global commodity chains (GCCs) and the corporation - Environmental and social change and the corporation - Consumption and the corporation - Corporate social responsibility and greenwash - NGOs activism and the corporation - Methodological approaches to track corporate supply chains - Political Ecologies of the corporation Preference will be given to papers that study specifics (i.e. individual) corporations rather than sectors writ large (e.g. forestry, etc). Please email abstracts (max 250 words) to Benjamin Goldstein ( ben...@umich.edu) and Sanaz Chamanara (sana...@umich.edu <san...@umich.edu>) by Wednesday, Nov 13, 2019 or any extended AAG deadline. We will then notify you if your paper has been selected for the session. Please email the session organizers if you have any questions. Those confirmed to the session, will need to submit their abstract online and send us their PIN by Wednesday, Nov 13, 2019. See https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fannualmeeting.aag.org&data=02%7C01%7CECONOMICGEOGRAPHY-L%40listserv.uconn.edu%7C8e2d3305abd2461b8ada08d7616e8ab5%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C1%7C637084999724597112&sdata=Wase5Wtx5TaSFMt0fJxUNUbSwt8O58EQqPVS6JIECs4%3D&reserved=0 for more information. *References* Goldstein, B. and J.P. Newell. 2019. Why academics should study the supply chains of individual corporations. *Journal of Industrial Ecology*. Dicken, P. 2011. *Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy*. *The Guildford Press*. Vol. 6th. Smith, N. 2008. *Uneven Development*. 3rd ed. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.
