Conference: Expanding the Reach of Community Geography; Atlanta, GA; Spring 2019

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This award will support a national conference dedicated to sharing current work in Community Geography and laying the foundation for new collaborative projects. Community Geography is a growing subfield that draws from geographical techniques and theories to generate inclusive, mutually beneficial research and action that empowers communities and works toward positive social change. Unlike traditional research models, community geography emphasizes active partnerships at each stage of the research process, with academics working side by side with policymakers and community groups to address issues with real world relevance such as: local and regional food systems, economic development, access to affordable housing, and environmental or health problems. Through instruction that emphasizes action-based learning outside the traditional classroom, academic courses in Community Geography provide relevant and meaningful classroom experiences for students. This award catalyzes a broader, more diverse network of community geographers to gather and further these efforts. Workshop presentations will also be shared through an online web repository and both academic and non-academic publications. The conference will demonstrate how a geographical perspective can help solve pressing social and environmental problems and show how the discipline can better engage members of the general public.This conference will be attended by approximately forty individuals, including academic faculty from research and teaching institutions, graduate students, and non-academic community partners (for example, staff at non-profit organizations, members of community groups, governmental employees). The conference will follow a two-day structure. On the first day, participants will share current work in a series of workshops and presentations. These will be recorded via video and shared on a publicly accessible website. On the second day, attendees will develop new ideas for collaborative research and teaching, identify common threads in current work and identify a research agenda for the future. The goals of this conference are to build and strengthen network connections among attendees, share best practices within community geography, and generate new ideas and resources to support community engaged scholarship within geography as a discipline. This conference will be held at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, but attendees will be recruited nationally and we expect that it will have a national impact.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.