CFP: Everyday resistance: Thinking, making, and living in the material world

An exploration of intertwining histories, cultures and materials

• Keynote: Anna Feigenbaum, Professor of Media and Digital Storytelling, University of Glasgow
• Date: November 7th 2025
• Location: University of Brighton
• Submit by July 6th: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=kLsAqf6UWEaLNN1yCExQZJs_S7mMIFJJmnEVrLK9XylUMU5ETUlKWEVNQ1dXSkhFOFNVWFBQMEFSVS4u&route=shorturl
• Publication opportunity

What does resistance mean? How can individuals and communities resist hegemonic social orders? Can resistance occur without new forms of subjugation, transgression without the (re)institution of new norms (Michel Foucault, 1977; Ephraim Das Janssen, 2017)? Does resistance ever have an end goal? These questions are repeated in the fields of philosophy, political theory, history and beyond. 

This one-day conference aims to centre resistance as it is already lived and embodied, including in practices that do not appear immediately “political”, and through materials and forms of making historically subjugated (Kirsty Robertson, 2011; Roszika Parker, 1984).

Co-organised by the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics and the Design Activism research strand of the Centre for Design History, this interdisciplinary encounter aims to join theoretical research and historical inquiry. Together, we will explore practical and material ways by which people resist hegemonic orders, remake social structures, and challenge other oppressive systems.  

We invite proposals for 10-minute reflections or 20-minute research papers on topics such as: 

• Everyday resistance and living as resisting
• Rethinking care and community-building
• Nurturing as resistance
• Pluralism and the multiplicity of “worlds”
• Materialities of resistance beyond the human
• Post-intersectionality and new forms of coalition 
• Materialities of resistance
• Spatiality, temporality, and geographies of resistance 
• Creation and the creative persona as a resisting symbol 
• (Re)making, resistance and hegemony
• The politics of refusal 

This conference aims to foster conversations on topics relating to resistance and rethinking structures and societal systems in place, through creation, material culture, design practice, audio-visual culture, theoretical reflections, historical studies, and beyond. 

This conference invites diverse contributions and creative outputs. Please contact the organisers to discuss submissions that lie outside the topics and formats suggested above.

Publication opportunity: This conference will result in the publication of a special issue of Interfere: Journal for Critical Thought and Radical Politics, published by the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics. All speakers will be invited to submit an article of 8,000-words after the event, or a creative response.

Submit: Please please out the following form by July 6th: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=kLsAqf6UWEaLNN1yCExQZJs_S7mMIFJJmnEVrLK9XylUMU5ETUlKWEVNQ1dXSkhFOFNVWFBQMEFSVS4u&route=shorturl

Questions? Please contact the organises on [email protected] and [email protected]

Download and share the Call for Papers: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V9N01G2s--RGJekoqZkxpoGUXt8v_3cf/view

Please note: Registration for this event is not yet open, and will be required via the University of Brighton's event booking system. If you RSVP on PhilEvents or email the organisers, we will let you know when registration for attendees is open. The Call for Papers has opened, and you can use the details here to submit a talk by July 6th 2025.