The theme of the NORA Conference 2022 is “Tensions and Potentials in Nordic Feminist and Gender Research”. The aim of the conference is to showcase the depth and breadth of Nordic gender and feminist research and enable dialogue across national and disciplinary borders.
The final conference program, which has now been published, certainly suggests that these goals will be met when the participants gather in Oslo in just under two weeks.
Download the conference program [PDF]
Plenary sessions
As well as four keynote lectures, the conference will feature five plenary sessions, hosted by the Norwegian gender research centres, as well as the Nordic Association of Feminist and Gender Research.
The plenary session organized by the Centre for Women's and Gender Research at UiT Arctic University of Norway will consider gendered challenges in the Arctic. The Centre for Gender Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Stavanger are organizing two plenary panels together. One of these sessions looks at the legacy of Lauren Berlant, while the other considers the politics of the ordinary and black feminist futures. Meanwhile, the Centre for Women's and Gender Research at the University of Bergen is organizing a panel on the concept of ‘race’ in gender studies in the Nordic context. The Nordic Association of Gender Studies will close the conference, offering reflections on the overall theme of the event.
Parallel sessions
Additionally, the conference will feature 152 paper presentations spread across 45 parallel sessions. While some paper panels were predefined, meaning that a group of scholars applied to hold a panel together, many sessions had a set theme, but were open to other contributors. Some sessions were also thematically open, linking together individually submitted papers relating to similar topics. In this way, the conference will make way for new connections and collaborations.
The parallel sessions cover a wide range of themes, theoretical perspectives, and methodologies, ranging from Nordic sports to motherhood and reproduction, security work to Nordic histories of the AIDS epidemic, sexual violence to anti-gender politics.
As well as paper sessions, the conference will feature two roundtable sessions, one on trans activism and studies in the Nordic Context, and one on feminist journals’ role in the current academic and political landscape. Fittingly for these topics, the roundtable format foregrounds discussion between participants, rather than individual presentations.
Ready to kick off
The organizing committee is excited to see the conference coming together after two years of planning:
–Nordic gender research is a vibrant field, and there are a number of important, interesting, and sometimes challenging debates going on. We believe that coming together in a conference provides an ideal arena for such debates, to learn from and be inspired by each other, across nations, disciplines, and diverging perspectives and positions, says Kristin Engh Førde, postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Gender Research and member of the organizing committee.
–Nordic feminism and gender research has unique qualities and strengths and we are delighted to contribute to its visibility and dissemination, within and beyond the region.