Po Ve Sham - Muki Haklay’s personal blog

As in 2007, I am a member of the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) conference organising committee. Judging by the 2007 conference, this is going to be an excellent event. The range of papers, speakers and more importantly participants created an entertaining and educational two days, in addition to the networking and meeting of some familiar faces, including former students who are now part of the GIS industry.

However, over the past few years, the relationships between the academic side of GIS and industry – especially through the AGI – have not been as close and collaborative as they should be. This is a shame, as the many MSc courses in GIS programmes across the country are a significant entry route to a career in GIS. As I’ve noted, it is crucial for GIS professionals to keep up with the wider field and to learn about developments at every opportunity. This is not just true for people who are working with GIS on a daily basis, but also for academics who are carrying out research with or about GIS and GIScience and who educate future generations of GIS professionals. It is therefore unfortunate that only a few academics showed up to the AGI conference last year.

This year, the AGI has very generously put in a special effort to outreach academia. Two opportunities are available – for students there is a competition for a free day pass and an opportunity to meet prospective employers. For academics and researchers who submit a paper to the conference, there is another competition which is based on the papers that have been submitted with an award of significantly subsidised conference fees. So that’s a clear signal that the AGI is keen to see the academic side of GI at the annual conference – now we, as academics, need to do our part!

As part of a research project with UnLtd, the foundation for social entrepreneurs, I’m co-organising a session in the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, 27-29 August 2008, on the geographicla aspects of social enterprise research. The detailed call is:

Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship have grown in quantity and strength in the last decade in the UK. Positioned within ‘Third Sector’ social enterprises are characterised by their business-like approach to social action and have grown in the UK under New Labour. The relevance of social enterprise to Geography has previously been by-passed by particular discourses that debate the political-economic and socio-economic nature of non-state, non-commercial organisations - namely volunteer or non-profit organisations. This work helps to define and map the landscape of the Third sector but is yet to give adequate attention to organisations and individuals who use their entrepreneurial ideas to deliver social change while aiming to be financially sustainable.

There is a need for more social and cultural geographers to examine the nature and emergence of social enterprise/entrepreneurship in the UK. Whilst some work has explored the interrelationships between people, place and volunteering (Milligan, 2007), work on social enterprise/entrepreneurship in this field is scarce. Social entrepreneurs identify social need at the local, national and global scales; generate interest from a variety of social, cultural, economic and political spheres; and create tangible/intangible social impacts on individuals, communities, and cultures through their encounters with people, environment and place.

For social and cultural geography, social entrepreneurs not only present the opportunity to revive long-standing debates over agency, community, citizenship, space and place but also to make contributions to recent work on mobility, diasporic geographies, geographies of enchantment and especially to rethink the links between modes of economic activity and the creation of social goods.

This session aims to move current debates in geography, e.g. within geographies of volunteerism, forward by looking at individuals as drivers of social change from a new perspective. This is also pertinent given that social entrepreneurship/enterprise is fast becoming the major force of change in UK society. This session stems from a collaborative research between UCL and a leading supporter of social entrepreneurs (UnLtd), and we want to create a forum for debate about the emergence of and contribution to be made by geographies of social enterprise.

We invite proposals from geographers to present papers on:

• Geographical patterns of social entrepreneurial activities
• The role of Social Enterprise, Voluntarism and Charities in shaping places
• The concepts of space within the third sector, and how its geometry changes as result of social enterprise
• The merits and demerits of mapping social impact
• The relevance of non-spatial mapping to better understand social entrepreneurial activity.

If you are interested, please send expressions of interest to both m.haklay@ucl.ac.uk and LauraFry@unltd.org.uk

Deadline for title and abstracts (c. 200 words): 10 February 2008

This session is part of two planned sessions about Social Enterprise. The second one is a closed session organise by Dr. Sarah-Anne Munoz, which will focus on Social Enterprise, Social Theory and Geographies of Empowerment.