International Online Conference, Monday 14 & Saturday 19 July 2025 (Organised by the FREEPSY collective)

About this event

Can ‘listening’ foster new forms of relationality in a collapsing world? What forms, formats, rituals and infrastructures of listening to one another have made life liveable, enjoyable or, simply, possible in recent times?

This online event brings together colleagues from various fields of research and practice to share stories, archival material, ethnographies, speculations or theories around forms of listening to individual or collective experiences that offer a radical mode of witnessing and togetherness, especially in challenging contexts. The event features papers, presentations and creative interventions addressing listening as an act of ethics and of care, where more than just recognition is at stake, rather, when a joint construction of a world-in-common can unfold.

Psychoanalysis was first called a ‘talking cure’ by one of its very first woman-patients, Bertha Pappenheim, in the late 19th century Vienna. Since then, practices of talking, dialoguing and expressing oneself have gained space in mainstream clinical settings, grassroots organising as well as hegemonic twists of ‘self-care’ and ‘authenticity’. Less emphasis has been granted to listening, listening to others, listening together, listening to the world, etc. With this in mind – and as a psychosocial research collective – we are interested in ways of listening ‘otherwise’ or radical forms of listening. What might this radical listening entail? How is it different from established spaces of listening which rely on specific frameworks, methods, epistemologies and ontologies (Olufemi, 2021)? How is this listening bound up to political action? There is a rising interest in forms of radical empathy, or in the notion of ‘analysis everywhere’ (Caló and Pereira, 2024) and we would like to open this space to consider listening as a crucial political strategy of care and creativity. Equally, we are interested too in the ‘troubles’ of listening – ambivalences, struggles, impasses and how these are elaborated and articulated. What does it take, in relating and in infrastructures, to ‘listen well’, as black feminist Hortense Spillers frames it?

These two days will bring together colleagues from around the world engaging the radicality of listening in creative, critical and political ways.

Registration for participating is open to all and free of charge.

The event will take place via ZOOM and the link will circulate ahead of each day.