Call for papers: Symposium 'When life comes between us. Ethics and social relations in everyday life’
23 and 24 January 2023 we organise the first of two research meetings, co-hosted by Aarhus University and our university, to explore and cultivate international cross-connections. Note: There is a Call for papers, deadline is 18 November!
We take our starting point in what Zigon takes to be the most fundamental of all ethical questions, namely ‘How is it between us’? As ethics begins with a demand that emerges from a situation within which one finds oneself with others, this points at the relationality of existence, but moreover draws our attention to what actually happens between people in everyday life. This deepens our scope of the everyday from the tacit and routine to the unpredictable and dynamics of learning and change. Over two days, we explore lived experiences of social relations in everyday life, ranging from the ambivalent and struggle, to recognition, transformation and the opening up of new or unexpected possibilities. We consider what these experiences expose on the existential, ethical or political plane, as well as what can or needs to be transformed for being together otherwise.
Guided by the question ‘How is it between us’?, over two days we explore lived experience of social relations in every day life, ranging from the ambivalent and struggle, to recognition, transformation and the opening up of new or unexpected possibilities. We consider what these experiences expose on the existential, ethical or political plane, as well as what can or needs to be transformed for being together otherwise.
We aim to bring together conceptual and empirical contributions from different fields interested in ethics and social relations, including care ethics, (critical) phenomenology, empirical ethics and the anthropology of ethics and morality. Topics we would like to consider include, but are not limited to:
- Dynamics at work in everyday relational life and social practice, and their role in ethics; e.g. attunement, responsiveness, resonance, interruption
- Lived experiences of social relations and relational goods; e.g. intimate caring relationships, fleeting encounters in public space
- The ethics and politics of sites and practices for being-together otherwise; f.e. in intramural care, community work; spiritual counselling
- Methodological and conceptual issues pertaining to how we might best study everyday relational life and the search for the good
Confirmed speakers
We are excited to have a number of very interesting academics coming to our university to explore these issues together with us, including:Jarrett Zigon
Porterfield Chair in Bioethics and Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia, VS. His work spans many years of engaging with phenomenology, anthropology, ethics and political theory. He is well known for his conceptions of moral breakdown, attunement, dwelling and relational ethics. His research projects include drugs rehabilitation programs and the globally networked anti-drug war movement, on moral experience in times of social and political change, and how people attune to make relational space for something new to unfold.
Lone Grøn
Professor with special responsibilities in Anthropology, VIVE, Danish Centre for Social Science Research. Drawing on critical phenomenology and anthropology of ethics and morality, her work considers how we can study and meaningfully speak about goods arising between people amidst situations of suffering and finitude, and in ways that acknowledge pain, loss and loneliness. Research projects include family life with autism, the end of life care provided by volunteer death doula’s, and dementia care wards.
Rasmus Dyring
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Aarhus University, Denmark. As phenomenologist engaging with anthropology of ethics, he works on conceptions of ethics, sociality and community that do justice to the singularity of human existence, as well as on methodological issues pertaining to the relationship between empirical research and philosophy. Currently, he conducts research on moments of ‘everyday creativity’ in life at dementia wards and their significance for thinking care, ethics and community.
Ambition: International Research Network
This meeting is more than a regular conference!What: This is the first of two meetings in which we explore possibilities for further research collaboration on everyday relational life, and the significance of studying possibilities for things becoming otherwise for meaningful life in a just and caring society.
The second meeting will take place at Aarhus University, Denmark on 28-29 June 2023. We aim to launch a sustained conversation between the two meetings and beyond. We encourage participants to join both meetings, but you are also welcome to only join the meeting in January.
How: Next to plenary sessions, the seminars are structured around small-scale workshops and sessions, so participants can meet researchers with similar interests and get acquainted with one another’s work.
For whom: Possibly fields of study might be, but are not restricted to:
- (critical) phenomenology
- the anthropology of ethics and morality
- philosophy of care, nursing and medicine
- moral philosophy/empirical ethics
- spiritual care
- care ethics
Organizing committee
23 and 24 January 2023 we organise the first of two research meetings, co-hosted by Aarhus University and our university, to explore and cultivate international cross-connections.