Call for Papers: Human Niche Construction

Date and location: 16–17 October 2015, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich

Conveners: Maurits Ertsen, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; Edmund Russell, University of Kansas, USA; Christof Mauch, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Germany

In changing their environment, organisms change themselves as well. So goes the niche construction theory, which originated from evolutionary biology. Human niche construction simply extends this argument to humans.
The central theme of the workshop is to understand the processes of change across four different dimensions:

1. The material environment modified by human agency;
2. Social arrangements—human responses to modified environments;
3. Genetic structure of the human species as a result of modified environments;
4. Genetic structure of non-humans as a result of human-modified environments.

The workshop will take well-studied processes of change as its starting point, such as the introduction of agriculture, and explore other shifts as suggested by participants.

The workshop is aimed at scholars from a number of disciplines. There is potential for both interdisciplinary engagement between different scholarly fields and discussions between representatives of these fields on what the concepts mean, how they can be used, and whether they make sense in the first place.

To apply, please send an abstract (max. 500 words) and a short biography by 30 April 2015. Successful applicants will be notified in May and should submit their draft papers by 15 September 2015 in preparation for the workshop. Travel and accommodation costs will be reimbursed by the organizers. There will be an opportunity to revise the papers prior to the proposed publication of selected papers in the RCC in-house journal, Perspectives, in 2016.

To apply or for further information, please contact Maurits Ertsen on M.W.Ertsen@tudelft.nl.

The call for papers can be found here.