CALL FOR PAPERS – ‘Folklore on the Move’
The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference 2026, in collaboration with the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen.
In-person conference: Friday, 5 June to Sunday, 7 June 2026, at the King’s College, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Online conference day: Wednesday, 10 June 2026.

The vitality of folklore depends on the movement of people and/or ideas. Some forms of folklore can be defined directly through their relations to movement, whether practically – e.g. certain cultural forms of Roma and Traveller communities, migrants, showpeople, sailors, etc. – or performed, e.g. tales of years-long quests, ballads of departure, or myths whose characters move between supernatural and physical realms. We can also consider the movement of individual items: a lullaby moves intimately from one generation to another; an online meme is sent to thousands via social media; a tag is spray-painted across a city; dance steps are called from the stage as partners and groups move around the floor.

The movement of disciplinary ideas and methodologies and how these have shaped Folklore and adjacent fields is worthy of contemplation, as well. More specifically, the connection between folklore and movement has interested folklorists going back at least to Julius Krohn’s historic-geographic method, which attempted to track the movement of folklore across place and time. Later, Reidar Christiansen pointed to the migratory nature of legends, while Carl von Sydow reminded us of the cultural changes that folklore undergoes as it moves, and Linda Dégh considered the ‘conduits’ of interest that are necessary for the sharing of folklore.

At a time when folklore and related symbols have been co-opted by some to delineate stringent identity boundaries, the Elphinstone Institute and The Folklore Society are pleased to work together to highlight the movement of folklore and the interconnectedness of people. This is not to imply that all folklore is benevolent, nor to neglect the movement inherent to the discipline’s problematic colonial histories. We hope to encourage nuanced discussions of folklore and movement through a variety of lenses and from a wide range of participants.

We welcome academic and non-academic presentations of 20 minutes from tradition bearers, archivists, activists, museum workers, artists, event co-ordinators, folklorists and others interested in speaking on contemporary or historical aspects of ‘folklore on the move’.

Deadline for proposals: Sunday, 14 December 2025.

Read more here

When: 30 March – 1 April 2026
Where: Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract Deadline: 17 November 2025

The Baltic region is experiencing intensified militarisation, rising populism, ecological degradation, and shifting migration landscapes. This conference invites ethnologists and anthropologists to critically examine these transformations, strengthen regional scholarly collaboration, and explore the future of our disciplines.

We welcome papers on topics including, but not limited to:

• Borders and bordering practices
• Disciplinary trajectories and legacies in the region
• Post-Soviet and postsocialist influences on research
• Postcolonial and decolonial approaches to the Baltic Sea region

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Zuzanna Bogumił, University of Warsaw.

Submit your abstract (max 300 words) here: https://forms.office.com/e/qGP0BdRaRX

Limited funding for travel and accommodation is available and can be applied for via the submission form.

For further questions, please contact Dzmitry Sialitski at dzmitry.sialitski@sh.se.

Read more in the pdf

The ISFNR Interim conference in 2026 will be held in Reykjavík Iceland, June 13th to 16th. The conference will take place at the main campus of the University of Iceland, a walking distance from the vibrant city centre of Reykjavík. With nearly 24 hours of daylight,and plenty of geothermal pools to soak in, it’s the perfect place to recharge on all levels. The conference is hosted by the department of Folkloristics at the University of Iceland, the Icelandic Association of Ethnology and Folklore and The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. This will be a hybrid event, so delegates will be able to participate either virtually or in person.

Theme

The conference engages broadly with the theme of nature(s) in narrative. We ask how narrative is entangled with nature in its various forms, situated in the micro and macro, the rural and urban, ranging from essentialist notions of the natural, the supernatural to non-binary assemblages of nature-culture. Subjects for discussion might include the following:

• How do notions of nature relate to narrations of identity, heritage, the national and personal, the physical and the spiritual?
• What comprehensions of “the natural” can be gleaned from storytelling, in its various cultural and social contexts, and in folk narrative research itself?
• How has our narrative vocabulary and academic terminology borrowed from and conversed with the discourses of nature?
• Does folk narrative entail a commons of sorts?
• How do environment and disparate nature-cultural assemblages shape narrative, characters, flow, style and storytelling events?
• How are human and non-human entanglements expressed, sensed, performed and reimagined in storytelling events?
• How do narrators delineate “selves” from “the other” in the living world; the natural from the “unnatural” or supernatural; the mundane from the enchanted?
• How are our conceptions of nature shaped and challenged by unusual “natural events” and climate crises, or urbanisation, technology, information disorder (fake news) and artificial intelligence?
• What are the “natures” of archives and how are they shaped by narratives?
• Do natures in narrative reveal aspects of the “natures” of narrative, its forms, functions and practice?

Call for Papers and Posters can be found here

Proposals must consist of:

• a paper title
• names and email addresses of any authors/co-authors
• a short abstract of fewer than 300 characters
• long abstract of fewer than 250 words

The call is open 20 Aug – 01 Oct 2025

LiU Humanities welcome scholars and students of all disciplines to this conference on the contribution of qualitative, interpretative, collaborative and critical research to the ways in which we know of and with culture, society, technology, medicine and nature in different strands of research.

Date: 16-17 October 2025
Location: Arbetets museum, Norrköping
Deadline for papers: New extended deadline 10 April 2025

Call for papers
While traditional humanities disciplines and topics have become deeper and broader over the years, they have also been enriched by interdisciplinary, integrative or new humanities that cut across disciplines and problem-based themes such as the LiU Department of Thematic Studies. But despite the nowadays diverse, adaptive, and rich humanities, there seems to be a recurring debate on the value of the humanities not the least in relation to the distribution of funding for research and education. There is, hence, an imperative need for a comprehensive discussion of the role, nature and place of the humanities in academia and in society at large.

This conference aims at showing the power of various humanities by displaying research initiatives that provide the crucial social, cultural, existential, ethical, philosophical, and political dimensions of how human life is entangled with history, language, interaction, science, nature and technologies.

Scholars within all fields that identify with, or wish to pursue collaboration with, qualitative, interpretative and critical research are invited to present ongoing or planned initiatives.

Read more here