University of Oulu Graduate School Invites Abstracts For

University of Oulu Graduate School invites abstracts for

HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT THE UNSPEAKABLE IN RESEARCH?

A graduate course 18.–20.9.2017

This graduate course focuses on research topics in human sciences which are sensitive or in other ways difficult to study due to reasons relating to communication, interpretation, or ethics. The course zooms in on a key methodological problem many of us face in our work: how to study something that is, in one way or another, difficult to speak about, even unspeakable? Topics that can be described as difficult and sensitive are typical when studying for example refugees, criminality, sexuality, racism, radically different worldviews, children, or nonhuman animals. In these and many other cases, cultural and linguistic differences between the researchers and the participants pose a critical challenge that calls for novel approaches. The lack of a common language or explicit concepts and differences in actual and narrated behavior are likewise frequent problems, as is the limited ability of human language to capture, for instance, powerful traumatic or spiritual experiences and interspecies communication. In addition, current research ethics debates have contested many traditional methods, such as participant observation in sociocultural anthropology. Whether and how researchers get access to studying difficult issues is an exciting question per se. Throughout “How to Speak about the Unspeakable in Research,” the participants will discuss and interrogate these themes among a broad range of research fields and topics within human sciences.

Schedule 18.–20.9.2017 Day 1. Cultural interpretation, translation and expertise (How to study in multilingual and multicultural official environments) 9:15-9:30 Opening words by Prof. Hannu I. Heikkinen, Cultural anthropology (Univ. of Oulu) 9:30-10:30 Keynote: Research ethics in conventional and unconventional fieldwork settings, Prof. Livia Holden, Legal anthropology (Univ. of Padua / Oxford) 10:30-11:00 Discussion 11:00-12:00 Lunch 12:00-16:00 Thesis methodologies workshop - Organisers Hannu I. Heikkinen and Taina Cooke

Day 2. Politics on ecology and multispecies ethnography (How to study topics where human culture is interwoven with the lifeworld of other species) 9:15-9:30 Opening words by Adjunct prof. Pauliina Rautio, Education (Univ. of Oulu) 9:30-10:30 Keynote: Topic tba., Ph.D. S. Eben Kirksey (UNSW Australia, DECRA Fellow) 10:30-11:00 Discussion 11:00-12:00 Lunch 12:00-16:00 Thesis methodologies workshop - Organisers Pauliina Rautio and Riitta-Marja Leinonen

Day 3. Sensitive and difficult research topics (Tentative titles) 9:00-9:10 Opening words by Dr. Tuija Huuki and Prof. Vesa Puuronen (Univ. of Oulu) 9:10-9:40 Prof. Vesa Puuronen, Sociology (Univ. of Oulu), Reformatories as sensitive research areas 9:40-10:10 Dr. Tuija Huuki, Academy Research Fellow, Women and gender studies (Univ. of Oulu), Surfacing affect, history and place in the more-than human force relations of young people’s gendered peer cultures 10:10-10:30 Coffee 10:30-11:00 Prof. Vesa-Pekka Herva, Archaeology (Univ. of Oulu), Dark heritage and dark tourism 11:00-11:30 Dr. Johanna Ylipulli, Centre for Ubiquitous Computing (Univ. of Oulu), Gender and gadgets – too shy to try? 11:30-12:00 Discussion 12:00-13:00 Lunch 13:00-16:00 Thesis methodologies workshop - Organisers Vesa Puuronen and Tuija Huuki

“How to Speak of Unspeakable in Research” consists of three main sections (one day each) that include keynote speeches, discussions, and thesis methodology workshops. The course takes place 18.–20.9.2017. The course is targeted primarily for University of Oulu doctoral students, but advanced master-level students as well as doctoral students from other institutions are also encouraged to participate. Depending on the mode of participation, the scope of the course will vary between 1 and 3 ECTS.

Call for Papers We invite papers discussing the methodological and/or ethical challenges involved in studying topics that are difficult, even impossible, to talk about due to their sensitivity, resistance to linguistic conceptualization or translation, or other reasons (presentation 10 min + discussion 20 min). To submit your paper proposal, send the following information: name, contact information, the title of the paper, the abstract (max. 200 words), and the day (1, 2 or 3) you wish to present your paper to [email protected]. The abstract should focus on your engagements with the methodological and ethical problems that are at the heart of the course. The deadline for paper proposals is 26.6.2017. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by the end of June. Those selected to the course will be asked to deliver a one page summary of their thesis and one page description of the key methodological problem(s) by 15.8.2017.

Keynote speakers Keynote speaker Livia Holden is a tenured full professor of University of Padua and an anthropologist of law with long-term experience of fieldwork in India and in Pakistan. She has been for example Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Karakoram International University. She is the author of Hindu Divorce: A Legal Anthropology (Ashgate 2008) and was an editor of Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and Diasporas (Taylor & Francis 2015). She leads at the moment an ERC funded consolidator project called: Cultural Expertise in Europe: What is it useful for?

Keynote speaker S. Eben Kirksey is Disciplinary Convener (Chair) of Environmental Humanities, ARC Fellow (2014-2017), and Senior Lecturer (Tenured) in the Faculty Arts and Social Sciences in the University of New Southern Wales, Sydney, Australia. Eben Kirksey studies the political dimensions of imagination as well as the interplay of natural and cultural history. Duke University Press has published his two books — Freedom in Entangled Worlds (2012) and Emergent Ecologies (2015) — as well as one edited collection: The Multispecies Salon (2014). Dr. Kirksey is perhaps best known for his work in multispecies ethnography —a field that mixes ethnographic, historical, ethological, and genetic methods to study spaces where humans and other species meet.