Sustainability in Practice: DIY Repair, Reuse and Innovation
30 October–2 November 2024 
Estonian National Museum, Tartu, Estonia
Conference webpage: http://enmconferences.ee/sustainability-2024

This conference addresses ecological sustainability through do it yourself (DIY) practices, and through consumer behaviour and heritage. The focus on DIY repair, reuse and vernacular innovation seeks to examine sustainability in the context of everyday life and domestic and community settings. By bringing together anthropological, ethnological, sociological and craft studies perspectives, the conference aims to show and discuss contemporary, traditional and vernacular sustainable practices.

Repair, reuse and repurpose of diverse commodities and materials, and vernacular innovation, are today increasingly perceived as part of sustainable consumption culture. However, the role and meaning of these practices have changed over time, depending on social, economic and political environments. Facing the global climate crisis, we are looking for lessons from the past and present for more sustainable and resilient ways of life.

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Steven J. Jackson (Cornell University)
Prof. Tomás Errázuriz (Universidad Andrés Bello, Campus Creativo)
Assoc. prof. Ricardo Greene (Universidad de las Américas)

We invite presentations, workshops and documentaries that explore various forms of DIY practice, solutions, innovation and material culture related to sustainability in a variety of settings and regions. Apart from academics, experts from memory institutions and craft scholars, this conference also invites activists, craftsmen and designers to share their experience and knowledge.

Possible topics include:

• Repair and maintenance
• Reuse and repurpose
• Vernacular innovation and invention
• The material culture of sustainability
• Sustainable and resilient lifestyles and communities
• Forms of activism (for example, repair cafés, the right to repair movement, low-tech, etc.)
• Heritage and applied heritage
• The role of museums and memory institutions in maintaining and promoting sustainability
• Insights from activists and craftsmen or designers

The deadline for submission is 31 March 2024. Please send an abstract (200–300 words) of the presentation, workshop or documentary film with the title and your details. In addition, for workshops please add special requirements, and for documentaries please add online access to the film with English subtitles.

Please send your submission to the conference e-mail: sustainability@erm.ee

The conference is organised by the Estonian National Museum in collaboration with the Washing Machine Made of Beetroot joint exhibition project, curated by the Estonian Road Museum, the Estonian Agricultural Museum, and the Tartu City Museum. The conference programme involves organised tours of the exhibition on invention, ingenuity, recycling and DIY mentality, and visits to various public repair workshops in Tartu.

The conference and the exhibition are part of and supported by the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 programme.

Sincerely,
Tenno Teidearu
Estonian National Museum
sustainability@erm.ee

Contact Information
Estonian National Museum, Muuseumi tee 2, Tartu, Estonia
sustainability@erm.ee

Contact Email
sustainability@erm.ee

URL: http://enmconferences.ee/sustainability-2024

The student chapter of the Association of Canadian Archivists at the University of British Columbia (ACA@UBC) invites any interested archival or information studies students from all universities around the world to participate in its 15th annual Conference, which will be held on February 16, 2024 (PT). The 2024 Conference is titled “Archives and the Environment: Land, Colonialism, and the Climate Crisis” and will consider presentations related to this theme.

Student presentations will take the form of lightning talks: you will present for approximately 10 minutes and then answer questions. The total amount of time for both the presentation and Q&A should take around 20 minutes. This year, student presentations have four slots and will take place from 9:40 AM to 10:20 AM (PT) and 2:35 PM to 3:15 PM (PT).

Your work does not have to be a completed project. It could be a class project, an ongoing project, or an idea for a future project. You could also talk about an experience you’ve had as an archives or information studies student.

This is a great opportunity to share your work, discuss with others, and get some presentation experience! We are also offering an honorarium to thank you for your time in preparing and presenting.

If you are interested in participating, please submit your proposal to aca [dot] slais [at] gmail [dot] com by December 11, 2023.

We will send you an email to let you know whether your application has been selected by January 1st, 2024.

We welcome proposals in all formats, but your submission must include:

• The title of your presentation and full name(s) of contributor(s);
• An introduction to your work/idea and your motivation for it;
• A brief explanation of how your proposal is related to the theme of the conference.

The written portion of your proposal should be at least 150 words but no more than 500 words.

We look forward to receiving your submissions! 

About the Conference

The Association of Canadian Archivists Student Chapter at the University of British Columbia (ACA@UBC) is pleased to present its 15th annual conference—Archives and the Environment: Land, Colonialism, and the Climate Crisis. This event will be held virtually on Zoom on Friday, February 16^th, 2024, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM (PST).

As an online event, attendees and presenters will join this gathering from many different places around the world. We wish to expressly acknowledge that the University of British Columbia School of Information is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. We are grateful to study and host our conference on this beautiful land.

