Working group proposals

We are accepting working group proposals until March 15, 2026.

Rights, Wrongs, and Resistance

Finnish Gender Studies Conference 2026

University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu | 26–27 November 2026

The 2026 Finnish Gender Studies Conference invites participants to consider rights and wrongs, as well as the various forms of resistance to injustice. The struggle for rights has always been at the heart of the feminist movement. Recently, as the social and political atmosphere has grown more polarised and environmental crises have intensified, this struggle has increasingly meant defending those rights that have already been achieved. In recent years, Finnish society has witnessed debates on issues such as the rights to education, abortion, marriage, asylum, gender recognition, environmental protection, and adequate income. Some rights are only now beginning to be acknowledged, such as rights of non-human animals, digital rights, and the rights of linguistic and Indigenous minorities. And we cannot yet foresee what rights will be negotiated in the future. 

In addition to examining changing rights and emerging or longstanding injustices, conference participants are invited to reflect on resistance as it emerges from the local and situational interweaving of people, institutions, and non-human actors. Resistance takes many forms and becomes visible in everyday life, political activism, and research. It may manifest through thoughts, words, and actions – or even through handicrafts. The Finnish iteration of the conference theme, Oikein – nurin (Knit – purl), draws metaphorical inspiration from knitting, where repetition of a pattern contains the possibility of re-creation. This metaphor suggests that seemingly stable legal, social, and political orders are constantly being crafted – and can therefore always be undone and reorganised.

The 2026 Gender Studies Conference asks what kinds of patterns, trajectories, and models are associated with rights and injustices – or resistance. How do legal and rights-related social and political systems work, what do they produce, and what distinctions do they establish? How do we understand what is right and what is wrong? How do we change the patterns of right and wrong – and can wrong sometimes also be right?

At the conference, these questions are examined at the intersection of Gender Studies and Legal Studies, but also through many other disciplines and research traditions. We welcome proposals for working groups – such as panel and roundtable discussions – by 15 March 2026. We welcome working groups focusing on theoretical, methodological, or empirical research. We encourage multidisciplinary contributions and collaboration between research, art, and activism. Working groups may be run in the language(s) of the organisers’ choice.

Proposals for working groups are to be submitted by email [email protected]. The maximum length of a proposal is 250 words, and it should include the following information: the name(s) of the organiser(s), as well as the title, description, and language of the working group.