06.09-08.09.2018, St. Gallen
Unspoken, Unseen, Unheard of
Unexplored Realities in Qualitative Research
Introduction
From 6–8 September 2018, the Research Network “Qualitative Methods” of the European Sociological Association and the Research Committee “Interpretive Sociologies” of the Swiss Sociological Association invite qualitative researchers to St.Gallen, Switzerland to discuss and address matters of unexplored realities in qualitative research.
Call for Papers
This conference invites qualitative researchers to address and discuss questions concerning ‘unexplored realities’ in three directions. (1) A first focus concerns the other senses than those we usually rely on—the auditory and visual sense—those that are not easily captured in language. Should we even attempt to study realms for which we may not have an adequate language (yet)? (2) The second focus concerns social spaces and domains of contemporary societies which constitute—for some or most of us—unknown subuniverses or backstages, kept marginalized, secret, or out of focus from public attention. (3) And thirdly, it concerns hidden and concealed domains, potentially inconvenient and uncomfortable realms that those involved in our research might not want to have exposed.
(1) Neglected senses and sensitivities: The dominant senses that organize qualitative social research methodologies have been and still are the auditory and the visual: We hear participants and ourselves talk, we see action, we transcribe spoken into written language, we read documents, watch video recordings, and look at images. Modes of conserving, evoking, and remembering the social phenomena we aim at understanding rely heavily on the auditory and visual senses. Taste, smell, touch, a sense of body movement, but also feelings and emotions are often conspicuously absent in many presentations of social research findings—be it because they are difficult to turn into data, be it for the difficulty to express them in language, be it for our lack of training and sensitivity in dealing with them. The first conference focus concerns sensory realities that are largely unexplored: How do we methodologically proceed to study them? How can we incorporate these dimensions into an interpretive understanding of social reality? How can qualitative studies based on such an understanding inform and enrich our understanding of contemporary social phenomena? If a strength of qualitative research is to study and represent social reality in its complexity, how can we develop research methodologies that include more than the visual and auditory sense?
(2) Unexplored social spaces and practices: For both, the wider public and social scientists, many social domains remain relatively unknown territories for a diversity of reasons. There are groups and organisations that may prefer to operate in relative secrecy. It may concern milieus and subcultures that are marginalized. It may concern social positions and population segments that are silenced. It may concern ‘exclusive’ social domains which are (kept) inaccessible for the majority. And it may simply concern social spaces which have been largely neglected by academia or the wider public, not deemed ‘necessary’ or ‘worthy’ of attention and exploration. In short, it concerns realms of the everyday life-world which remain relatively unexplored, accessed by a few and understood by a few. Simultaneously, as Erving Goffman and others have demonstrated, virtually any social setting—whether unexplored or well explored—is divided into front stages and backstages. It is in the relative secrecy of backstages where actors relax from their front stage performances, where they organize support, and where they devise strategies for acting on the front stage. Generating backstages and keeping them intransparent and concealed for front stage audiences are standard social practices.
Bringing our attention to social realms that have largely remained unknown or unheard of is one of the classic endeavours of qualitative research. Participants are invited to reflect upon the manifold methodological challenges posed by studying such realities. How do we negotiate access to hidden practices and backstages? What kind of backstages should we aim at getting access to? To what extent should we—and to what extent are we legitimized to—expose backstage practices if they concern contested and sensitive issues? How do we represent these realities? Any qualitative methodology engaged in in-depth explorations of social domains needs to account for these questions.
(3) Hidden and concealed domains: Any social practice—qualitative research included—is embedded in belief systems and ideologies. For various reasons, practices and their effects may run counter to such belief systems and may consequently be neglected: concealed due to potentially inconvenient consequences, (un)knowingly ignored, or conceptually nihilated into non-existence. How do we deal with domains to which the actors in the field have turned a blind eye on? How do we deal with domains to which the research participants want us as researchers to turn a blind eye on?
Call for Papers (PDF document)
Registration for Participation
Registration for the conference and the workshops is still open, but only on-site in St.Gallen. Please visit the registration desk. Note that the registration fees can only be paid in cash. We can only accept Swiss Francs.
Please Register On-Site For Participation
Please note the following:
- You can register for participation both in the conference and the workshops combined OR you can register for the conference only or for the workshops only. For the fees, please consult the tables below.
