P for Pandemic

Due to the prolongation of the global epidemic situation, a new ‘P’, standing for ‘pandemic’, has to be added to our agenda.

It seems obvious that the passing year has had a permanent impact on the modes of academic communication – no matter how long the current state of exception continues. From now on, hybrid forms of interaction that combine physical and virtual modes of presence and participation will be a matter of course. The change will be permanent, not because of the pandemic that has triggered it but because of the way it meets the no less acute ethical and ecological demands for a more accessible and sustainable world. Vaccination against COVID-19, when we have it, will not protect us from the climate catastrophe or the misery caused by global inequality. Concerning the latter problems, the pandemic is but one symptom among others, although it currently dominates our life and attention. 

Arranging an international para-academic conference under these circumstances implies not only that the organisers need to rescale their presumed models and adjust them to the new situation. It also entails the future participants of the conference rethinking the mode of their participation and coming up with the propositions that are most suitable for this situation, that is, turning into our everyday reality.

According to its ‘Vision Statement’, the conference searches for more democratic, lateral, and collaborative modes of academic community building. The same principle will be applied here when it comes to the problems the COVID-19 epidemic sets for the conference. Its final form will be dependent on the actual proposals of its participants. What we, the organisers of PPP2021, can already promise at this point is that the event will allow both live presence and virtual participation, as well as their creative combinations, while we also, at the same time, strive to minimise the risk of possible contagion.

Instead of waiting for better times, we should get used to and prepared for another kind of future. PPP2021 will be an occasion for building it together.