Conference theme: Nexus thinking

The theme for the 2016 Annual Conference is nexus thinking, an approach that has attracted a surge of interest in the last five years among academics, policy-makers and third sector organizations. The aim of nexus thinking is to address the interdependencies, tensions and trade-offs between different environmental and social domains – an approach to which geographers might feel an inherent attraction. The 2016 Annual Conference offers an opportunity to take these ideas forward both in the specific context of research on water, energy and food security but also, more widely, by demonstrating the power of geographical thinking to work across disciplinary boundaries, to think relationally and to make connections across time and space. The conference encourages debate about these issues, including what nexus thinking might add to existing approaches and what its potential might be as a metaphor or method.