- Payments for on-site registration can only be made in cash. All fees are to be paid in Swiss Francs (one Swiss Franc currently equals approx. 0.85 Euro or 1 US Dollar).
(For those who have registered online earlier and pay via bank transfer: Ensure that we receive the full amount; any transaction/banking fees need to be paid entirely by you or your institution. If not, we’ll have to charge the missing amount upon your arrival.)
- Members of the European Sociological Association (ESA) and PhD candidates/students receive a discount. If you want to benefit from these discounts, you will need to bring along your “ESA invoice” and/or student confirmation during the registration at the conference site. See below on how to become an ESA member and on how to download your ESA payment confirmation. Make sure to pay your ESA membership fees with credit card, as it allows you to immediately download your ESA invoice.
- Accommodation: You will need to book accommodation separately by contacting the hotels yourself. We’ve reserved a number of rooms in hotels close to the conference venue. See the section on accommodation and travel below on our website for the list of hotels. When booking, mention that you participate in our conference.
Becoming an ESA member: For those who wish to become member of the ESA and benefit from a reduced participation fee, use this link that directs you to the ESA website: Become an ESA member. We encourage you not only to become an ESA member, but also to join our Research Network 20 Qualitative Methods.
Please note: As an ESA member, you will need to upload your ESA payment confirmation during the registration process for our conference if you want to profit from the lower rates. The ESA calls this confirmation “invoice”, although it is effectively also a proof of payment. To get it, log in to the ESA website, click on the green button “My Dashboard” on top of the website and choose again “Dashboard” from the dropdown menu. If you have paid your fees, you can download your “invoice” as PDF document by clicking on the button “Print Invoice”.
We recommend to pay your ESA membership fees by credit card, as this enables you to download the invoice immediately; if you pay by bank transfer, you can download this invoice as soon as the ESA administration has acknowledged receipt of your payment. This may take a few days and you might miss the early bird rate. (Link to the ESA website user login.)
Conference participation fees in Swiss Francs
| ESA members |
Non-members |
PhD candidates, students (ESA members) |
PhD candidates, students (non-members) |
EARLY BIRD (until 30 June)
180 CHF
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EARLY BIRD (until 30 june)
200 CHF
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EARLY BIRD (until 30 june)
90 CHF
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EARLY BIRD (until 30 june)
100 CHF
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200 CHF
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220 CHF
|
110 CHF
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120 CHF
|
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220 CHF
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240 CHF
|
125 CHF
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135 CHF
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Those participating in a workshop and the conference receive a discount of CHF 15.–.
Workshop participation fees
The participation fees for the workshop are the same for ESA-members and non-members.
| Regular participants |
PhD candidates, students |
EARLY BIRD (until 30 june)
60 CHF
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EARLY BIRD (until 30 june)
50 CHF
|
|
70 CHF
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60 CHF
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80 CHF
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70 CHF
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Keynote Addresses
Sensory Ethnography and the Method of Participant Sensation
David Howes, Concordia University, Canada (short biography)
Sensory ethnography involves a cultural approach to the study of the senses and a sensory approach to the study of culture. The senses are treated as both object of study and means of inquiry. This keynote will document how the method of sensory ethnography first took shape and has evolved within anthropology, how it has since spread to other disciplines such as sociology and religious studies, and conclude with a discussion of the multiple contexts for its use in the present, from marketing to medicine. François Laplantine offers a helpful description of the methodology of participant sensation in The Life of the Senses: “The experience of fieldwork is an experience of sharing in the sensible [partage du sensible]. We observe, we listen, we speak with others, we partake of their cuisine, we try to feel along with them what they experience”.
On the Four Voices Negotiating Your Medical Care: Your Body, Your Medical Record, Your Clinician – and, Now, Your Personal Data
Ross Koppel, University of Pennsylvania, USA (short biography)
We usually think of patients’ medical record as objective collections of data and observations. I’ve previously argued that such views are limited. There are, in fact, at least three realities: 1. patients’ physical condition as reflected in laboratory reports, X-rays, observations; 2. clinicians’ mental models of patients’ conditions, including possible diagnoses; and 3. representations of patients in the medical record… usually electronic health records (EHRs).
