University of Helsinki, May 8-9, 2025

 

 

In a world increasingly torn apart by mistrust, polarization, and tensions between and within nations, local contexts and groups, it becomes pertinent to ask how societies are made possible. How to build commonality, solve conflicts and adjust different ways of relating and belonging to the world? How to create and maintain mutual understanding and build common ground without excluding or taming down differing voices? How to create, change, and maintain societies based on multiple modes of valuation and plural conceptions of the common good?

 

These questions open avenues for analysing key cultural and political trends in today’s societies including processes of politicization, participation, and marginalization. Understanding the processes in which common ground is found – or lost – requires an approach that is anchored in situations, chains of events, and processes. It also emphasizes the material world not only as an immobile context, but a dynamic, and mobilizable, part of people’s efforts to live together. 

 

The Centre for Sociology of Democracy (CSD) organizes the New Social Pragmatism Conference to bring together theoretical and empirical analyses that build on and develop pragmatist approaches on societal and political action. These approaches focus on practices, habits and patterns of action that build communities, societies and through those, our democracies.

 

Keynote speakers

Rachel Brahy is University Lecturer at the University of Liège, Belgium. 

Her approach expands from her work on the socio-anthropology of experience and public spaces towards building further theoretical tools to address sensitive, often non-discursive experiences. Brahy draws from the pragmatist theorizing by Laurent Thévenot, Laura Centemeri, and others, and has recently addressed the concept of resonance by Hartmut Rosa and to discuss the questions of presence and enchantment.

 

Isaac Ariail Reed is Professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, US. He is a historical and cultural sociologist whose recent work has concentrated on power and transitions to modernity. He draws on Arendt and American pragmatism to theorize the questions of agency, signification, authority, delegation, and modernity. He is one the authors and editors of New Pragmatist Sociology (2022). 

 

Conference programme

Keynotes and conference sessions on both days take place at building "Metsätalo" (Unioninkatu 40). Abstracts for presentations can be found on Google docs.

 

Thursday May 8th

10:30 Opening session, Metsätalo room 4

Eeva Luhtakallio and Veikko Eranti, University of Helsinki: practicalities and setting the theoretical agenda

Rachel Brahy, University of Liège: keynote

12:30 lunch

14.15-15:45 Parallel sessions, Metsätalo

room 2: Commonality, technology & learning

• Antti Jauhiainen: Bar Parliaments as Places of Learning of Democratic Participation
• Liv Nøhr: Compositions of group work around and with introverted machines
• Arttu Siltala: Re-focusing within a scene: Understanding anonymous political online discussions
• Leila Gharavi: Adopting Practical, Engineering Approaches to Problem-Solving in Bridging Sociopolitical Differences

room 4: Protest & activism

• Tülay Yılmaz: The Authoritarian Turn After Gezi: Emotional Reactions and Societal Impacts
• Georg Boldt: Escalating for Change: Confrontations as a Social Movement Strategy
• Aleksi Ranta-aho: High-Risk Activism in the Climate Movement: An International Perspective
• Tuomas Ylä-Anttila: Explaining Persistence in Political Protest: Climate Activism Through The Covid

15:45 coffee and fruits in front of room 4

16:15-17.45  Parallel sessions, Metsätalo

room 2: Commonality, resilience, law & constitution

• Janne Lehtonen: Constitutionalism Background: Moralities in politicization of Constitutions
• Kati Rantala: Exploring Dilemmas and Depoliticization in Inclusive Lawmaking
• Tapio Nykänen: Interaction of the layers of commonality and resilience: the case of Sámi
• Arla Magga & Helena Ristaniemi: The regimes of engagement in the context of Sámi duodji

room 4: Non-human animals & the ecological critique

• Tomi Lehtimäki: Affective valuation of nonhuman animals in the making of animal welfare law
• Mika Simonen: Animal Actions and Their Involvement in Human Meaning-Making Processes
• Marie Leth-Espensen: (Agro-)Ecological Critique, Civic Engagement, and Coalition-Building in Denmark

19:00 Conference dinner, Bistro O Mat, Toinen Linja 7

 

Friday May 9th

10:30 morning coffee in front of room 4

11-12:30 Parallel sessions, Metsätalo

room 2: Nonverbal engagements, conflicts & valuations

• Eeva Luhtakallio: Politicization from familiar attachments
• Ylva Lorentzon, Rebecka Brinch & Anna Lund: Non-verbal politics in theatre: silent communication both on and off stage
• Juulia Heikkinen: Hot or not: dating apps as techno-social sites of valuation
• Taina Meriluoto & Moya Lloyd: Gilded scars: Constructing the Proudly Vulnerable Political Subject

room 4: Conflicts in/around environment

• Maija Jokela: Radical incommensurability within the green transition
• Gisle Andersen: Elements of a green or ecological order of worth?
• Veikko Eranti: The Good City

12:30 lunch

14:00 coffee and sweet buns in front of room 4

14-18 Closing session

Isaac Ariail Reed: keynote "The Hierarchical Model of Action"

Business meeting

Closing words

Friday night social programme

 

Conference dinner

Conference dinner takes place at restaurant Bistro o Mat (Toinen Linja 7, 9th floor) on Thursday at 19.00. During the dinner we will enjoy three course dinner with drinks. Vegetarian and vegan menu upon request. Restaurant is able to accommodate allergies and other dietary restrictions.

 

Conference fee and registration

• Conference fee including conference dinner on Thursday 110 e
• Conference fee without dinner 60 e

Registration by May 3rd, 2025 via University of Helsinki's webshop. Registration is binding, no refunds will be issued.

 

Further information

Professor Eeva Luhtakallio

Coordinator Jutta Juvenius

email addresses firstname.lastname (a) helsinki.fi

 

Conference is supported by Kone Foundation, Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities and University of Helsinki.