Humans and Insects in Multispecies Networks

Workshop
17-18 March 2022

Venue: The University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland

The research project Humans and Ticks in the Anthropocene (HUTI, https://sites.utu.fi/huti/) is organizing a workshop exploring the multi-faceted relationship between humans and insects in multispecies networks. Human and non-human well-being, and indeed our common existence, is indebted to insects. However, insects can also pose a serious threat by, for example, spreading diseases and destroying crops. Against this background, it is remarkable how little we know about the interactions between humans, insects and other non-humans. The aim of our workshop is to investigate the multi-faceted relationship between humans and insects in multispecies networks from different perspectives such as environmental humanities and environmental history, environmental social sciences and animals studies. A further objective is to bring about an increase in knowledge of insects, and refine methods and concepts for studying invertebrate animals that have previously been almost completely ignored in humanistic research on animals. We seek papers that address all kinds of insects and arachnids.

A keynote lecture entitled “Becoming Aware of Insects: Humanities in the Face of Crisis” is given by Professor Michaela Fenske, University of Würzburg https://www.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/…/prof-dr-michaela-fenske/

The workshop is organized as a hybrid meeting with participants meeting face-to-face or via Zoom according to their wishes.

Areas of focus include, but are not limited to:

Insects and climate change
Insects and risks
Biodiversity and the loss of insects
Popular and traditional knowledge about insects
Feelings and emotions related to insects
Insects in popular culture
Multispecies perspectives on insects
Insects in media
Insects in the history of science
Insects in urban environments
Insects, health and epidemiology

Methodological considerations in studying insects in the humanities
Please submit your abstracts (300 words) and a short CV (max two pages) as one single document by 30 November 2021 to Sanna Lillbroända-Annala, sanna.lillbroanda-annala(at)abo.fi. Notification of acceptance is given by December 15, 2021.