We would like to invite abstract submissions for the panel “Coexistence as in-betweenness: everyday practices of comparison”, chaired by our team members Bruno Lefort and Saara Toukolehto, at the biennial conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society (FAS). Marking the 50th anniversary of the Finnish Anthropological Society, the conference will be held in Helsinki from 16-18 June 2025. It will feature Soumhya Venkatesan as the Keynote Lecturer for the conference, and Tom Boellstorff will give the annual Westermarck Lecture during the conference.
Conference Theme: Comparisons
Panel ID / Panel title: ID=16 / Coexistence as in-betweenness: everyday practices of comparison
How do we live together? Between growing diversity and rising inequalities, this simple question has turned into a challenge for many European societies. Against the backdrop of contemporary debates proclaiming the destabilizing impact of migration on social cohesion, this panel proposes to rethink the nexus between coexistence, migration, and societal change from an alternative standpoint. To do so, it chooses to focus on what joins people together and separates them from one another in the course of the everyday. Giving prominence to what arises in8 between people, everyday coexistence shifts the attention away from categorical identity thinking towards the inherently open and ambivalent existential space between the self and others. Equally made of prejudices and solidarity, connections and separations, this existential space is navigated using interpretations that rely on intimate relational and comparative knowledge. These evenly bring about chauvinistic and xenophobic attitudes, and acts of solidarities cutting-across generations, places, and social groups. Foregrounding people’s everyday practices of comparison, this panel wishes to engage these multiple – and uneven – relationships and their concurrent, sometimes antagonistic interpretations of “what is between us”. Accordingly, we invite presentations that ask, for instance: How do people use comparisons to negotiate their joint presence in places they inhabit together? How do they navigate shared, disputed, and negotiated interpretations of in-betweenness to compose different experiences of coexistence? We call for ethnographic, explorative, and experimental explorations that engage with these or related questions.
Key dates:
- Call for papers from the 5th December –
15th January 2025EXTENDED to 20th January - Notification of acceptance of paper on 18th February 2025
Submissions should include:
- Paper abstract, max 250 words
- Name, institutional affiliation and email of author/s
Please click here to submit abstract.
For questions and enquiries, please contact Bruno Lefort (bruno.lefort@oulu.fi) and Saara Toukolehto (saara.toukolehto@oulu.fi).
For more information about the conference and submission, visit the conference website.