We invite you to submit abstracts for Messing with Methods in More-than-Human Worlds, an Open Panel at 4S Sydney, August 29 - September 1 2018 (https://4s2018sydney.org/) 74. Messing with Methods in More-than-Human Worlds Organisers: Jaz Hee-jeong Choi, QUT; Anne Galloway, Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), Larissa Hjorth, RMIT (AU) A multitude of political, technoscientific and ecological disruptions are challenging the ‘myth’ of human exceptionalism, forcing researchers to find new ways of understanding—and intervening in—a range of human/nonhuman encounters. From reconfigured definitions of ‘agency’ and the ‘social’ to renewed explorations of ‘co-presence’ and ‘mutual becoming,’ more-than-human approaches (see for e.g.: Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010; Buller, 2015; Despret, 2016; Bastian et al., 2017) can exemplify Haraway’s (2016) invitation to ‘stay with the trouble’ of human/nonhuman entanglements. But actually doing this research is hard. There is still a tendency, as Abram (2011) puts it, to speak “about such entities only behind their backs” instead of actively calling out and listening to them. And when we do succeed with that task, we still face the challenge of how to (re)tell these stories, or even trickier, how to ‘take action.’ This panel is a hopeful call for a collective, transdisciplinary effort to consider these methodological possibilities and limitations, and to share even our messiest experiments in creating and communicating knowledge necessary for thriving in more-than-human worlds. We welcome papers that think through these, and other, questions: What does it mean to do more-than-human participatory research? How does taking the more-than-human seriously reconfigure both notions and practicalities of ‘open,’ ethical research? What kinds of more-than-human (cosmo)politics are made public through different methods of ‘engagement’ and ‘impact’? What is the role of design and/or creative practice as both process and product in more-than-human research? How can indigenous ways of knowing revitalise human/nonhuman encounters, and serve to decolonise both ethnographic and creative practice? REFERENCES: Kirksey, S. & Helmreich, S. (2010) ‘The emergence of multispecies ethnography.’ Cultural Anthropology 25(4): 545–576; Buller, H. (2015) ‘Animal geographies II: methods’. Progress in Human Geography. 39 (3): 374-384; Despret, V. (2016) What would animals say if we asked the right questions? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; Bastian, M. et al. (eds.) (2017) Participatory Research in More-than-human Worlds. London: Routledge; Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Raleigh: Duke University Press; Abram, D. (2011) Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. London: Vintage. How to Submit: Abstracts close: Feb 1st, 2018 Open panel paper submissions should be in the form of abstracts of up to 250 words. They should include the paper’s main arguments, methods, and contributions to STS. When submitting papers to open panels on the abstract submission platform, you will select the Open Panel you are submitting to. Papers submitted to an open session will be reviewed by the open session organizer(s) and will be given first consideration for that session. Papers not included in the session to which they were submitted will be considered for other sessions. -- Dr. Jaz Hee-jeong Choi Visiting Professor, Data Science Lab @ Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST Director, Urban Informatics Associate, Digital Media Research Centre Senior Lecturer, School of Design, Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology -- e: h.choi@qut.edu.au<mailto:h.choi@qut.edu.au> -- w: urbaninformatics.net<http://urbaninformatics.net> -- p: +617 3138 7657 -- m: +61 433 167 151