MANCEPT Workshop on Intimate (In)Justices

Convenors: Kristin Käuper, Isobel Logan, Charlotte Curran (University of Leeds)
Contact: [email protected]

This workshop will explore the relationship between intimacy and justice. We will ask: When and how should considerations of justice extend into our intimate lives and influence our actions? How are intimate relationships shaped by, reproduce, and resistant to broader structures of injustice and oppression? Should we worry about the distribution of opportunities for intimacy? How do we balance the responsibilities of the individual, communities, and the state in promoting just forms of relating?

We hope to better understand the ways in which hegemonic norms, institutions, and intersecting forms of oppression structure intimate life, governing who is able to form certain relationships, which relationships are socially valued, and how power operates within them. We seek to explore the potential of intimate practices and communities of care as sites of resistance, solidarity, and social transformation.

We are particularly interested in exploring non-normative ways of relating (e.g. asexuality/aromanticism, polyamory, relationship anarchy) and matters of intersecting identities that are underrepresented in philosophy (e.g. sexuality, disability, race, age, socio-economic status).

By intimacy, we mean forms of closeness and connection upon which special relationships are based. This encompasses a wide range of relationships, including but not limited to sexual, romantic, platonic, collegial, familial, and parental relationships, whether in-person or technologically mediated.

Registration opens in April

Further details about the MANCEPT workshops can be found here: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/activities/mancept-workshops-2026/