[Air-l] Call for Papers - Urban Vulnerability and Network Failure

[Barry Wellman]

of possible interest to members of all 3 lists. thx to Tony Orum for
calling it to my attention.
>Urban Vulnerability and Network Failure:
>  Constructions and Experiences  of Emergencies, Crises and Collapse
>
>CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
>
>An ESRC-Sponsored International Seminar
>jointly hosted by SURF, University of Salford and GURU, University of
>Newcastle
>Manchester, United Kingdom, 29-30 April 2004
>
>Rationale
>
>
>In these times of  'globalisation' cities are being  powerfully shaped
>by
>their relationships with socio-technical networks and infrastructures.
>These organise, and mediate, the distribution of people, goods,
>services,
>information,  wastes, capital, and energy  between multiple scales
>within
>and between urban regions. The contemporary urban process, and
>contemporary
>social power, thus, more than ever, involve complex 'cyborg' liaisons
>and
>multiple, distanciated connections. These straddle many scales and link
>bodies, places, and institutions continuously with more or less distant
>elsewheres. By making possible a  myriad of mobilities such
>infrastructures
>remake the spaces and times of urban life in the process.
>
>On the one hand, the everyday life and ideology of the modern city  is
>dependent on the seamless and continuous functioning, together, of a
>vast
>array of functioning technical systems(although, for vast numbers of
>urbanites in the global South, the reality is often of little
>connectivity
>and worse reliability). On the other hand, large swathes of contemporary
>corporate, state, and military  power centres on  the construction,
>maintenance, legitimation and protection of vast arrays of extended
>technological systems. Strung out across the world, and configured
>carefully to support the 'glocal' geographies of power and connectivity
>of
>contemporary capitalism, these network spaces - fibre optic networks,
>airport and airline spaces, Just-in-Time logistics systems, E-commerce
>and
>transactional flows,  transnational energy systems, and so on -- are
>critical strategic supports to neoliberal globalisation.  Linking up,
>and
>mediating, key spaces and divisions of labour reliably, quickly and
>seamlessly, the physical, energy, water and informational
>infrastructures
>that sustain contemporary capitalism are perhaps the most critical
>strategic  supports of contemporary global capitalism.
>
>A widening range of iconic infrastructure collapses serve as
>opportunities
>to learn about the cultural, political, social and material dimensions
>of
>the importance of infrastructural connection in contemporary urban, and
>geopolitical, life.  Since the early 1990s, to name but a few, iconic
>collapsese and failures have included the  Montreal ice storm, the
>Auckland
>power blackout,  the gas attack on the Tokyo underground, the Sydney
>drought, the California energy crisis, the Chicago heat wave, the
>failure
>of Hong Kong airport's freight system, the September 11th attacks, and
>the
>'Lovebug' virus. The infrastructural devastation of countless urban wars
>also needs to be considered here.
>
>As seamless and 24 hour flows and connections become ever-more critical
>for
>capitalist urbanism, however, so massive political, discursive and
>material
>resources are being devoted to try and reduce the  supposed
>vulnerabilities that these systems exhibit  to collapse, malfunctioning,
>or
>attack. This is especially so when the September 11th and Anthrax
>attacks,
>in particular, demonstrated that mobility systems, themselves, can be
>appropriated as 'terrorist' weapons. 'Resilience', and 'critical
>infrastructure protection', are  ubiquitous buzz words in these times of
>politically constructed moral panic, continuous states of emergency,
>and
>the ongoing Bush-led 'war on terror'. Huge resources and efforts are now
>being devoted by States, infrastructure corporations, the military,
>urban
>infrastructure agencies, and corporate capital to reducing the  supposed
>vulnerability of telecommunications, transport, logistics, transaction,
>electricity, and utilities systems to technical failure, sabotage,
>natural
>disasters or the failures caused by the reduced built in back-up that
>often
>comes with liberalised markets. The glaring fragility, and low
>reliability,
>of many computer-mediated communications and infrastructure systems is a
>particular focus of concern here. Examples include government programmes
>to
>protect critical infrastructure, commercial services for network back
>up,
>and military (and terrorist groups') interest in the disrupting of
>adversaries'  infrastructure networks. Civil defence programmes designed
>to
>increase cities' resilience to attack and targeting, and so on, are also
>reaching unprecedented levels.
>
>As Tim Luke has observed, networked connections and collapses also form
>a
>critical focus of cultural politics. Narratives and discourses of failed
>flow and connection stalk many underground and dystopian scenes and
>genres
>of culture. Contemporary urban culture is full of accounts  which reveal
>a
>fascination with such moments of  what he calls 'decyborganisation'.