In this keynote presentation, I’ll discuss that triangular model, and then expand it to include a fourth participant: the patient and the patient’s family. The patient of course was always a stakeholder but was previously usually prevented from participating in an active role. However, the recent movement toward “open notes” – where patients are provided access to the physicians’ notes and discussions – changes the landscape in several ways. Physicians, aware that they can be read by patients, may avoid belittling observations and terms, and have sometimes cloaked their comments in ways that may not be obvious to patients. On the other hand, to the extent that the notes serve primarily as a record and guide for other clinicians, any alteration or ambiguity of the notes may adversely affect patient care. Added to this, physicians and IT staff must also now develop ways of incorporating patients’ efforts at corrections, additions, and demands for deletions. Last, data from wearable medical devices and patient-created data bases, adds yet another data source that some seek to incorporate as active parts of the medical record.
The Demedicalization of Self-Injury
Patricia A. Adler, University of Colorado, USA (short biography)
Peter Adler, University of Denver, USA (short biography)
This research offers a description and analysis of the relatively hidden practice of self-injury: cutting, burning, branding, and bone breaking. Drawing on over 150 in-depth interviews and tens of thousands of Web site postings, e-mail communications, and Internet groups, we challenge the psycho-medical depiction of this phenomenon and discuss ways that the contemporary social practice of self-injury challenges images of the population, etiology, practice, and social meanings associated with this behavior. We conclude by suggesting that self-injury, for some, is in the process of undergoing a moral passage from the realm of medicalized to voluntarily chosen deviant behavior in which participants’ actions may be understood better with a greater knowledge of the sociological factors that contribute to the prevalence of these actions.
Sensory Realities of Automated Technologies: On How to Investigate the Often Invisible and Unspoken Aspects of Self-Tracking and Self-Driving Cars and Why We Should Do It
Vaike Fors, Halmstad University, Sweden (short biography)
New technological possibilities associated with automated technologies such as self-tracking and self-driving cars are generating new questions and imaginaries about automated futures. Until recently, technological-driven research has dominated the field, but there is now a growing interest for hitherto neglected perspectives, for example the sensory realities of these emerging technologies. In this talk, I will discuss a theoretical-methodological approach towards researching this context based in pedagogical design anthropological theory and sensory ethnographic practice. In a series of collaborative research projects, we have developed this approach to specifically target sensory, affective, qualitative and often unspoken perspectives on self-tracking and self-driving cars; this has been helpful in both understanding how these automated technologies become implicated in both people’s ongoing everyday activities and their perception of the environment and the way they feel as part of it. Through our research on people’s experiences and expectations on self-tracking and self-driving cars we have learned how the use of these technologies shift people’s modes of knowing and being in the world, and also suggest how we as researchers can encounter other people’s non-representational worlds with them through such technologies. During this talk I will discuss empirical examples from our research to demonstrate the approach as well as lessons learned from developing this approach in an applied context.
Keynote Speakers
Patricia Adler, University of Colorado and Peter Adler, University of Denver, USA
Patricia Adler will hold a keynote address; together, Patricia and Peter Adler will conduct an ethnographic methods workshop on 5 September. Patricia and Peter Adler have written and worked together for almost 40 years. Patti is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Colorado. Peter is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver. Their interests include qualitative methods, deviant behavior, drugs and society, sociology of sport, social psychology, sociology of children, social theory, and work, occupations, and leisure. Together, they have published over 100 articles and books, including Momentum (Sage, 1981), Wheeling and Dealing (Columbia University Press, 1985, Second Edition 1993), Membership Roles in Field Research (Sage, 1987), Backboards and Blackboards (Columbia University Press, 1991), Peer Power (Rutgers University Press, 1998), Paradise Laborers (Cornell University Press, 2004), and The Tender Cut (NYU Press, 2011). The Adlers have served as Co-Presidents of the Midwest Sociological Society, as editors of Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (1986–1994) and as the founding editors of Sociological Studies of Child Development (1985–1992). Their co-edited anthologies include Constructions of Deviance (Wadsworth), now in its eighth edition, and Sociological Odyssey (Wadsworth), now in its fourth edition. In 2010, there were honored with the George Herbert Mead Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI).
