This year, OIKOS celebrates its tenth anniversary with a series of events organized around METAMORPHOSIS.
Our project began with the recognition that many people across several disciplines shared a certain kind of problem. The kinds of fundamental differences and distinctions that are supposed to separate public from private, economy from society, family from corporation or state, or traditional from modern under liberal political frameworks simply did not describe conditions on the ground. The power of our working categories, however, made it difficult to find anchoring points for building a research field otherwise.
Over the years, many people have convened through OIKOS. They have generously shared what they know, cross-pollinating insights from one field to another. The result has been the slow and steady development of ideas and approaches to understanding social life that are no longer surprised that all that matters is always out of place.
The past decade has been marked by extraordinary institutional volatility. From the global pandemic that brought everyone home to political movements that seem to upend assumptions about the securing of liberal, or even neoliberal regimes, to technological breakthroughs that are transforming how we relate, transact, produce, and even define our sense of personhood.
Our work continues. We read, write, think, and consider the ongoing social transformations that breathe new life into old forms, and that attempt to turn emerging possibilities into monuments of stone. Join us as we think about interdependencies and mediations by way of research protocols and courtroom evidence, carbon futures and cryptocurrencies, love and masculinity, and the relationship between classical traditions and online salons.