>This
>is because they reveal, however fleetingly, the utter reliance of
>modern
>urban life on distanciated flow and interaction. The cultural narratives
>and representations that surround the failure and collapse of networked
>infrastructures are a key aspect of their social importance.
>
>Conference Aim and Objective
>
>The core aim of this conference is to explore the ways in which
>reactions
>to, and experiences of, the collapse of technical and networked
>infrastructures  within and between cities are constructed, experienced,
>imagined, represented, and contested. We seek in particular  to explore
>these themes under conditions of  growing  infrastructural stress,
>re-regulation, globalisation, increasing concerns with failure, the
>changing geopolitical situation surrounding the 'war on terror', and the
>strong fascination for infrastructural collapse within contemporary
>culture. By bringing together researchers representing a range of
>disciplines, including geography, history, sociology, critical theory,
>development studies, political economy, geopolitics, surveillance and
>defence studies, the objective is to stimulate interdisciplinary
>discussion
>and collaboration that examines the meaning of connectivity and collapse
>in
>contemporary urban life, politics, governance, and culture.
>
>Seminar Themes
>
>(1) Conceptualising  'Cyborg' Urbanisation: How can urban, social and
>critical theory conceptualise the socio-technologies of connection,
>resilience, mobility, and collapse in contemporary cities ?
>
>(2) Urban Vulnerability and Network Failures: Constructions and
>Experiences
>of Emergencies, Crises and Collapse  How do different disciplines
>construct
>concepts of urban vulnerability and network failure ? How does network
>stress and failure  operate materially and how is it represented
>politically and culturally ? Why, how and where do technical networks
>collapse? What can be learnt about the discursive, economic or material
>role of technical connections in a globalised context by studying what
>happens when connections fail ?  How does the governance of cities,
>spaces
>and networked infrastructure intersect in various contexts to address
>(and
>exploit ?)  perceptions of stress and risk. How are such politics shaped
>by
>broader political economies of globalisation, mobility, flow and
>re-regulation ? How are corporate and popular fears of, and
>vulnerabilities
>to, the failure of connectivity  addressed in such processes of
>governance
>?
>
>(3) Networked Collapses as States of Emergency : What can be learnt from
>in-depth case studies of instances of network failures or collapse ?
>What
>happens when the normalisation of flow, mobility and connection breaks
>down
>? What  social, economic, and cultural coping mechanisms and innovations
>are developed to deal with the collapse ? How do political and
>governance
>coalitions at various scales, in states, cities and network spaces,
>respond
>to failure ?  What are the longer term  political, economic or cultural
>consequences of network failure   ? How are crises and collapse in
>infrastructures, and wider processes of 'de-cyborgisation,' represented
>in
>contemporary culture ?
>
>(4) Networked Collape, Security,  and Organised Violence How do various
>state and non-state militaries and  target  and destroy adversaries'
>infrastructure networks? In what ways are national, homeland and urban
>'security' strategies, and critical infrastructure protection policies,
>being reforged to address, or exploit, fears of networked collapse ?
>What
>political economic transitions do such strategies support?  What
>discursive, and linguistic constructions do such political strategies
>rely
>on ? Beyond the hype what is the real scope of 'cyberwar' ? What
>strategies
>and techniques are used? How effective, or widespread,  is such
>'network-based' warfare ? How does it relate to the current geopolitical
>position (dominated by a single 'hyperpower' pursuing a 'war on terror'
>without apparent end to further its geopolitical interests in the Middle
>East and Central Asia)?
>
>Abstract Submission
>
>Please submit a 250 words abstract to Steve Graham
>s.d.n.graham at ncl.ac.uk
>and Simon Marvin S.Marvin at salford.ac.uk. before September 1st 2003.
>Papers
>will be required for pre-circulation before the seminar that will be
>hosted
>in central Manchester, United Kingdom in April 2004.
>
>
>
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Stephen Graham                     e-mail s.d.n.graham at ncl.ac.uk
>Professor of Urban Technology      Telephone +44(0) 191 222 6808
>Global Urban Research Unit (GURU)       Fax +44(0) 191 222 8811
>School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape
>3rd Floor, Claremont Tower
>University of Newcastle upon Tyne
>Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, U.K.
>
>Global Urban Research Unit (GURU) http://www.ncl.ac.uk/guru
>
>Surveillance and Society Web Journal
>http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/
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