Registration for The Annual Sociological Conference 2026 is now open!

Registration has begun and will close on April 26, 2026.
Below you will find instructions for members of the Westermarck Society as well as for non-members.

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1. INSTRUCTIONS FOR WESTERMARCK SOCIETY MEMBERS

Please register using this form for both the conference and the conference dinner.
If you wish to attend the dinner, select the conference dinner option in addition to your registration category.

Please note that the number of seats for the dinner is limited.

IMPORTANT: Registration is binding. Payments made via Paytrail (online banking or card) will only be refunded for compelling reasons.

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Participation fees for members

• Undergraduate student, member of the Westermarck Society: 0€
• Doctoral researcher, member: 35€
• Other members: 55€
• Conference dinner: 50€ (limited availability)

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Members of the Westermarck Society must pay the 2026 membership fee, which was sent by email on January 27, 2026. The membership fee is not paid during registration. If you have not yet paid it, please do so separately. Payment status may be checked if necessary.

Participation is free of charge for student members of the Society, but registration is still required. The conference dinner must be registered for separately and paid in advance. If necessary, students may be asked to provide proof of valid membership (e.g., a confirmation email) upon registration.

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Payment

In some cases, the payment summary shown during registration may display only the participation fee. However, when proceeding to payment via online banking or card, the total amount will be shown.

Payments are recorded in the system immediately, and you can review them in Flomembers under “Invoices.”

Due to the payment system logic, students may be asked to provide proof of valid membership (e.g., a confirmation email) at registration.

Members who have not yet activated their account have been sent an activation link. If you are unable to log in or encounter any issues with registration or payment, please contact: westermarckseura@gmail.com

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2. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BECOME A MEMBER?

Join the Society using this link. Wait for the activation link to arrive (approval is done manually), then activate your account and register by logging into the system (see section 1).
Note: The activation email may end up in your spam folder.

As a member of the Westermarck Society, you can attend The Annual Sociological Conference at a reduced rate and receive the printed journal Sosiologia. Read more about the Society.

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3. REGISTRATION FOR NON-MEMBERS

Please register for The Annual Sociological Conference using this form.

Registration for the conference dinner is done in a separate category during event registration. If you wish to attend the dinner, please also select the conference dinner category. Please note that the number of places for the dinner is limited.

NOTE! Registration is binding. Payments made via Paytrail (online banking or card) are refunded only for compelling reasons.

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Participation fees

• Undergraduate student, non-member: 40€
• Doctoral researcher, non-member: 95€
• Others, non-members: 140€
• Conference dinner: 50€ (limited availability)

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In some cases, the payment summary shown during registration may display only the participation fee. However, once you proceed to pay via online banking or card, you will see the total amount.

Ilmoittautuminen Sosiologipäiville 2026 on auki!

 Ilmoittautuminen on alkanut, ja päättyy 26.4.2026. Alla ohjeet ilmoittautumiseen Westermarck-seuran jäsenille sekä muille kuin jäsenille.

 

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1 OHJEET WESTERMARCK-SEURAN JÄSENTEN ILMOITTAUTUMISEEN

ILMOITTAUDU tällä lomakkeella konferenssiin ja illalliselle. Jos osallistut illalliselle, valitse lomakkeelta ilmoittautumiskategorian lisäksi konferenssi-illallinen.

Huomioithan, että illalliselle on vain rajattu määrä paikkoja.

HUOM! Ilmoittautuminen on sitova. Paytrailin kautta meneviä maksuja (verkkopankki, kortti) palautetaan vain painavan syyn vuoksi.

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Osallistumismaksut seuran jäsenille

Perustutkinto-opiskelija, Westermarck-seuran jäsen 0 €
Väitöskirjatutkija, Westermarck-seuran jäsen 35 €
Westermarck-seuran jäsen, muut jäsentyypit 55 €
Konferenssi-illallinen 50 € (paikkoja rajallinen määrä)

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Westermarck-seuran jäsenten tulee maksaa vuoden 2026 jäsenmaksu, joka on lähetetty sähköpostitse 27.1.2026. Jäsenmaksua ei makseta ilmoittautumisen yhteydessä. Mikäli et ole maksanut jäsenmaksua, pyydämme sinua hoitamaan maksun erikseen. Tarvittaessa tarkistamme maksutilanteen.

Westermarck-seuran opiskelijajäsenille osallistuminen tapahtumaan on maksutonta, mutta ilmoittautuminen tulee tehdä normaalisti. Konferenssi-illallinen ilmoitetaan erikseen ja maksetaan ennakkoon. Tarvittaessa opiskelijoita voidaan pyytää esittämään todistus voimassa olevasta jäsenyydestä (esim. jäsenyyden vahvistus sähköpostitse) rekisteröitymisen yhteydessä.

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Maksaminen

Joissain tapauksissa maksun yhteenveto voi ilmoittautumisvaiheessa näyttää vain osallistumismaksun. Siirryttyäsi maksamaan verkkopankissa tai kortilla näet kuitenkin kokonaissumman.

Maksut kirjautuvat järjestelmään heti, ja voit tarkastella niitä Flomembersissa kohdassa Laskut.

Maksulogiikan vuoksi opiskelijoita voidaan tarvittaessa pyytää esittämään todistus voimassa olevasta jäsenyydestä (esimerkiksi sähköpostitse saatu jäsenyyden vahvistus) rekisteröitymisen yhteydessä.

