Konferenz

DDD17: „POLITICS OF DEATH”
27–30 August 2025
Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht (Nether­lands)

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS

The Death, Dying and Dis­pos­al (DDD) Con­fer­ence is the bi-annu­al con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Death and Soci­ety (ASDS). The next edi­tion will be host­ed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht (Nether­lands) and online from Wednes­day 27 to Sat­ur­day 30 August 2025. For the upcom­ing DDD17 con­fer­ence, we invite ses­sions that explore the broad top­ic of the Pol­i­tics of Death. 

Despite appear­ing as a uni­ver­sal bio­log­i­cal event, death is and has nev­er been neu­tral. Instead, it is deeply entwined with issues of (in)equality, access, and pow­er dynam­ics. In today’s world, death is per­haps more politi­cized as it ever was before. Wars, envi­ron­men­tal crises, glob­al migra­tion pat­terns, and fail­ing states bring death close to our homes. At the same time, tech­no­log­i­cal, dig­i­tal, and med­ical advance­ments alter our approach­es to deal­ing with, think­ing about, research­ing, and work­ing with death. Such devel­op­ments are equal­ly inher­ent­ly polit­i­cal, both in their ori­gins and their applications.

As prac­ti­tion­ers and schol­ars, how do we nav­i­gate the polit­i­cal dimen­sions of death? How does the polit­i­cal shape our engage­ment with death? And how can we reflect on and poten­tial­ly change our own posi­tions with­in this polit­i­cal landscape?

For more infor­ma­tion on the con­fer­ence theme, please refer to our web­site: https://ddd17.sites.uu.nl/conference-theme/

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit a pro­pos­al for papers, orga­nized pan­els, round­ta­bles, work­shops, or oth­er for­mats by Sat­ur­day 30 Novem­ber 2024. No excep­tions to this dead­line are possible. 

We encour­age pro­pos­als in four types of ses­sion formats:

Organ­ised pan­els and indi­vid­ual papers

Pan­els will be struc­tured in the tra­di­tion­al man­ner of indi­vid­ual paper pre­sen­ta­tions. This will be four (4) pre­sen­ta­tions of 15 min­utes back-to-back, fol­lowed by a 30-minute dis­cus­sion on the pre­sen­ta­tions. All organ­ised pan­els are thus 90 min­utes. The pan­els will be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) for­mat, mean­ing paper pre­sen­ters can present from home. Dis­cus­sions will be orga­nized using chat-moderators.

Round­ta­bles

Round­ta­bles of 90 min­utes in which no more than five peo­ple dis­cuss a par­tic­u­lar theme or issue in front of (and sub­se­quent­ly with) an audi­ence. While a round­table may include short (approx. 5 min) contributions/presentations, the main idea is to cre­ate a live­ly debate, and not to focus on any one or mul­ti­ple presenter(s). To be able to cre­ate such debate, round­ta­bles will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Work­shops

Work­shops of 90 min­utes are char­ac­terised by exper­i­men­ta­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, inter­ac­tion and/or impro­vi­sa­tion. The aim of work­shops is to organ­ise col­lec­tive activ­i­ties that are open-end­ed and cul­ti­vate pos­si­bil­i­ties for sur­prise, nov­el­ty, and learn­ing. Work­shops will be designed as inter­ac­tive, reflex­ive ses­sions that pri­ori­tise explo­ration, rather than the dis­cus­sion of already estab­lished research results. To make true col­lab­o­ra­tion pos­si­ble and cre­ate safe space, the max­i­mum num­ber of per­sons per work­shop is 16 (includ­ing work­shop con­venors). The work­shops will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Oth­er

We wel­come you to share your ideas of oth­er pos­si­ble for­mats with us. If you would like to sug­gest a dif­fer­ent for­mat and/or are will­ing to run a ses­sion or activ­i­ty with a dif­fer­ent for­mat, please let us know by send­ing an email to DDD17@uu.nl. The DDD17 selec­tion com­mit­tee will then decide if and how to accom­mo­date your idea(s).

