Space, Race, Bodies: Geocorpographies of the City, Nation and Empire is a forthcoming conference hosted by the Department of Media, Film and Communication (MFCO), the Postcolonial Studies Research Network (PSRN), the Somatechnics Research Network (University of Arizona) and the Sexuality Research Group at the University of Otago between the 8-10th December, 2014. The title of the conference is taken from Joseph Pugliese's ground-breaking work on technologies of surveillance, law and terrorism. The conceptual merging of the corporeal body with geography - geocorpographies - draws attention to the institutional, cultural and legal forces that influence the global movement of people, capital and technology across cities and national borders.

Space, Race, Bodies will be the first Somatechnics conference held in New Zealand. The Somatechnics Research Network (SRN) facilitates connections between a vast array of scholars and institutions producing research on bodies and technology. SRN has fostered a truly interdisciplinary field of inquiry that includes the biological sciences, sport, gender and sexuality studies, media, film and music studies and postcolonial studies.

The Postcolonial Studies Research Network (PSRN) brings together an interdisciplinary group of established and emerging scholars whose research engages with a range of aspects of postcoloniality. These include the historical cultures of empire, and the contemporary cultural politics of indigeneity, of (post)colonial settlement, and of the diasporic condition.

The Sexuality Research Group has been established to support and nurture scholarly discourse, research and writing associated with sexualities within the Department of Sociology, Gender & Social Work at Otago. We aim to secure a sustained output of research findings and publications that will have an impact on academic and public-policy debates on issues of sexuality, both locally and internationally. We come together from diverse theoretical orientations and disciplinary backgrounds in order to nurture cross-disciplinary inquiry.

This conference is supported by: