Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy, 27-29 July 2027<\/p>\n
This 3-day International Conference is organized by the International Urban Symposium-IUS<\/a>.<\/p>\n Convenors:<\/strong> Italo Pardo<\/em> & Giuliana B. Prato<\/em>, School of Social Sciences, University of Kent, UK. Ethnography remains essential to rigorous social research, providing insights that short-term or abstract methods cannot achieve. This conference focuses on how traditional ethnographic approaches can be maintained while adapting to the digital, interconnected, and rapidly changing nature of contemporary social life.<\/p>\n At its core, ethnography depends on sustained engagement with people and their everyday lives. Long-term, immersive fieldwork enables researchers to move beyond formal accounts and public narratives to observe social life directly, to build trust and develop a deeper understanding of people’s experiences. Extended presence can reveal hidden meanings, backstage realities, and sensitive information that may not emerge through occasional interviews or rapid research. Long-term engagement also develops linguistic and cultural understanding, allowing researchers to recognise local expressions and meanings that may be difficult to translate. Unexpected events and everyday interactions can generate important insights, making serendipity an important part of ethnographic research. Life histories, genealogies, recordings, visual and sensory observations can further connect individual experiences with broader social and historical changes. This \u201cslow science\u201d approach allows patterns to emerge over time, while participant observation and strong rapport provide access to otherwise concealed realities.<\/p>\n This traditional \u201cgold standard\u201d can be usefully updated. Contemporary ethnographers may need to study social life across both physical and digital environments. Participant observation may now involve interacting with people in their homes, places of work and communities as well as through group chats, online forums and social-media environments. Digital archives, messaging histories, digital network mapping, audio, visual, and geolocation data can complement conventional fieldnotes and create richer forms of \u201cthick description\u201d. This means that the boundaries of \u201cthe field\u201d have become more fluid, for communities are now connected to wider technological, financial and social networks. Therefore, researchers may need to engage both physically and digitally.<\/p>\n The Conference advocates combining the depth and rigour of classical ethnography with carefully adapted digital and interdisciplinary methods, where needed. It aims to encourage discussion on:<\/p>\n Revised papers will be considered for publication in the open-access, peer-reviewed \u00a0<\/em>Urbanities – Journal of Urban Ethnography<\/em><\/a>, either as individual articles or as part of a Special Issue. If applicable, collections of revised papers may be considered for publication in the Series Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology<\/a><\/p>\n Deadline for Paper Proposals:<\/u><\/span> Titles and 200-word Abstracts should be submitted by<\/strong> Monday<\/strong> 7 March 2027<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n Deadline for Panel Proposals:<\/u><\/span> Proposals should include: 1) The Panel Title and 150-word Abstract; 2) At least 4 papers (including titles and 200-word Abstracts), and should be submitted<\/strong> by<\/strong> Monday<\/strong> 7 <\/strong><\/span> March 2027.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Proposal should be sent to<\/u><\/span>: i.pardo@ kent.ac.uk<\/span><\/strong> and\u00a0g.b.prato@kent.ac.uk.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Further Information and Registration Details<\/u> are available at: https:\/\/www.internationalurbansymposium.com\/events\/2027-international-conference\/<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy, 27-29 July 2027 CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS This 3-day International Conference is organized by the International Urban Symposium-IUS. Convenors: Italo … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[171072],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/urban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nScientific Committee:<\/strong> Gary Armstrong<\/em> (City, St George\u2019s University of London, UK), Hana Cervinkova<\/em> (University of Maynooth, Ireland), Jerome Krase<\/em> (Brooklyn College, CUNY, USA), Karolina Moretti<\/em> (National Technical University of Athens, Greece), Italo Pardo<\/em> (University of Kent, UK), Giuliana B. Prato<\/em> (University of Kent, UK), Matthew Rosen<\/em> (Ohio University, USA), Enkelejda Sula-Raxhimi<\/em> (Saint Paul University, Canada).<\/p>\n\n