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17th bian­nu­al DDD con­fer­ence „The Pol­i­tics of Death”
The Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Death and Soci­ety (ASDS)
Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht
27–30 August 2025

Details:

Despite appear­ing as a uni­ver­sal bio­log­i­cal event, death is and has nev­er been neu­tral. Instead, it is deeply entwined with issues of (in)equality, access, and pow­er dynam­ics. In today’s world, death is per­haps more politi­cized as it ever was before. Wars, envi­ron­men­tal crises, glob­al migra­tion pat­terns, and fail­ing states bring death close to our homes. At the same time, tech­no­log­i­cal, dig­i­tal, and med­ical advance­ments alter our approach­es to deal­ing with, think­ing about, research­ing, and work­ing with death. Such devel­op­ments are equal­ly inher­ent­ly polit­i­cal, both in their ori­gins and their applications.

As prac­ti­tion­ers and schol­ars, how do we nav­i­gate the polit­i­cal dimen­sions of death? How does the polit­i­cal shape our engage­ment with death? And how can we reflect on and poten­tial­ly change our own posi­tions with­in this polit­i­cal landscape?

Pol­i­tics is every­where; every­thing is polit­i­cal. It’s woven into every facet of life, shap­ing how we live, die, and make sense of the worlds in between and beyond. It is the lens through which we address our biggest chal­lenges and seize new oppor­tu­ni­ties. It shapes our sense of right and wrong, fram­ing what we see as moral or immoral. It guides deci­sions, both con­scious­ly and uncon­scious­ly, in every set­ting – from the halls of gov­ern­ment to the inti­mate spaces of home. It spans for­mal author­i­ty and hid­den social pow­er, thread­ing through the spaces we inhab­it, the rules we fol­low, and the sym­bols we embrace. It exists between peo­ple, envi­ron­ments and species, influ­enc­ing every­thing from small exchanges to glob­al reg­u­la­tions. In every inter­ac­tion and insti­tu­tion, there’s an ele­ment of pol­i­tics. Because of this, pol­i­tics is every­where, and every­thing down to the small­est detail is inher­ent­ly political.

For more infor­ma­tion on the con­fer­ence theme, please refer to our web­site: https://ddd17.sites.uu.nl/conference-theme/

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit a pro­pos­al for papers, orga­nized pan­els, round­ta­bles, work­shops, or oth­er for­mats by Sat­ur­day 30 Novem­ber 2024. No excep­tions to this dead­line are possible.

We encour­age pro­pos­als in four types of ses­sion formats:

Organ­ised pan­els and indi­vid­ual papers

Pan­els will be struc­tured in the tra­di­tion­al man­ner of indi­vid­ual paper pre­sen­ta­tions. This will be four (4) pre­sen­ta­tions of 15 min­utes back-to-back, fol­lowed by a 30-minute dis­cus­sion on the pre­sen­ta­tions. All organ­ised pan­els are thus 90 min­utes. The pan­els will be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) for­mat, mean­ing paper pre­sen­ters can present from home. Dis­cus­sions will be orga­nized using chat-moderators.

Round­ta­bles

Round­ta­bles of 90 min­utes in which no more than five peo­ple dis­cuss a par­tic­u­lar theme or issue in front of (and sub­se­quent­ly with) an audi­ence. While a round­table may include short (approx. 5 min) contributions/presentations, the main idea is to cre­ate a live­ly debate, and not to focus on any one or mul­ti­ple presenter(s). To be able to cre­ate such debate, round­ta­bles will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Work­shops

Work­shops of 90 min­utes are char­ac­terised by exper­i­men­ta­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, inter­ac­tion and/or impro­vi­sa­tion. The aim of work­shops is to organ­ise col­lec­tive activ­i­ties that are open-end­ed and cul­ti­vate pos­si­bil­i­ties for sur­prise, nov­el­ty, and learn­ing. Work­shops will be designed as inter­ac­tive, reflex­ive ses­sions that pri­ori­tise explo­ration, rather than the dis­cus­sion of already estab­lished research results. To make true col­lab­o­ra­tion pos­si­ble and cre­ate safe space, the max­i­mum num­ber of per­sons per work­shop is 16 (includ­ing work­shop con­venors). The work­shops will not be orga­nized in a hybrid (i.e., includ­ing online par­tic­i­pants) format.

