<nettime-ann> Call for Papers: Migrations

People have always roamed the earth in pursuit of a better life. They have followed in search of food, security, and better climates, with enormous ramifications to the physical and social environment of human dwelling places across the globe. The past two millennia have seen improvements in transportation, communications, and technology that have quickened the pace of this migration exponentially. Today, two centuries after industrialization first began to drive urbanization in Western Europe and North America, nearly instant communications, rapid global transportation, and liberalized trade policies have wrought an international market for goods and capital—with all the movement and creative destruction that global capitalism implies.

For its 18th volume, Critical Planning invites articles that explore migrations of people, goods, and ideas, with a particular focus on their causes, consequences, and responses. Migration is rarely a painless process, nor always a voluntary one. People move from the countryside to the city, from the city to the suburbs (and back), and from the developing world to the developed world in order to seek employment, to flee political oppression or war, or to escape the impending ravages of climate change. Such human flux produces fertile ground for creative interactions among people of diverse languages, cultures, and experiences. At the same time, it can inspire bigotry and fear, as seen in recent immigration enforcement legislation in Arizona and the proscription of minarets and headscarves in Europe. The innovative force of global capitalism has manifested itself geographically through depopulation and disinvestment in Detroit, Leipzig, and other former leading centers of manufacturing. Reactions to these shifts are multifaceted and multi-scalar, encompassing immigrant civil rights movements, government economic stimulus policies, and redevelopment plans for shrinking cities.

We welcome papers and creative projects that investigate the historical, theoretical, political economic and social equity aspects of migrations. Important questions include the following:

How do migrants experience their new environment, with respect to language, cultural, religious, class, ethnicity, and gender issues?
How do planners deal with rapidly shifting populations? Can planning provide solutions for concerns related to housing, social equity, and the built environment in a time of global flows?
How do current residents respond to newcomers and the ideas and goods that they bring with them, and do these reactions influence the development of planning policies?
Can policies be fair both to citizens and to potential migrants?
Can we effectively plan for urban expansion and contraction in relation to infrastructure, technology, sustainability, and housing?

Critical Planning is a double-blind peer-reviewed publication. Feature articles are generally between 5,000 and 7,000 words, while shorter articles are between 1,000 and 3,000 words. We encourage submissions that incorporate cross-disciplinary, multi-scalar, multi-sited,
transnational, or mixed-method approaches. We also welcome submissions of photographs, maps, art, or design projects related to the topic of migrations for publication in the journal.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, and we highly encourage early submissions. Feel free to contact us by email to discuss your ideas. All submissions should be written according to the standards of the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition. Please follow the journal’s additional style guidelines for submissions. Manuscripts should be submitted by 5 PM PST on December 27^th, 2010 as .doc attachments via email to critplan@ucla.edu and two hardcopies (postmarked by December 27^th, 2010) mailed to:

Critical Planning

c/o Karolina Gorska, Managing Editor

UCLA Department of Urban Planning

School of Public Affairs

3250 Public Policy Building

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656

USA