I co-organised a successful double session at this years RGS-IBG conference on 'touch'. Details below and paper abstracts are here.

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Touching Places / Placing Touch: Space, Culture and Tactility

CONVENORS: Sara MacKian (University of Manchester), Martin Dodge (University of Manchester), Chris Perkins (University of Manchester), Mark Paterson (University of Exeter)

SESSION 1
CHAIR: Mark Paterson (University of Exeter)

1 Placing touch on the beach: The tactilities of sunbathing and sandcastles; Pau Obrador-Pons (University of Sunderland)

2 To eat or not to eat: the role of touch in choosing food at a farmers’ market; Keith Spiller (Durham University)

3 Encountering touch: the ‘mixed bodies’ of Michel Serres ; Jennifer Lea (University of Glasgow)

4 In close embrace? Negotiating hold and space between two dancers; Sarah Cant (Plymouth University)

5 Bodies-Touching-Bodies: Exploring fleshy geographies in the work of Jenny Saville; Rachel Colls (Durham University)


SESSION 2

CHAIR: Martin Dodge (University of Manchester)

1 The Ecology of Technics: Touch and the practice of being human.; James Ash (University of Bristol)

2 Brain imaging techniques and some possible geographies of touch; Hannah Macpherson (University of Newcastle)

3 CANCELLED: To understand a tactile pratice in Geography : Fieldworking and act of drawing in the prospect of Transitionality; Anne Volvey (University of Artois, France)

4 Touch and the micro spaces of hurt and healing: exploring stories of post cancer treatment though tactile methodologies; Amanda Bingley (Lancaster University)

5 CANCELLED: Touch in the skin’s culture of the modern medicine: the birth of biosubjective care; Bernard Andrieu (University of Nancy, France), Alexandre Klein (University of Nancy, France)