Cardiff School of Social Sciences

'Why Culture Matters' Public Lecture Series

Starts: 7 February 2013

Co-organised as part of the work of the Culture Transformation and Subjectivity Theme and the Ethnography, Culture and Interpretive Analysis Group at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, 'Why Culture Matters' will run as a series of three lectures in early 2013.

Each of the Why Culture Matters lectures will take place in Committee Room 1& 2, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University.

Lecture 1: 'The future of relationships - Why culture matters'

Professor Lynn Jamieson (Edinburgh University)
Thursday 7^th February 2013, 6pm

Abstract

At its simplest, a relationship is some form of consequential connection. The term is often used to refer to important interpersonal connections such as friends and family. In an increasingly digitally connected world, there are masses of data about connections between people (on Facebook, and Twitter for example) and people and things (through loyalty cards, travel cards and the like). We are often aware of connection to and sometimes surveillance by people we’ve never known and with whom we have no direct ‘relationship’. Sometimes claims are made about the waning significance of face-to-face personal relationships in our lives, in the world, and as interesting data.  In the major challenges of the twenty-first century, climate change, global recession and the like, personal relationships seem to be at the receiving end rather than key agents of change. Yet in some understandings of selves and human cultures, personal relationships remain the bedrock. What is the likely future of face-to-face personal relationships? How do they feature in everyday thinking about the future? What are they likely to contribute to the future of our cultural life, our social fabric and the wellbeing of our planet? What can we know about this with and without researchers walking alongside people and getting up close and personal?

Biographical Details

Lynn Jamieson is a professor at the University of Edinburgh and co-director of the university’s centre for research on families and relationships (CRFR).  Lynn’s research interests include: intimacy, personal life, families and relationships, identity, and environment and sustainable lifestyles. Her recent work has explored people living alone at ages more conventionally associated with living with a partner and/or children (with Fran Wasoff and Roona Simpson), children’s experience of family change (with Gill Highet) and young people’s migration from rural areas. Lynn has been involved with longitudinal research through the Timescapes and Growing Up in Scotland studies. Lynn has recently co-edited a book on ‘Researching Families and Relationships’ (2011: London: Palgrave) and is best known for her writing on intimacy, particularly the book Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies (1998: Cambridge & Malden, MA: Polity Press).

Lecture 2: 'Policy as culture-making'

Dr Christian Bröer (University of Amsterdam)
Wednesday 18^th April 2013

Lecture 3: 'Risk, localities and environmental values: Cultural perspectives'

Dr Terre Satterfield (University of British Columbia)
Wednesday 25^th April 2013

Other information

Open To: Public