Oth­er

We wel­come you to share your ideas of oth­er pos­si­ble for­mats with us. If you would like to sug­gest a dif­fer­ent for­mat and/or are will­ing to run a ses­sion or activ­i­ty with a dif­fer­ent for­mat, please let us know by send­ing an email to DDD17@uu.nl. The DDD17 selec­tion com­mit­tee will then decide if and how to accom­mo­date your idea(s).

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CfP for the pan­el at the next con­fer­ence of the Soci­ety for Social Stud­ies of Sci­ence 2025
Seattle
3–7 September

‘Tem­po­ral­i­ties of bod­ies, tech­nolo­gies and their entan­gle­ments in the expe­ri­ence of dis­abil­i­ty and/or chron­ic illness’.

Chron­ic ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty have become a priv­i­leged place for tech­no­log­i­cal inter­ven­tion. Both are char­ac­ter­ized by the deploy­ment of tech­no­log­i­cal devices that aim to mit­i­gate, com­pen­sate for, or even pre­vent and slow down the loss of capac­i­ties, as well as alle­vi­ate or lim­it symp­toms. In this con­text, a var­ied array of tech­nolo­gies that dif­fer­ent­ly act on or inter­vene in bod­ies and places are intro­duced in people’s lives: tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are implant­ed in the body (e.g. insulin pumps and deep brain stim­u­la­tion), tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are attached to the body (pros­the­ses and orthoses) and/or tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are con­nect­ed both to the body and to a par­tic­u­lar place (tele­care and dial­y­sis equip­ment; exoskeletons). 

Regard­ing this ‘tech­no­log­i­cal care’ (Lancelot & Guchet, 2023), research in STS and empir­i­cal phi­los­o­phy of tech­nol­o­gy has main­ly focused on tech­no­log­i­cal use and appro­pri­a­tion, includ­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties there­of. How­ev­er vital and essen­tial these tech­nolo­gies may be in sus­tain­ing peo­ple in dai­ly life, atten­tion has scarce­ly been paid to their fragili­ty and people’s result­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty when they mal­func­tion, wear and tear, break and/or thus can no longer be used or have to be adjust­ed and/or used dif­fer­ent­ly (Oud­shoorn, 2020). 

These mate­r­i­al and exis­ten­tial dis­rup­tions and con­straints call for inquir­ing about the entan­gle­ments of dif­fer­ent tem­po­ral­i­ties of chron­ic liv­ing and dis­abil­i­ty: of bod­ies adjust­ing to chron­ic ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty and/or to tech­no­log­i­cal care; of the tech­nolo­gies them­selves (from their devel­op­ment to their every­day use, adap­ta­tion, mal­func­tions and main­te­nance) and the socio-mate­r­i­al infra­struc­tures that sup­port them; and of the rela­tions between them. We invite con­tri­bu­tions that address, empir­i­cal­ly and/or con­cep­tu­al­ly, tech­no­log­i­cal care and its temporalities.

Dead­line of the call for abstracts:

- Jan­u­ary 31, 2025
– Noti­fi­ca­tion of acceptance:
– March 15, 2025
– 4S 2025 in-per­son conference:
– Sep­tem­ber 3–7, 2025

Abstracts (250 words max) should be sub­mit­ted on the 4S web­site: https://bit.ly/3BtgXPh

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Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy Europe Con­fer­ence 2025 Vien­na: „Rede­f­i­n­i­tions of Health and Well-being
Call for Pan­els and Round­ta­bles is now OPEN

RZ_­MAEC-2025_­Call-for-Papers

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