Ross Koppel, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Ross Koppel, Ph.D., FACMI has been on the faculty of the Sociology Department and an affiliate professor at the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania since 1991. Koppel is also a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute at Penn’s Wharton School and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Health Initiatives of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. Prof. Koppel is a PI on several studies of cybersecurity, including the Intel/NSF study of cybersecurity of the Internet of Things and cyber-physical systems, the NSF Project on Safe Cyber Communication (both with Penn’s Engineering School) and the NSA study on circumvention of cybersecurity. He is also a leading scholar of healthcare IT (HIT) and of the interactions of people, computers and workplaces. His articles in JAMA, JAMIA, NEJM, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Chest, et cetera are considered seminal works. His focus on cybersecurity circumvention dovetails with his work on HIT because workarounds in medical settings are both pandemic and often required for medical necessities. Both research foci employ his 48 years of work in statistical analysis, research methods, surveys, ethnography, computer usability studies, data visualization interpretations, the role of HIT in facilitating errors, evaluation methods, and the sociology of work and organizations.
Vaike Fors, Halmstad University, Sweden
Vaike Fors, Ph.D., is associate professor in pedagogy at the School of Information Technology at Halmstad University in Sweden. Fors has also been director of the Swedish centre for Applied Cultural Analysis, and is an affiliated researcher with the Digital Ethnography Research Centre at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and the international Digital Data & Society Consortium. She is also part of the program office for the Swedish governmentally funded special innovation program for future smart mobilities, “DriveSweden”. Her area of expertise lies in visual, sensory and design ethnography. In her pursuit to contribute to further understandings of contemporary conditions for learning with emerging technologies in everyday life, she has studied multisensory, embodied and emplaced aspects of user experiences of technologies in various research projects, such as self-tracking devices and self-driving cars. She has focused on understanding how ethnography can be tailored to be used in multi-disciplinary applied settings in research projects and publications.
David Howes, Concordia University, Canada
David Howes is Professor of Anthropology, Co-Direstor of the Centre for Sensory Studies, and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He holds three degrees in anthropology and two degrees in law. His main fields of research include sensory anthropology, multisensory aesthetics, culture and consumption, constitutional studies, and the anthropology of law. He has conducted field research on the cultural life of the senses in the Middle Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea, Northwestern Argentina, and the Southwestern United States. He is currently directing a research project on “Law and the Regulation of the Senses” and collaborating with new media artist Christopher Salter on a project called “Mediations of Sensation.” His latest publications include Ways of Sensing: Understanding the Senses in Society (co-authored with Constance Classen) from Routledge, and the four-volume Senses and Sensation: Critical and Primary Sources compendium from Bloomsbury.
Conference Programme
The conference programme is now available. Please note that minor changes may still occur. Use the following link to browse the online conference agenda:
Online Conference Agenda
Use the following links to download the conference guide and the abstract book:
Conference Guide (PDF document)
Abstract Book (PDF document)
To register for participation, follow the steps described here.
The conference includes four keynote speeches by Patricia Adler, Ross Koppel, David Howes and Vaike Fors. The programme is comprised of over 60 presentations, organized in parallel paper sessions over three days. On the day before the conference, four qualitative methods workshops are held by Patricia and Peter Adler, Ross Koppel and David Howes. They can be visited without attending the conference. For a brief description of the workshops, follow this link. To register for the workshops, follow the steps described here.
These are some of the themes that will be discussed in the paper sessions:
- Using and studying the senses; perception; feeling and emotions
- Mediatized realities and the use of visual data
- Movement, performance; the use of the body to generate data
- Using narrative methodologies to study the unexplored and concealed
- Studying sensitive topics and vulnerable people; investigating sex work and sexual violence
- Dealing with challenging fieldwork situations
- Using ethnography to study the state, bureaucracies, and organizations
- Studying inaccessible domains
- Studying new arenas of civic engagement and public spaces
Conference Overview
| Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
|
Registration
Kick-off
Workshops
(incl. lunch)
Get-together
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Registration
Welcome
Address
Sessions
Lunch
Keynote
Break
Sessions
Get-together
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Keynote
Break
Sessions
Lunch
Sessions
Break
Business meeting
Keynote
Conference Dinner
|
Sessions
Break
Keynote
Lunch
Sessions
Closing
Statement
|
The registration desk is open from Wednesday to Friday throughout the entire day and on Saturday until 9.30 am.
Workshops
On Wednesday, 5 September 2018, three qualitative methods workshops will be presented, by Patricia and Peter Adler, by Ross Koppel and by David Howes. The workshops will start at 10 am and end approx. at 4 pm and will be followed by an informal get-together of all participants and workshop presenters.
