Relational lives and belonging: At the intersection of the personal and the political
Westermarck Pre-conference workshop
6 May 2026
Vanessa May (University of Manchester, UK), Kaisa Kuurne (University of Turku), Anna-Maija Castrén (University of Eastern Finland)
Call for abstracts
This workshop, aimed at PhD students and postdocs, brings into dialogue different approaches to the sociological study of relational lives and belonging. It examines both the personal and the political aspects that are famously argued to be cut from the same cloth but are often dealt with in separate sub-disciplinary areas of sociological study. In the relational study of personal lives (whether concerning reproduction, family and kin, living solo, alternative or multi-species intimacies and/or community), the personal is seen as not only shaped by social norms and material conditions, but also enabled and constrained by the political. In studying belonging, relational approaches have been interested in how people build a sense of belonging in the varying social and material contexts of which they are a part, and how it gets problematised or attained. Their attainment of belonging is understood to be conditioned by collectively and institutionally created, maintained and policed boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. The recent rise of conservative forces, increasing political polarisation, harsh social security cuts and a growing sense of uncertainty have had significant ramifications for the relational lives and sense of belonging of a wide range of people. By bringing together diverse approaches to studying relational lives and belonging across the personal-political divide, the aim of the workshop is to open up space for ideas to cross-fertilise and enrich the sociological imagination.
We invite empirical, theoretical and methodological contributions that trouble the boundary between the personal and the political, and that analyse relational lives and belonging at their intersection. We are keen to receive abstracts across a range of sub-disciplinary and neighbouring fields, including but not restricted to personal lives and relationships, political and institutional sociology, urban sociology, post-humanist and material-feminist perspectives. This will allow for intellectual cross-pollination of ideas concerning how relational lives and belonging unfold in the everyday and are conditioned by broader social structures, material conditions, the institutional orchestration of everyday life, and national and global policies and legislation.
We invite short empirical, theoretical or methodological papers (e.g. a PhD synopsis, a section of an article, chapter or conference presentation, or another short presentation addressing the course theme). The following list of suggested themes is not exhaustive (e.g. a PhD synopsis, a section of an article, chapter or conference presentation, or another short presentation addressing the course theme):
- personal lives and intimacy
- everyday lives, communities and neighbourhoods
- more-than-human relations
- reproductive lives and bodies
- institutional contexts and street level bureaucracies
- legislation and policies (family, education, health care, migration, etc.)
- and more
Please submit your abstract of max 300 words in length by 27 February 2026 to conference secretary Ilona Kyngäs, hakyngas@ulapland.fi
Accepted participants will be notified by 15.3.2026. They will be asked to submit a 3,000-word (excl. references) paper by 21.4.2026.
The venue of the course: University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
The timetable of the course: Wed 6 May, 9.30am-4.00pm.
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Collectivity futures: rethinking knowledge and its conditions
Westermarck Pre-conference course
6 May 2026
Charlotte Kroløkke (University of Southern Denmark), Sanna Valkonen (University of Lapland), Mianna Meskus (Tampere University) and Riikka Homanen (University of Lapland)
Call for abstracts
This preconference course is aimed at early career scholars (PhD students and postdocs) and seeks to unpack what the theme of the conference “Community futures” allows social scientists to study, understand, see and feel. While there is wide agreement on the need for creating “conditions and relations for coming together in less violent ways” (Masco et al., 2025) and generating “hope in the ruins” (Tsing, 2015), it is increasingly important for sociologists to engage in critical, grounded and empirically nuanced discussions on how different ways of sustainable living and eco-social equality can be achieved. This task requires a critical examination of epistemic hierarchies, also within academia, and the assumptions that sustain them. We need to re‑conceptualise knowledge and processes of knowledge production.
What does it mean to conduct social research that is oriented towards building more hopeful community futures than we see already taking form? Sociologists study bio-socio-cultural practices, means of public and political engagement, regulatory frameworks, lived and local relations, and economic and technoscientific arrangements. What do empirical and theoretical investigations of these issues allow “us” to know, regarding collectivities and futures? In what ways can research committed to sustaining community futures disrupt colonial epistemic hierarchies and open space for non‑anthropocentric epistemologies? Moreover, what role might more‑than‑human beings play in shaping just futures for communities?
We invite short empirical, theoretical or methodological papers (e.g. a PhD synopsis, a section of an article, chapter or conference presentation, or another short presentation addressing the course theme) that address, for instance, one or several of the following issues:
- Situated modes of knowledge production and epistemologies in the Anthropocene
- Ignorance and violence, place- and land-based knowing, decolonizing science
- Environmental, reproductive, ecological and multispecies (in)justice(s)
- Science and technologies on procreation, conservation, restoration/rewilding
- Decolonization, governmentality, stewardship
- Economization, capitalization, extraction
Please submit your abstract of max 300 words in length by 15 March 2026 to conference secretary Ilona Kyngäs, hakyngas@ulapland.fi
Accepted participants will be notified by 20.3.2026. They will be asked to submit a 2,000-word (excl. references) paper by 21.4.2026.
The venue of the course: University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
The timetable of the course: Wed 6 May, 9.30am-3.30pm.
