Journey and journeying shape social practices, forms of knowledge, narrative devices and experiences of the world at large. They can be ordinary yet unsettling processes, thresholds and metamorphoses, movements that open up, dislocate and transform. Crossing different spaces and temporalities introduces discontinuities in ways of perceiving, narrating and thinking. Transformation, however, is not automatic. Journeying may involve waiting, suspension, or blockage, as experienced by migrants or by those living under conditions of forced immobility. Change and the reworking of experience are never linear or immediate. Journeys often produce partial, ambiguous, or reversible transformations, placing identities, interpretive categories and regimes of meaning under tension. 

May 8th-9th, 2026

Tallinn University, Narva mnt 29, Silva Building, Room S-529(Tallinn, Estonia)

Argument

Journey and journeying shape social practices, forms of knowledge, narrative devices and experiences of the world at large. They can be ordinary yet unsettling processes, thresholds and metamorphoses, movements that open up, dislocate and transform. Crossing different spaces and temporalities introduces discontinuities in ways of perceiving, narrating and thinking. Transformation, however, is not automatic. Journeying may involve waiting, suspension, or blockage, as experienced by migrants or by those living under conditions of forced immobility. Change and the reworking of experience are never linear or immediate. Journeys often produce partial, ambiguous, or reversible transformations, placing identities, interpretive categories and regimes of meaning under tension. Every movement fractures the continuity of everyday life, requiring the renegotiation of languages, positions and perspectives. Alongside desired or socially valued journeys, the conference also addresses mobilities marked by inequality, constraint and asymmetry: migration, forced displacement, exile, waiting and imposed immobility. In these cases, journeying brings thresholds and metamorphoses into sharp relief, while also revealing fractures in experience and narration: interrupted narratives, silences, delegated or impossible stories and suspended temporalities. We invite theoretical and empirical contributions addressing “journeying” from multiple perspectives, in line with the themes outlined above. We will pay particular attention to the relationship between experience and narration: the journey is also conceived as story, reworked memory and situated, relational experience. Possible subjects include:

1. Openings and Closures, Continuity and Discontinuity

Rupture, transformation and liminal states, including waiting, suspension or blockage

2. Experience and Narration

How narration shapes, organizes and transforms experience, including interrupted narratives, silences and fragmented forms

3. Mobility and Inequality

Desired, valued or forced journeys, including migration, exile, immobility and suspension as integral dimensions of experience

4. Transformations of Identity and Perception

Partial, ambiguous and reversible changes linked to movement and liminal dislocations that require renegotiations of belonging, role and perspective

5. Language, Semiotics and Narration

Translation, misunderstanding, silence and other ways in which language shapes and directs the experience of journeying

6. Anthropology and Fieldwork

Journeying as a mode of knowledge production and as a reflection on the researcher’s positionality and the nomadism of thought

7. Interdisciplinary Approaches

Contributions from literature, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, semiotics, cultural studies, visual and performing arts, including methodological and narrative experimentation

Related topics are also welcome.

Modalities of participation and deadline

Send abstracts by March 31st, 2026, to the organizers: Stefano Montes (stefano.montes@unipa.it) and Kristiina Rebane (kristiina.rebane@tlu.ee). Abstracts, max 300 words, include title, 3 key-words and a short biography (max 5 lines, not to be counted among the 300 words). The conference will take place, in-person, in Tallinn (Estonia). Admitted languages are English and Italian. Each speech is 20 minutes. Registration to the Conference is free of cost. Grants are not foreseen. Travel, accommodation and food costs are to be covered by participants. 

Deadline for abstracts: March 31st, 2026

Scientific board

• Jacob Bessen, University of Toronto, Canada
• Massimo Canevacci, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy
• Vincent Crapanzano, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA
• Ilenia Del Popolo Marchitto, Tallinn University, Estonia
• Nesma Elsakaan, University of Palermo, Italy
• Hanna Geara, artist
• Giancarlo Germanà, Accademia di Belle Arti, Palermo, Italy
• Salvatore Giusto, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
• Claudio Gnoffo, Guglielmo Marconi University, Rome, Italy
• Stefano Montes, University of Palermo, Italy
• Arrigo Musti, artist
• Lucya Passiatore, Tallinn University, Estonia
• Alessandro Perissinotto, University of Turin, Italy
• Kristiina Rebane, Tallinn University, Estonia
• Luisa Revelli, University of the Aosta Valley, Italy
• Roberta Sapino, University of Turin, Italy
• Paul Stoller, Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen/Nuremberg and University of Pennsylvania
• Michael Taussig, Columbia University, USA
• Enrico Valseriati, University of Padua, Italy