Workshop 1
Participant Observation and Membership Roles
Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler
Participant observation is an in-depth method of data collection that requires significant amounts of time, commitment, and/or self-involvement. What it may sacrifice in the breadth of its empirical range and statistical analysis it makes up for in both the greater understanding of how and why people perceive the world and act within it and a more meaningful examination of the theoretical analysis underlying people’s selves, interactions, cultures, and the effects of social structures.
In this workshop we will begin by reflecting on a few of our major ethnographies that have employed different research roles along a spectrum of membership, from those based on complete membership (Peer Power), to active membership (Backboards and Blackboards), to peripheral membership (Wheeling and Dealing) to non-membership (The Tender Cut). The type of role researchers take may depend on their biographies, opportunities, connections, and theoretical interests, among other things. Each stance evokes different opportunities and challenges for gaining entrée, forming trust, gathering data, and critically analyzing findings.
We will then open up the discussion to the research projects of workshop participants and let the group join us in engaging in brainstorming for helpful suggestions to deal with participants’ roles, problems, and conceptualizations from their settings.
Workshop 2
Multiple Methods in Social-Scientific Medical Research: On Using Qualitative Methods to Start and End Research—and Quantitative Methods In-Between
Ross Koppel
Prof. Ross Koppel presents some of his major research projects from 50 years of research that employed multiple methods. He will focus on studies that incorporate qualitative and quantitative research methods and will discuss how the methodological challenges of combining multiple and diverse methods can be addressed. The presentation will particularly focus on Koppel’s work in medical informatics, which is the use of computer systems in healthcare, often called Healthcare Information Technology (HIT).
The course will cover the use of:
- Informal and formal observations; focus groups; shadowing; and intensive interviews
- Surveys (paper and pencil, digital and face-to-face)
- Analysis of computer logs, including logs of software clicks and keystrokes; analysis of help desk logs; analysis of requests for software changes or fixes to hospital it departments and to vendors
- Attendance at FMEA conferences (failure mode and effects analysis) meetings involving clinicians and technology use; attendance at M&M conferences (mortality and morbidity conferences in hospitals following a known error)
- Interviews with healthcare technology vendors at sales meetings conferences, and in hospitals; interviews with medical and nursing informatics directors, hospital it leaders, programmers
- Analysis of legal contracts between vendors and clinicians
Koppel will also discuss the reactions to research findings when they were published in medical journals. The second part of the course will be opened to discussions of the research projects of the workshop participants.
Workshop 3
Sensing Objects and Environments
David Howes
This workshop will involve going on a ramble and encountering a collection. The objective is to experiment with a variety of different concepts and techniques of the senses that have been evolved in recent years by sensory studies scholars interested in the investigation of “atmospheres” and the “sensory life of things.”
Attempts have been made to measure atmospheres by using gas liquid chromatography, for example, but they invariably fail. This is because an atmosphere is “something in-between subject and object,” as the philosopher Gernot Böhme has taught us. An atmosphere is not just air, and it is not just space. It is relational and therefore cannot be objectified, only sensed. The multisensory ramble is one means for doing this. It is a composite of sightseeing, the soundwalk, the smellwalk and the touch tour all of which methodologies have been elaborated independently in the past, but are finally brought together here in St. Gallen.
The idea that objects might have a social life has been circulating for some time, and the “biography of things” approach has been developed to render an account of this. The recognition that objects also have a sensory life is more recent (though there are important historical and cross-cultural precedents). Various techniques will be demonstrated in the course of encountering a collection that will help activate the sensory life of the objects under consideration.
The route the ramble will take and the nature of the collection we shall be exploring have yet to be determined.
Accommodation and Travel
Accommodation
The conference will take place in St.Gallen, Switzerland.
