Gender Studies Conference 2020

Tampere University 12-13 November 2020

Virtual conference

Reclaiming Futures

The range of livable futures is being shaped dramatically, and possibly permanently, by several ongoing developments. Climate change and other environmental crises are undoing the material conditions of human and more-than-human life. The rise of right-wing populist politics and attacks on feminism and gender and sexual minorities are challenging the terms in which equality, difference and justice are debated. The logics of capitalism and the neoliberalization of institutions from universities and education to health care, development and work life are shaping how some futures appear as sensible or inevitable, and others as unattainable and not worth of political struggle.

The 2020 Gender Studies conference explores futures as matters of intense politics, imaginings and debates from feminist and intersectional perspectives. The conference theme, “reclaiming futures”, suggests that how futures are envisioned, enacted and contested, in the present and in the past, has significant implications for equality and social justice and the very possibilities of a livable and just world. The conference asks what kinds of feminist and intersectional engagements with possible futures have emerged, are emerging, or may be imagined. We hope to investigate collectively the implications of the ongoing social, political and environmental changes for the future of gender studies and feminist politics.

The conference is organized and hosted by Gender Studies at Tampere University together with the Association for Gender Studies in Finland (SUNS). The conference programme will be virtual.

Important dates:
30 April 2020: Deadline for proposals for panels (original deadline 31 March)
15 May 2020: Decision on accepted panels
20 May 2020: Call for individual papers opens
15 August 2020: Deadline for proposals for individual papers (original deadline 31 July)
31 August 2020: Decisions on accepted papers
5 November 2020: Registration closes

Covid-19 pandemic: Conference panels will convene virtually due to the Covid-19 situation.

Follow us: @UTAGender
Conference hashtag: #feministfutures2020

Image: Street art in Roihupelto in Helsinki. Artist: Jukka Metsäaho

Organisers