Bod­ies, Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, Empowerment
Symposium
Orgniz­ers: Aman­da Lubit, Mile­na Williamson, and Maruš­ka Svašek.
Time: Fri­day 6 March 2026
Place: Wolf­son Lec­ture The­atre, Sea­mus Heaney Cen­tre, 38–40 Uni­ver­si­ty Road, Belfast

Call for Con­tri­bu­tions (dead­line: 15 Jan 2026)

Cen­tre for Cre­ative Ethnog­ra­phy, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sea­mus Heaney Cen­tre, invites aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents, poets and oth­ers to par­tic­i­pate in a one-day, in-per­son sym­po­sium. The objec­tive is to employ cre­ative ethnog­ra­phy, poet­ry, and oth­er modes of artis­tic explo­ration to explore how inequal­i­ties relat­ed to inter­sec­tion­al­i­ties of gen­der, sex­u­al­i­ty, race, reli­gion, class, age, and/or dis­abil­i­ty are

– embod­ied and experienced
– embed­ded in wider soci­etal structures
– politi­cised and resisted

Bod­ies: We invite sub­mis­sions that inves­ti­gate phys­i­cal­i­ty, aging, mor­tal­i­ty, emo­tion­al inter­ac­tion, indi­vid­ual bod­ies and body politics.

Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties: Relat­ed ques­tions around inequal­i­ties, oppres­sion, inter­de­pen­dence, and expe­ri­ences of dis­em­pow­er­ment and trau­ma are high­ly relevant.

Empow­er­ment: We also wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that exam­ine broad­er themes of bod­i­ly agency, resis­tance, and transformation.

Con­trib­u­tors might sim­i­lar­ly con­sid­er rela­tion­ships between artist’s bod­ies and bod­ies of work, explor­ing how con­crete works exist in space, cul­ture and soci­ety. Anoth­er rel­e­vant ques­tion is how cre­ative prac­tice can make us as cre­ators both vul­ner­a­ble and empow­ered. What are the com­pli­ca­tions of try­ing to express

- an indi­vid­ual experience

“The days are get­ting longer now, how­ev­er many of them / I have left. / And the pen­cil I am writ­ing this with, old as it is, will eas­i­ly / out­last their end.” –Cia­ran Carson’s “Claude Mon­et, Artist’s Gar­den at Vétheuil, 1880)

- a col­lec­tive experience

(“All atti­tudes, all the shape­li­ness, all the belong­ings of my or your body or of any one’s body” –Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric”)

We encour­age, but do not require, sub­mis­sions that incor­po­rate a per­for­ma­tive ele­ment. Per­for­mances can include, but are not lim­it­ed to, read­ings, dance, visu­al arts and crafts, sound, and film.

FORMAT: Each con­trib­u­tor will have up to 15 min­utes for their pre­sen­ta­tion, demon­stra­tion and/or per­for­mance. If you wish to con­tribute, please send a 200-word abstract and a 100-word bio to CFCE@qub.ac.uk by Jan­u­ary 15, 2025. Please spec­i­fy the for­mat of your con­tri­bu­tion. If you are doing a demon­stra­tion and/or per­for­mance please let us know what that will involve.

KEYNOTE: Bebe Ashley

Bebe lives in North­ern Ire­land. Her debut col­lec­tion Gold Light Shin­ing (Ban­shee Press) was select­ed for Read Mór in 2022. In 2023, Bebe received the Ivan Juritz Prize for Cre­ative Exper­i­ment (Text) for work which was lat­er pub­lished in her sec­ond poet­ry col­lec­tion Har­bour Doubts. In 2024, Bebe received a Cre­ative Prac­ti­tion­er Bur­sary from Belfast City Coun­cil, and in 2025, received the British Coun­cil Fel­low­ship for Bun­danon, Aus­tralia. For more details, please see here: http://www.bebe-ashley.com/

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CfA for a pan­el at EASST2026 Con­fer­ence Krakow: „Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Stud­ies. Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures”
Sep 8–11 2026
Dead­line Mar 9 

Cfp for an open pan­el “Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Stud­ies: Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures” (P050) at the EASST2026 Con­fer­ence in Krakow (Sep 8–11). The call for abstracts is open until March 9, 2026. Sub­mit your abstracts, and feel free to cir­cu­late the call!

Short Abstract: P050 Toward Bio­med­ical and Health Test­ing Studies
Reassem­bling Test­ing Prac­tices and Health Futures

This pan­el invites con­tri­bu­tions exam­in­ing the epis­te­molo­gies, ontolo­gies, moral­i­ties and pol­i­tics of test­ing in bio­med­i­cine and (pub­lic) health. We par­tic­u­lar­ly seek papers that explore how test­ing is done in prac­tice and how it might be done or con­fig­ured otherwise.

For more infor­ma­tion and to apply, see the attach­ment or visit:
Con­fer­ence Page: https://easst.net/conference/easst2026/easst2026-home/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easst2026/p/18029#

Please cir­cu­late the call and con­tact us if you have any questions.

Con­venors:

Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Kate­ri­na Vlan­toni (Nation­al and Kapodis­tri­an Uni­ver­si­ty of Athens)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Alpen Adria Uni­ver­sität Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sci­ences, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vienna)

Long Abstract:

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in STS and relat­ed fields have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of test­ing in bio­med­i­cine and health. Since the late 1980s, research has explored genet­ic test­ing as it has been envi­sioned and prac­ticed in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, and recre­ation­al con­texts, as well as the moral­i­ties embed­ded in the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works shap­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to the soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing con­tributes to mak­ing up peo­ple. More recent­ly, stud­ies have turned to test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies and gov­er­nance of test­ing, or the rise of self-test­ing prac­tices. Schol­ars have also ana­lyzed the visions, uses, and infra­struc­tures of test­ing in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and in the man­age­ment of dis­ease out­breaks, most notably dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this pan­el, we pro­pose to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open a dia­logue between these diverse strands of research. Build­ing on work devel­oped under the labels of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we sug­gest the label “bio­med­ical and health test­ing stud­ies” to fos­ter such engagement.

We invite empir­i­cal and con­cep­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions that address the epis­te­molo­gies, ontolo­gies, moral­i­ties, and pol­i­tics of test­ing across bio­med­ical and health domains. Pos­si­ble top­ics include test­ing in bio­med­ical, pub­lic health, and glob­al health con­texts; self-test­ing and tin­ker­ing; and the absences, con­tes­ta­tions, or refusals of test­ing. We par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that explore how bio­med­ical test­ing might be con­fig­ured oth­er­wise and how STS schol­ars can con­tribute to shap­ing the futures of health testing.

Petersen A and Pien­aar K (2021) Test­ing for Life? Regimes of Gov­er­nance in Diag­no­sis and Screen­ing. Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety 26(1): 7–23.

Street A and Kel­ly AH (2021) Intro­duc­tion: Diag­nos­tics, Med­ical Test­ing, and Val­ue in Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy. Med­i­cine Anthro­pol­o­gy The­o­ry 8(2). 2: 1–16.

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