This volume of Ethnologia Fennica introduces topics addressed at the 15th SIEF congress, held online in June 2021. The event was hosted by the University of Helsinki. The theme of the congress was ‘Breaking the Rules: Power, Participation and Transgression’, bringing to the fore discourses and practices of making, breaking, reinterpreting and transgressing rules. The idea was to examine the implications of ‘breaking the rules’ in various social, economic, political, cultural and academic contexts. This special issue of Ethnologia Fennica has been edited by visiting editors Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, Hanna Snellman and Tiina Suopajärvi.