Call for Papers

Call for papers is now closed

The 2011 AHRA Queen's Belfast Peripheries conference will invite discussion via papers or short films on the multiple aspects  periphery represents --  temporal, spatial, intellectual, technological, cultural, pedagogical and political – with, as a foundation for development, the following themes:

Peripheral practices

Practice-based research

Urban peripheries

Non-metropolitan contexts

Peripheral positions   

From these themes might arise a series of questions:

  • How do notions of periphery and proximity impact on the construction of cultural memory?
  • Is globalization facilitating the inclusiveness of peripheries or denying their local value to favour the centre?
  • How does architecture respond to the challenges of temporal peripheries in varying historical, spatial and political contexts?
  • Does being on the edge heighten or transform architectural practice? 
  • What infrastructure is required for peripheral positions to exist?  How are peripheries networked to one another and to centres? 
  • Can architecture support peripheral populations, and can these voices offer critique of architectural practice? 
  • How does interdisciplinarity -- the communication between perceived peripheral disciplines -- affect architectural practice? 
  • What are the shifting boundaries of alternative or peripheral currents of education, research and practice?   Do architecture schools recognize the importance of peripheral subjects in their teaching? 

Queen's University's School of Planning Architecture and Civil Engineering operates within a context of an increasingly non-metropolitan society, on an island of rural communities resistant to normative patterns of urbanisation. The culture, economies, politics and social networks in Ireland are often perceived as “on the edge of Europe”; it is a place of experimentation, translation and evolution.  

Belfast is thus an ideal setting in which to pose questions of periphery: it is a city in simultaneous states of flux with multiple political and social reiterations and repositionings. In a city where extremism was once the norm, there is much to ask about how to moderate and manage the tensions and potentials that exist between the edge and the centre.

Timetable

  • abstracts of papers (500 words) - deadline has been extended to 12 noon on Monday 21 February 2011
  • digital video (5-8 minutes in length:) deadline 1 June 2011 (submission requirements fothcoming soon) 
  • notification of acceptance of abstracts: 15 April 2011
  • registration open: 1 June 2011
  • submission of summary paper based on abstract (1000-2000 words) or film: 1 August 2011
  • categories/sessions determined and session chairs chosen: 1 September 2011
  • chairs of sessions distribute expanded abstracts/films to co-session paper presenters; all chairs and paper presenters asked to provide structured feedback/reflection on session papers: 1 October 2011

Submissions and registration via conference website:  http://www.qub.ac.uk/peripheries2011

Outputs

A book of abstracts will be published.  As per previous AHRA conferences, selected papers will be published by Routledge.  Previous books in the series include  Agency: Working with Uncertain Architectures edited by Florian Kossak, Doina Petrescu, Renata Tyszczuk, Stephen Walker and Architecture and Field/Work edited by Suzanne Ewing, Jeremie Michael McGowan, Chris Speed, Victoria Clare Bernie.   See http://www.ahra-architecture.org/publications/ahra/ for a  list of AHRA Conference publications.