“Precarity is a state of acknowledgement of our vulnerability to others. In order to survive, we need help, and help is always the service of another, intent with or without.” (Tsing, 2015)
About
Liquid society. Financial crises. Environmental catastrophes. Food Shortages. An ongoing pandemic. Ours is an age of precarity.
In the midst of an accelerated global reality, existence has become marked by a state of the precarious. The existential thrown-ness is sealed by a latent vulnerability, blurring the boundaries between humans and things. Uncertainty permeates historical awareness held in expectation of its own discharge.
Life on the margins thereby emerges as a condition “in spite of” that offers possibilities by opening a radical space where alternative futures can be thought.
Symposium topics
In this symposium, we would like to discuss the diverse forms in which ‘precarity’ emerges as possibilities to conceptualize alternative modes of co-existence. In mutual interaction with both humans and things, across times and spaces.
We invite young scholars (minimum of qualification is Bachelor’s degree), especially PhD candidates, post-doc and early career researchers, from all disciplines to submit abstracts that explore the presence of precarity in a range of dimensions - experienced, lived and imagined. Interdisciplinary and boundary-crossing approaches are encouraged. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- marginalizations in precarity
- (im)materialities in precarity
- heritages in precarity
- queernesses in precarity
- environments in precarity
- lifestyles in precarity
Abstract submission
We kindly ask you to submit your abstract (max 250 words) and a short bio (max 100 words) using this online form and also fill up the following paper proposal scheme.
The symposium will only be in English.
 | Paper proposal scheme Please send the paper proposal (named as follows: surname-name-precarities) to precarities@unive.it. The e-mail must have as its subject "Precarities abstract proposal". | 73 K |
Calendar
- Publication of the call for papers: 30th June 2022
- Submission deadline: 30th October 2022
- Notification of acceptance: 30th November 2022
Programme and venue
Symposium dates
29th-31st March 2023
Register on Zoom
Venue
Ca’ Dolfin - Saoneria, Dorsoduro 3825/D, 30123 Venice.
The symposium will be held also online.
Keynote speakers
Jane da Mosto - activist
Venetian by choice for almost thirty years, Jane da Mosto graduated in Zoology from Oxford and later specialised in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. As an activist and scientist, she founded the association We Are Here Venice in 2015 with the goal of contributing to the safeguarding of the Lagoon City by providing both a think tank and platform for the reinforcement of connections between global stakeholders and the local community.
Pietro Daniel Omodeo - cultural historian of science and professor
Pietro Daniel Omodeo is a cultural historian of science and a professor of historical epistemology at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. His main areas of inquiry are the cultural history of cosmology and the politics of epistemology. He is the principal investigator of the consolidator grant project EarlyModernCosmology which is funded by the European Research Council (2020, GA 725883), and the FARE project EarlyGeoPraxis, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. He also leads the Max Planck Partner Group in Venice The Water City on Anthropocene Venice.
Eleonora Sovrani - art director
Eleonora Sovrani is a researcher and curator, who serves as art director for We Are Here Venice. She holds a Master's degree in Visual and Multimedia Communication from IUAV in Venice with a thesis on the social and cultural impact of cruise ships in the Serenissima.
Participants
The list and information of the other participants will be published soon.
Organizers
Elisabetta Campagni
PhD Fellow, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Women’s digital art and artivism in Pakistan
Lidia Cossu
PhD Fellow, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Cultural Cold War in Korean Studies
Naghmeh Mahzounzadeh
PhD Fellow, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Archaeology of pre-Islamic period of Iran
Lorenzo Moretti
PhD Fellow, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Heidelberg University
Japanese Studies
Davide Rizzi
PhD Fellow, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Mongolic and Para-Mongolic Linguistics
Sandrine Welte
PhD Fellow, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
History of Religion/Anthropology, topic: Ancient Magic
Contacts
precarities@unive.it
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Department of Asian and North African Studies (DSAAM)
Palazzo Vendramin, Dorsoduro 3462, 30123 Venice - Italy
Ca' Cappello, San Polo 2035, 30125 Venice - Italy