For your stay in St.Gallen, we recommend the hotels listed below. In each of them, we have reserved a number of rooms for congress participants. Please book early, as these rooms are only reserved until a specific date (indicated below). To get one of these rooms, mention that you have registered for this conference. Even if these rooms are not available anymore, do mention that you participate in this congress (organized by the University of St.Gallen) to profit from lower room rates. All of the recommended hotels are within a walking distance of fewer than 15 minutes from the congress venue:
Hotel City Weissenstein – Link
Davidstrasse 22, 9000 St.Gallen
cityweissenstein@sorellhotels.com – Email
(rooms reserved until 16 June 2018)
Hotel Vadian – Link
Gallusstrasse 36, 9000 St.Gallen
info@hotel-vadian.com – Email
(rooms reserved until 14 July 2018)
Hotel Walhalla – Link
Bahnhofplatz/Poststrasse 27, 9001 St.Gallen
info@hotelwalhalla.ch – Email
(rooms reserved until end of July)
Hotel Dom – Link
Webergasse 22, 9000 St.Gallen
info@hoteldom.ch – Email
(rooms reserved until 6 August 2018)
Hotel Einstein – Link
Wassergasse 7, 9000 St.Gallen
hotel@einstein.ch – Email
(rooms reserved until 6 July 2018)
As AirBnB is generally safe and of high quality in Switzerland.
The St.Gallen tourist office provides additional information on accommodation – Link.
Map
The link below leads to a Google Map of St.Gallen on which all venues and hotels have been indicated:
Map of St.Gallen (hotels, conference venue, etc.)
Travel – Getting to St.Gallen
- By airplane: Fly to Zurich Airport (ZHR) from which regular direct train connections will take you to St.Gallen in under an hour. The train station (“Zurich Flughafen”/“Zurich Airport”) is directly accessible from the airport. Alternatively, one could fly to Geneva airport (GVA), but the regular (and also direct) train connection to St.Gallen takes four hours. See below on buying train tickets.
- By train: Take a train to the main station of St.Gallen, from which the hotels and conference venue are easily accesible. Consult the online timetable of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) to look for train connections. When typing in the destination, it will suggest various combinations of St.Gallen with other names that stand for smaller stations in St.Gallen’s vicinity. Just use plain “St. Gallen” for the main station. Coming from Paris, Milano or parts of Germany and Austria, you might consider arriving by long-distance train connections, also accessible through the SBB website.
- Buying train tickets: There are four ways to do this: At larger train stations, visit one of the SBB counters. Alternatively, there are SBB ticket machines readily available at the train stations (operating in four languages, incl. English). You can buy the ticket also online on the SBB website. Or, lastly, download the “SBB Mobile” app (in the Apple or Google Stores) and buy a ticket through the app, this requiring setting up an account. You can also download the app to simply access timetables (possible without creating an account). Buy a full price one-way ticket to St.Gallen. They are valid for one trip on the specific day you selected when buying (but they are valid throughout the entire day). If you buy through the online website or the app, you can get discounted tickets, but their validity is additionally restricted to one specific train connection (at a specific time).
- By long-distance bus connections: Consult either the website of Eurolines (https://www.eurolines.de/en/home) or Flixbus (https://www.flixbus.com/bus/st-gallen). On the way to Zurich (enter this as final destination), the Euroline busses stop in St.Gallen right at the conference venue.
- By car: Take the motorway exit at “St.Gallen/Kreuzbleiche”. Once through the tunnel, use the very left lane. After the traffic light, drive straight ahead for about 250 m and then turn right into “Klubhausstrasse” and then left again into “Lagerstrasse”. This leads to you an overground car parking and an underground car parking, the latter named “CityParking Bahnhof” and located right below the conference venue. There is, however, only very limited and expensive parking space at the venue. It’s best to use the parking provided by the hotel (if it does provide parking), as parking in car parks is expensive and public parking often hard to find. Use this link to see in which parking garages there are spaces left (http://www.pls-sg.ch/parkraeume). The following parking garages are closest to the venue: “24 Bahnhof” (right below the conference venue), “22 Rathaus” (at the trainstation), “25 Kreuzbleiche” (5 minutes walk), “21 Neumarkt”, and “23 Manor”.
Transport – Getting around in St.Gallen
The town centre, the hotels we suggested, and the conference venue are easily accessible by walking. There are, however, numerous bus lines connecting the town centre with the outer neighbourhoods (the central node being at the main train station). Bus tickets can be bought at the vending machines on the busses (or at major bus stations). Busses run frequently. If you want to consult the time tables, use the following link (https://www.stadt.sg.ch/home/mobilitaet-verkehr/bus-bahn/verkehrsbetriebe-vbsg.html).
