For a special issue by Routes and Youngwilders

In collaboration with the youth-led nature recovery organisation Youngwilders, Routes: The Journal For Student Geographers is launching a call for papers for a special issue on young people and rewilding. Submissions are open for secondary school students, undergraduates, and Master’s students.

Rewilding means many things to many different people. For some, it offers a bold vision for nature conservation and human-nonhuman relations, encompassing practices such as (legal or illegal) species reintroductions, the re-wiggling of canalised rivers, or the removal of invasive species. For others, it is merely a repackaging of older ideas and practices of conservation and comes with their baggage of exclusion and elitism. And for others still, rewilding challenges ideals of agricultural productivity, food sovereignty, and cultural heritage. Rewilding, then, encompasses a fluid and controversial set of ideas and practices which have reinvigorated debates about land management from the garden to the landscape.

A range of organisations are increasingly prioritising the social as well as environmental opportunities presented by rewilding, including for engaging young people in land management decisions and practices, and ‘rewilding people’ through new forms of engagement and encounter with landscapes and wildlife. For this special issue, we are seeking contributions which engage with the relations between young people and rewilding. Contributions can interpret this theme broadly, from youth perspectives on rewilding ideas and practices, accounts of rewilding projects involving young people, natural or social science driven research projects, engagements with the politics of rewilding including how young people are being included (or not), or more speculative pieces which imagine these relationships differently and creatively. We welcome empirical, scientific, conceptual, artistic, and other submissions from around the world.

Contributions might consider, but should not be limited to:

• Physical geography and ecological analyses of rewilding and nature recovery projects (e.g. species reintroductions) based on original fieldwork
• Human geography and cultural analyses of rewilding projects based on original fieldwork
• Historical engagements with rewilding
• Conceptual or philosophical engagements with rewilding
• Young people and their representation in rewilding politics
• Ideas about rewilding people’s minds
• The place of large predators, herbivores, and other (re)introduced species in peopled landscapes
• The place of rewilding in productive agricultural landscapes, and vice versa, the place for food production rewilded landscapes
• The politics of rewilding in the Global North and Global South, and perspectives on rewilding from outside North America and Europe
• Decolonial, postcolonial, and queer perspectives on rewilding – or other non-hegemonic perspectives
• Book reviews
• Creative submissions including poetry, creative writing, photo essays, audio recordings, multi-media projects, speculative manifestos, or other submissions

We encourage submissions in a range of formats and are open to all ideas. If you would like to pitch something creative, please get in touch to see how we might accommodate the requirements of your idea. Alongside publishing this special issue online, we are exploring possibilities for a printed edition.

Both Routes and Youngwilders are committed to diversity and inclusivity within geography and nature recovery. We especially encourage submissions by those most often marginalised from the geographical discipline and rewilding communities, and are available to offer guidance and support for submissions. If you have any questions or would like to discuss a potential submission, please get in touch with us at: routesjournalgeography@gmail.com.

Submissions should include:

• Your name(s)
• Your school or institution (if a school student, it is essential to cc your teacher into your submission)
• Title of your work
• Type of work (e.g., book review, essay, poetry, multi-media, etc.)
• A 250-word brief description / abstract of your proposed work
• A brief 100-word description on your motivation for publishing with Routes x Youngwilders

Submissions should be sent to: routesjournalgeography@gmail.com. 

Deadline for submissions is: 30th November 2024.