2025 Annual Meeting – Call for Papers

2025 Annual Meeting

 

Imaginaries and Assemblages of Ageing Futures

 

 

24 – 25 September 2025

KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Digital Futures

Osquars backe 5

114 28 Stockholm

 

The Socio-gerontechnology Network together with KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Digital Futures, Dalarna University and Lund University invites proposals for papers, posters, and sessions to be submitted to the 2025 Annual Meeting by 22th March 2025.

 

The Socio-gerontechnology Network

Since its inaugural meeting in 2017, the Socio-gerontechnology Network has provided a forum for interdisciplinary scholarship that explores the complex relations between ageing, technology, and society from various social sciences and humanities perspectives. Drawing on perspectives, theories, and methods from Age Studies (AS), STS, Critical Data Studies, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Social, Cultural, and Critical Gerontology as well as (new) materialist sociology, the network aims at providing an interdisciplinary space for researchers interested in critical explorations of demographic and technological change. The network embraces both early and more established academic scholars and meets once a year.

The 2025 Meeting Theme: Imaginaries and Assemblages of Ageing Futures

As a consequence of rapid development of artificial intelligence and datafication in the context of health, care and education, new imaginaries and expectations towards technological artefacts and systems shape the socio-technical imaginaries of ageing and later life. These imaginaries vary from techno-optimism of healthy and active ageing to more critical and reflective approaches that draw attention to social, cultural, political, historical and geographical impacts of the uptake of AI. Socio-gerontechnologists, social scientists and other researchers studying digitalisation and datafication of society are increasingly involved in technical developments, while engineers and data scientists are also required to evaluate the societal impact of technologies driven by AI and machine learning.

Social and cultural gerontology and related disciplines have traditionally drawn attention to embeddedness of values, ideals and concepts of ageing in datafied futures, whereas data-driven approaches often aim to accelerate the datafication from the systems perspective. In the context of datafied societies, embracing dialogues between these approaches can enrich the knowledge and understanding of ageing futures and contribute to more socially conscious technological development. Against this background, this event aims to raise awareness of the potentials and challenges – the imaginaries and assemblages – of interdisciplinary research in the field of Socio-gerontechnology. It also aims to share transformative knowledge that can contribute to policy and technological development for ageing futures in datafied societies.

We invite scholars interested in the imaginaries and assemblages in ageing futures in datafied societies to submit their work. The presentations can address the topic from the perspective of one or several disciplines. This includes, for example, theorising imaginaries and assemblages as an interdisciplinary concept in Socio-gerontechnology, empirically exploring different scholarly standpoints between ageing and technology, engaging with diverse methods and methodologies to build, maintain, break, and repair imaginaries and assemblages in datafied societies, or reflecting critically on our own practices of interdisciplinary collaboration and boundary-making within and outside of the Socio-gerontechnology community. Topics for submissions may include, but are not limited, to the following:

  • Ageing in more-than-human futures
  • Ageing technofutures, and imaginaries between ageing and technology, including future visions
  • Ageing and care, care technologies, digital health technologies in ageing futures
  • Design and visual methodologies and approaches in ageing and technology
  • Digital inequalities, digital and datafied ageism, and data power
  • Global relations, assemblages and intersectional approaches in ageing futures
  • Interdisciplinary approaches between ageing and digital technologies, (big) data, algorithms, and AI
  • Mediated and datafied practices in the everyday lives of older adults
  • Robots and intelligent agents in ageing futures
  • Theorising interdisciplinarity in ageing and technology studies
  • Welfare technologies as sociotechnical imaginaries of ageing futures

The Call

We look forward to discussing these questions with you at our 2025 Annual Conference and invite submissions for papers, posters, thematic sessions, and workshops:

  1. Papers will be presented orally during a conference session by one or more authors.
  2. Posters will be exhibited throughout the conference.
  3. Sessions and workshops will offer a dedicated 1.5-hour slot to discuss a specific theme or topic in a format suggested by the session chair. Sample formats include a set of paper presentations, panel discussions, workshops, artistic performances or other. We welcome alternative spaces and formats of presentation/discussion.

Submission format: Please include the title, author name(s), affiliation(s), and email(s), and an abstract of max. 350 words. For session or workshop submissions, please also include the individual contribution titles and authors (for paper sessions) or collaborators, as appropriate. We expect to accept max. 1 submission per person as a main author due to the venue restrictions.

Please submit your paper, poster or session/workshop proposal through the Abstract Submission Form by  22 March 2025

Authors will be notified about the decision on 30th April 2025.

 A workshop for early career researchers will be organised the day before the conference (23th September).

Conference Fees

Conference participation is free for members of the Socio-gerontechnology Network. Participation fee for non-members is 50 EUR. A reduced fee (30 EUR) is available for students (including PhD students), un/underemployed scholars and scholars from non-OECD countries. Please follow your own judgment if you fit in this category. If you wish to attend the conference dinner, please note that payment (60 EUR) is required for all participants.

Socio-gerontechnology Travel Stipends

We are happy to announce that we are able to make four travel stipends of 200 EUR available for presenting a paper or poster at the conference. Presenters who are eligible for a reduced conference fee can apply for travel stipends. Please include your motivation for applying for a travel stipend in your abstract submission form, including a statement of your own evaluation of your career stage or status

Timeline

  • 22th March –  Call for proposals deadline
  • 30th April – Decision Letters & Registration Opens
  • 15th June – Announcement of the program
  • 31st August – Registration closes
  • 23th September – Workshop for Early Career Researchers
  • 24th – 25th September – Conference

This conference is hosted by KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Dalarna University, Lund University and the Socio-Gerontechnology Network. The conference is co-sponsored by Digital Futures.

Organisation Committee

  • Sanna Kuoppamäki, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Health Systems, KTH
  • Magdalena Kania-Lundholm, Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer, School of Culture and Society, Dalarna University
  • Björn Fischer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Design Sciences, Lund University

From the Socio-gerontechnology Executive Board

  • Wendy Martin, Chair of the Events Committee, Brunel University London, Global Public Health, UK
  • Alexander Peine, Chair of the Executive Board, Open University of The Netherlands, Department of Digital Culture, Innovation, Communication, the Netherlands