Ordinary Intimacies One-Day Symposium

This one-day symposium will showcase and explore cutting-edge research and theorising about contemporary intimate lives, with a focus on ‘ordinary’ intimacies.

Our conception of what is ‘ordinary,’ and how it might be investigated or analysed, is broad and inclusive. ‘Ordinary’ intimacies may include relationships and connections which tend to be unnoticed or overlooked such as acquaintanceships or intimate encounters in the context of care work, leisure or sport. Further, ordinary intimacies are not necessarily experienced or defined positively. Indeed, this might be part of what makes them ‘ordinary’ rather than ‘extraordinary’. The symposium will therefore include discussion of intimacies which are experienced as both ‘ordinary’ and also unsatisfactory, ambivalent or abusive.

Through the sharing and discussing of a wide range of ordinary intimacies, we intend to create a space in which we can explore how ‘ordinariness’ is constructed, including how conceptions of ordinariness might relate (or not) to social norms and ideals. We will discuss how such processes may be changing in the context of shifting technological, political and cultural contexts.

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Host or Publisher Contemporary Intimacies, Sexualities and Genders