The 18th CUHK Anthropology Postgraduate Student Forum

When Silence Speaks

緘默有聲

29-30 Jan 2027

Mixed mode (In-person & Online)

Call for Papers 徵稿啟事

Keynote Speaker: Robert P. Weller (Department of Anthropology, Boston University)

 

Geopolitical conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism, culture wars, the rise of the far-right, the threat of AI technology, and unsettled historical trauma from the past have combined to create a new level and sense of crisis. While the current state of global affairs may be understood in light of existing frameworks such as “runaway world” (Giddens, 1999), “overheating” (Eriksen, 2016), and more, we propose for this forum a collective inquiry into silence as an alternative angle. We wish to center voice and expression, its proliferation and suppression, as an anthropological problem and question. Voice – as something that can be absent or present, embodied or externalized, individual or collective, expressive or cacophonous – is potentially a scalable concept to reflect on the unspoken, the unspeakable and the invisible in our contemporary social, political, and experiential worlds (Dragojlovic & Samuels, 2021).

 

This forum seeks works that focus on groups or individuals navigating silence within unequal power structures, whether migrants within global care chains, gig-economy workers, or residents of climate-vulnerable regions. We also encourage submissions that attend to the omissions, elisions, and gaps manifested in "silent" non-human subjects: ecological landscapes, multispecies entities, official archives, supernatural beings, and cultural relics. We invite contributors to reflect: How is silence systematically produced by institutions and mechanisms in education, healthcare, algorithms, and beyond? When do silences get broken, and when are they protected? What complex entanglements, subtle relations, and alternating rhythms exist between silence and voice (Weller, 2021)?

 

Finally, we also welcome reflections on silence at the methodological level. As we consider the silences of our interlocutors as potential modes of expression or intentionality, our own writing might also reflect this: How might one work with "silent things" and "the silences within them" during ethnographic fieldwork? How do we write about silent things, and how do we "write with silences?"

 

地緣政治衝突、威權主義進逼、文化戰爭、極右勢力崛起，以及過去尚未平息的歷史創傷，種種因素交織，衍生出另一層次的危機意識。面對當前全球局勢的洪流，「失控的世界」（Giddens, 1999）或「過熱」（Eriksen, 2016）等框架雖可助以理解世界，然而，我們希望本論壇以「緘默」為稜鏡，從人類學角度探討聲音與表達的湧現及抑壓。聲音——既可缺席，亦能在場；既可體現，亦能內化；既可為獨，亦能為眾；既可擲地有聲，亦能嘈雜紛亂。這個蘊含不同可能性的概念或可讓我們反思在當代各種社會、政治及經驗世界中，何為「未言」、「不可言」及「不可見」（Dragojlovic & Samuels, 2021）。

 

本論壇期望徵集不同研究論著，探討在現世權力不平等的結構中，與緘默周旋的個體與群體，包括全球照護鏈中的移民、零工經濟中的勞動者、或身處氣候危脆之地的居民。我們亦鼓勵來稿探討展現於「緘默」非人類主體的罅漏與刪略，包括生態地景、多物種實體、官方檔案、超自然存在與文化遺產。同時，冀望投稿學者反思：在教育、醫療保健、演算法等不同領域中，機構與機制如何系統性地製造緘默？何時應打破寂靜？何時應守護沉默？緘默與聲音之間，又有甚麼複雜的糾纏、幽微的關係，以及更迭的節奏（Weller, 2021）？

 

最後，我們亦歡迎方法論層面上對緘默的見解。當我們將人們的緘默視為潛在有意的表達，並書寫民族誌時，該如何面對田野中的「緘默之事」與「內在的緘默」？又該如何書寫他們，或與靜默共寫？

 

Please submit your abstract here by 15 November 2026. 

 

References:

 

Dragojlovic, A., & Samuels, A. (2023). Silence. In F. Stein (Ed.), The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology.

Eriksen, T. H. (2016). Overheating: An anthropology of accelerated change. Pluto Press.

Giddens, A. (1999). Runaway world: How globalisation is reshaping our lives. Profile Books.

Weller, R. P. (2021). Respecting silence: Longing, rhythm, and Chinese temples in an age of bulldozers. History and Anthropology, 32(4), 481–497.