Jäsenille, jotka eivät ole aktivoineet tunnustaan, on lähetetty aktivointilinkki. Jos et onnistu kirjautumaan järjestelmään tai kohtaat muita ilmoittautumiseen tai maksamiseen liittyviä ongelmia, ota yhteyttä osoitteeseen westermarckseura@gmail.com.

 

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2 HALUATKO LIITTYÄ JÄSENEKSI?

Liity jäseneksi käyttäen tätä linkkiä, odota aktivointilinkin saapumista (hyväksyminen tehdään manuaalisesti), aktivoi sitten tilisi ja ilmoittaudu kirjautumalla sisälle järjestelmään (ohje 1). Huom! Aktivointilinkki saattaa mennä roskapostiin.

Westermarck-seuran jäsenenä osallistut Sosiologipäiville alennetulla hinnalla ja saat luettavaksesi painetun Sosiologia-lehden. Lue lisää seurasta.

 

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3 MUIDEN KUIN JÄSENTEN ILMOITTAUTUMINEN

ILMOITTAUDU Sosiologipäiville käyttäen tätä lomaketta.

Konferenssi-illalliselle ilmoittaudutaan erillisestä kategoriasta tapahtuman ilmoittautumisen yhteydessä. Jos osallistut illalliselle, valitse lisäksi konferenssi-illallinen-kategoria. Huomioithan, että illalliselle on vain rajattu määrä paikkoja.

HUOM! Ilmoittautuminen on sitova. Paytrailin kautta meneviä maksuja (verkkopankki, kortti) palautetaan vain painavan syyn vuoksi.

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Osallistumismaksut:

• Perustutkinto-opiskelija, ei jäsen 40 €
• Väitöskirjatutkija, ei jäsen 95 €
• Muut, ei jäsenet 140 €
• Konferenssi-illallinen 50 € (paikkoja rajallinen määrä)

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Maksaminen

Joissain tapauksissa maksun yhteenveto voi ilmoittautumisvaiheessa näyttää vain osallistumismaksun. Siirryttyäsi maksamaan verkkopankissa tai kortilla näet kuitenkin kokonaissumman.

 

 

JUURI NYT:

• Esitelmäkutsua työryhmiin jatketaan pe 27.3.2026 saakka.
• The call for presentations to the working groups will be extended until Friday, March 27, 2026.

• Ilmoittautuminen alkaa maaliskuun lopulla!
• Registration will open at the end of March!

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Sosiologipäivät 2026 järjestetään Rovaniemellä 7.-8.5.2026. Nähdään siellä! Tulevan vuoden teema on Yhteisön tulevaisuudet. Löydät tämän vuoden ohjelman ja muun infon ylävalikon kautta!

Yhteyshenkilöt

Konferenssisihteeri Ilona Kyngäs, hakyngas@ulapland.fi

Järjestelytoimikunta

Veera Kinnunen, puheenjohtaja, veera.kinnunen@ulapland.fi

Janne Autto

Suvi Ronkainen

Henna Pirskanen

Heikki Huilaja

Riikka Homanen

Birgitta Vinkka

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.

Thursday, 7 May 2026 

9:00–12:00 Registration
Main Lobby, University of Lapland 

12:00–12:30 Opening Words 

12:30–13:30 Plenary I 
Vanessa May: Precarious Belonging and the Power of Resonant Connections in Everyday Life 

13:30–14:00 Westermarck Society’s Master’s Thesis Award Ceremony 

14:00–15:00 Plenary II 
Tero Toivanen: Yhteisön pimeä puoli? – Äärioikeisto ekologisen yhteisön rakentajana 

15:00–15:30 Coffee Break 

15:30–17:30 Working Group Sessions 

17.30-19.00 Ilmiö-preparty in Oliver’s Corner (more information below)

19:00–21:00 Conference Dinner
Arktikum (Pohjoisranta 4)
(Participants are kindly requested to book the dinner as part of the online conference registration.)

21:00–23:00 Evening Reception at Arktikum
(Complimentary admission for all conference participants.) 

 

Friday, 8 May 2026 

9.30–11.30 Working Group Sessions 

11.30-12.00 Launch event: Pekka Sulkunen’s new book offers a fresh perspective on the structure of modern society and the resistance directed at it. Discussion with the author, joined by Eeva Luhtakallio. (The language of the event is Finnish.)

11.30–13:00 Lunch 

13:00–14:00 Plenary III 
Charlotte Kroløkke: Toxic reproductive futures: Chemical exposure and off-world fertility imaginaries

14:00–14:30 Sosiologia Journal Article Award 

14:30–15:30 Plenary IV 
Omistuksenjälkeisyys Research Group:
Jälkiä talouden tulevaisuuksista: omistamisen murrospuhe ja arkiset kudelmat 

15:30–16:30 Closing Words 

From 17:00 onwards Informal “Train Waiting Club” Gathering (location TBA) 

 

Ilmiö-preparty

Ilmiö (https://ilmiomedia.fi/), which aims to provide ”sosiological media for all”, is organizing a preparty for the participants of Sosiology Days on Thursday, May 7 from 17.30-19H at Oliver’s Corner (Koskikatu 19, Rovaniemi). Come and meet your colleagues as well as the editorial staff of Ilmiö and discuss the popularisation of sosiology!