York University’s Department of Geography, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LAPS), will host CAG2017, the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG), from May 29 to June 2 at Osgoode Hall.
The theme of the conference is “Toward a Just and Sustainable World,” reflecting the values of the CAG, the Department of Geography and York University. It will feature more than 500 presentations from 600 delegates from more than 20 countries, and will be the largest annual general meeting held by the CAG.
Linda Peake
Deborah McGregor
Roger Keil
The opening panel of the five-day event features York faculty members Linda Peake (LAPS professor and director of The City Institute at York University), Roger Keil (professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies) and Deborah McGregor (professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies and Osgoode Hall Law School), who will present the opening panel “A Just and Sustainable Toronto?”
Steven Tufts, chair of CAG2017 and professor in York’s Department of Geography, said York will be represented at the event by more than 120 faculty, students and alumni.
“CAG2017 is a ‘big’ conference, not only in terms of the number of participants, but also the ‘big’ questions and ‘big’ problems addressed by leading-edge geographic scholarship,” he said. “Environmental degradation, racial and gender injustice and economic inequality often seem too monumental to confront. Our conference theme, ‘Toward a Just and Sustainable World,’ is both ambitious and optimistic. We are pleased that so many geographers have taken our call seriously and will present research that will move us toward a better world. Capitulating to inequality and injustice is unacceptable, especially in challenging times. The organizing committee is proud to be part of a conference and a discipline that is built upon hope and imagines the world as a better place.”
The conference will also include 500 papers and posters presented in more than 130 sessions over the five days, and two keynote lectures.
Eve Tuck, professor of critical race and Indigenous studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, will present the ACME Lecture “Can Reconciliation Take (Up) Place?” on May 30. Edward Struzik, an award-winning writer, photographer, university lecturer, Fellow at Queen’s Institute for Energy & Environmental Policy and a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, presents the Wiley Lecture on May 31.
“The conference theme is very relevant to our contemporary world,” said Dan Shrubsole, president of the CAG. “Many recent events, such as the completion of the Truth & Reconciliation Report, and the signing of some U.S. Presidential Executive Orders that failed to comply with the UN Declaration on Human Rights, remind us of the need to acknowledge and resolve longstanding inequitable practices, and to immediately respond to practices and policies that fail to meet standards of fairness and sustainability.
“Our deliberations at CAG2017 will further the contributions that geographic research – basic and applied – can make to this honourable and important quest.”
For more information or to see the conference schedule, visit cag-acg2017.ca.