Queer Convivialities
Gender, Sexuality, and Anthropological Practice
7 – 10 October 2026, University of Zurich, Room KOL-H-317 and KOL-G-217
This conference brings together social and cultural anthropologists working on gender and sexuality in various geographic contexts, reflecting also on aspects of queer, trans*, and intersectional approaches for fieldwork-based methods in anthropology and other disciplinary contexts. Under the conceptual and programmatic key term of “conviviality,” conference contributions cluster around four key topics, which are central to current broader debates in the research field:
The Urban: Encounters, contacts, and lifeworlds in the city
Friendship, Kinship, Sociality: The making and cutting of ties; relationalities between care and conflict, connections as both research method and object
Publics: (In)visibilities and politics of exposure, space and power; infrastructures of belonging and public intimacy, mobility
Positionality and Ethnographic Writing: Potentials, limits, and alternatives to textual practices, fieldwork entanglements; social scientific methods and vulnerability
These four thematic clusters are central to cutting-edge scholarship in the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality as well as Queer/Trans Anthropology. At the same time, they address fundamental conceptual questions regarding the relation between theoretical, methodological, and ethical aspects of our research practices, which are relevant more generally to anthropology and other social sciences.
Organized by Stefan Binder, Anne Kukuczka, Henrike Kraul, with the support of Banhishikha Gosh and Fedro Fioravanti
Attendance is free of charge, but registration is required to attend the event in person (registration deadline: until 1 October 2026).