These bus stations are closest to the conference venues:
- “Bahnhof” (in front of the main train station)
- “Bahnhof Nord” (on the North side of the train station, close to the conference venue)
Other travel-related information
Currency
All conference fees are due in Swiss Francs, the local currency (abbreviated as CHF or SFr.). As St.Gallen is also a tourist destination, some restaurants will accept Euros, but only return the change in Swiss Francs. Most businesses only accept and use Swiss Francs.
Banks and ATMs
Most banks are open from 9AM to 4:30 or 5 PM. The ATMs closest to the conference venue can be found in the main building of the train station or the main post office.
Visa for Switzerland
To check if you require a visa to enter Switzerland, please consult this website: https://www.ch.ch/en/entering-switzerland-visa
Emergency services
Emergency numbers are:
| 117 |
Police |
| 118 |
Fire department |
| 144 |
Emergency rescue service (ambulance) |
| 112 |
common emergency telephone number |
Further questions
For all and any further inquiries and uncertainties, please do not hesitate to contact the organising team via unexplored-realities@unisg.ch
Conference venues
All these venues are indicated on this map (link):
- The conference will mostly take place in the main building of the FHS University of Applied Sciences St.Gallen (as the University of St.Gallen is occupied by another large conference) and the Lokremise. The large, beige high rise of the FHS is located right next to the train station of St.Gallen. One of the train station underpasses leads directly to the building. If you arrive by train from Zurich, you can see the building to your left. You’ll find a cafeteria and a café on its ground floor. The spacious library on the first floor is open to the participants.
- The Lokremise building will be used only on Friday for the keynotes and some sessions. It’s the oldest railway roundhouse in Switzerland, now hosting an art space, an arthouse cinema, two large theatre spaces and a restaurant. There are two art exhibitions, one of them literally an hidden space to be explored.
- Both venues located very close to each other (4 minutes walking distance).
- The conference dinner will take place at the Tibits restaurant St.Gallen close to the train station.
Restaurants
Restaurants on upper floor of historic old town buildings (expensive)
Around the conference venue/across the railway tracks
East of the historic town centre
Close to/within the historic town centre
Italian (pizza and pasta)
Italian
Art and city explorations
Things to do at the Lokremise (part of the conference venue)
- The Lokremise is home to one permanent installation, the House of Friction (Pumpwerk Heimat) by Christoph Büchel, situated in the old water tower adjacent to the Lokremise, as well as a seasonal exhibit presented by the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in the Lokremise building itself. For more information concerning both exhibits, please visit the Kunstmuseum website. The combined entry fee for both exhibtions is CHF 6.–, to be paid at the counter of the art museum inside the Lokremise.
- The installation in the water tower (“Wasserturm”) is accessible for exploration. A visit entails walking, climbing and sliding through a multi-story flat built into the water tower in unconventional ways—literally a hidden and unexplored space. Wear solid shoes. There might be some stains on your clothing after a visit. You need to get the keys inside the Lokremise at the counter of the art museum. Please note that a visit involves a lot of physical activity, so a level of agility and physical fitness (you’ll need to climb a ladder and to slide down a pole) is required, and some of the spaces may feel rather small. Check with the employee at the counter if you are fit enough for the visit. The visit is at your own risk.
- The seasonal exhibit in the Lokremise currently features a piece by Olaf Nicolai named “That’s a god-forsaken place; but it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”.
Things to do in the city and the surroundings
Organization and Sponsors
The conference is organized by the Research Network “Qualitative Methods” of the European Sociological Association and the the Research Committee “Interpretative Sociologies” of the Swiss Sociological Association, in cooperation with the section “Sociology of Knowledge” of the German Sociological Assocation.
The organizing team in St.Gallen consists of: Dr. Florian Elliker and Niklaus Reichle (M.A.) (both University of St.Gallen), with the support of Prof. Dr. Peter Schallberger (University of Applied Sciences St.Gallen), Prof. Dr. Christoph Maeder (Zurich University of Teacher Education), and Prof. em. Thomas S. Eberle (University of St.Gallen).
The conference is supported by the following institutions:
Contact
Dr. Florian Elliker
Research Institute of Sociology
University of St.Gallen
Müller-Friedbergstrasse 8
9000 St.Gallen
Switzerland
For further information, please contact the conference team. For academic matters, contact Florian Elliker and Niklaus Reichle, for administrative matters Rahel Frischknecht, Philipp Gehrig and Christoph Heinimann:
unexplored-realities@unisg.ch