The 15^th annual ACA@UBC Conference considers the relationship between the environment and the archival profession at large. Reflecting on the “inextricable relationship between archivy and the environment” (Winn), the Conference asks: what is the responsibility of the archivist in a time where the climate crisis presses upon the sustainable reality of all forms of cultural heritage? How does land, as and with archival records, play into reparative justice for historical brutalities dealt by colonialism and capitalism? This virtual conference brings together students, scholars, and practitioners whose work explores the reciprocal relationship between archival practice and the changing conditions of the land and environment. Through virtual discussions and presentations, the ACA@UBC Conference will explore archival and recordkeeping practices amidst rapid climate change, the capacity of the land as record, and archival applications informed by the impacts of colonialism and capitalism upon the environment.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu: Working Together

The National Oral History Association of New Zealand invites proposals for presentations for its 2024 biennial conference to be held 15-17 November 2024 in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

Successful oral histories are built upon creative working relationships between interviewers and interviewees. The 2024 conference encourages discussion about ‘working together’ and the stories people tell, to whom, when, and why. Two key themes will be explored. Kōrero mai, or ‘speak to me’, focuses on relationship building in oral history. It reflects upon questions of trust and reciprocity that underpin oral history work and how these relationships may shape the stories people tell.

Kōrero atu, or ‘speak out’, considers the responsibilities interviewers and interviewees face both during and after the interview. This includes the obligations interviewees may feel to their iwi, hapū, whānau, or community, how these relationships affect the stories they tell (or don’t tell), and the restrictions they place on the use and archiving of interviews. It also includes how oral historians honour the stories people share as we move the project from interviewing to archiving, analysis, and publication in print or in other forms.

We invite you to submit proposals on relevant topics. These may include, but are not limited to:
· Working in partnership with communities and storytellers, sharing authority
· Upholding te mana raraunga (Māori intellectual property) in oral history research
· Oral history as testimony in activism and advocacy: the power of the voice to enact change
· Ethical archiving – where and how to store oral histories; innovative approaches to archiving
· Obligations to communities and to each other in oral history research
· Publishing oral histories and oral history research online
· Working with the Privacy Act
· Using oral history in the classroom
· Negotiating ethical issues that arise when undertaking oral history research

The conference also invites presentations on recent oral history projects, which do not need to address the conference themes. Proposals for panel discussions or presentations are welcome.

Please submit your abstract to nohanz2024@gmail.com by 31 March 2024.

Proposals should include a paper title, abstract of no more than 200 words, presentation style (individual paper or panel), name and affiliation (if applicable) of presenter/s, and contact details.

Contact Information
Cheryl Ware 
Contact Email: c.ware@auckland.ac.nz

International Conference
Riga, Latvia
October 29-31, 2024

Approaching its 100 th anniversary, the Archives of Latvian Folklore (1924), in close
cooperation with the SIEF Working Group on Archives and the SIEF Working Group on
Cultural Heritage and Property, invites contributions for an international conference
addressing a diverse range of issues related to present and future of the archives of
traditional culture. The centenary is, of course, a good reason to look back and take stock of
what has been done, to understand how the histories of archiving have developed in
different countries. But what we would like to do even more at this conference is to assess
current situations and to look ahead, say, to the next 10 years.

What is the state of play in archiving and maintaining archives of intangible cultural heritage (in Europe and elsewhere)? What could the near future of tradition archives look like? What can we expect with certainty? What major research and infrastructure projects are planned in the archives? Do the next few years look optimistic for individual archives as well as their networks, or the other way around? What challenges lie ahead of us (legal, ethical, technological, of values)? What new archiving solutions can be offered? What can we learn from the past?

The conference will deal broadly with retrospective and prospective dimensions of archives of folklore, ethnology, and ethnography, encompassing both historical documentation and documentation of living traditions practiced today. We invite folklorists, archivists and researchers from other relevant disciplines to share their studies and critical reflections by submitting paper proposals that would fit into the following thematic sections, all concerning the archives of traditional culture:
● Archives’ history lessons
● International contexts and cooperation
● Current global challenges, including geopolitical and climatic fluctuations
● Archives’ legal issues and current developments, including intellectual property
issues and ethics in a digital landscape
● Archival replenishment strategies (cultural memory perspectives and beyond); new
structuring and categories; archiving for documentation of ICH projects
● Information technology challenges, including social media and AI; interactivity within
digital archives
● Engaging society; community driven / open-source archives; collaboration between
archives and community groups; proactively engaging in field research and
community projects, especially with under-represented groups and communities
● Repatriation

Please send your proposals by January 31, 2024 to the e-mail address lfk@lulfmi.lv.
Submissions should include the name and affiliation of the participant, the paper title and an abstract (up to 300 words).

Contact Information
Conference e-mail: lfk@lulfmi.lv
URL: https://en.lfk.lv