This call for papers solicits original research to explore the politics of contention and consensus through spatial forms and practices. These broad categories of political activity will comprise the two primary sections of an edited volume focused on the production of space as a mode of political consciousness, representation and engagement. The binary is not intended to be limiting. Submitted essays may alternatively address the process of moving between these political activities or indeed a purposeful withdrawal from either mode of political engagement. The binary is introduced here in recognition that contested spaces are attended to more often than spaces of consensus – and it is our intention to focus as equally on spaces of deliberation, negotiation, reconciliation and commemoration as on spaces of protest, occupation, segregation and neglect.

We are interested in research both contemporary and historical, from a variety of geographical contexts, and from scholars immersed in design practice, the humanities and the social sciences. The primary aim of the edited volume is pedagogical: to serve as a reader for undergraduate students, to aid the research of postgraduate students, and to reinvigorate and substantiate interdisciplinary directions in design education, research and practice. It is therefore intended for wide distribution. The book will present a dialog between canonical texts from political and architectural theorists, and essays selected from this Call for Papers. Altogether, this scholarship will provide theoretical and comparative perspectives to articulate the myriad means by which space is political and politics is spatial.

Selected essays for this edited volume will prioritize the following: 1. A ‘spatial epistemology’ approach to the analysis of political views and activities. For example, researchers may choose to focus on: a. METHODOLOGY of analyzing (i.e. How do we know politics through space? Or, to repeat the above, how is space political, and how is politics spatial? What tools of analysis are unique to spatial studies of politics?); or b. SPACES that articulate the political vibrancy and/ or instability of the built environment (i.e. What knowledge of politics is produced through space; and What knowledge of space is produced through politics? How have the politics of contention and consensus affected our built environment, and vice versa? ). 2. Research oriented toward an analysis of: a. CONTENTIOUS POLITICS, which includes but is not limited to the range of political activity from protest, occupation, segregation and neglect; or the b. POLITICS OF CONSENSUS, which again includes but is not limited to the range of political activity from deliberation, negotiation, reconciliation, and commemoration.

Submission Logistics: The edited volume, 'On the Spatial Epistemology of Politics, or How We Know Politics Through Space: Essays for Design Studies,' is funded in part by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and is co-edited by Harvard PhD candidates Delia Wendel and Fallon Samuels Aidoo.

Submissions due: 07 January 2013 Submit via our website: www.spaceandpolitics.org Submissions should be comprised of: a) 250 word ABSTRACT that identifies how the essay addresses points 1 and 2 above; b) 3000 to 7000 word ESSAY; c) 200 word professional BIO. Please submit all three parts of your submission as a single MS Word file.